It hasn’t been so long since our last trip to the world of Halo. Only a few months ago Halo 3: ODST dropped into our living rooms to provide a memorable campaign experience. Now, at the Video Game Awards 2009, Halo: Reach premiered in full glory to serve as the finale to this year’s VGA.

The trailer is a snippet of the opening cutscene of Halo: Reach, and commences depicting a lone, silent SPARTAN super-soldier being dropped off via a Warthog transport vehicle to a small outpost housing a squad of fellow SPARTANs, Noble squad. As the SPARTAN (gender unknown), presumably the game’s player character, reaches the outpost, we’re treated to a view of a desolate valley, beyond of which we can see a large moon.

Getting back to our silent soldier, we catch a glimpse of another SPARTAN sitting by a Hornet drop-ship loading a cartridge with bullets. Entering a small compound, we encounter more SPARTANS, the first having an ominous white skull painted onto his helmet, sharpening a machete against his red-and-white-painted armour. Our SPARTAN is then greeted by a helmetless female SPARTAN with facial scars, clad in faded blue MJOLNIR armour.  She refers the SPARTAN to the commander, who also sports battle wounds along with a buzz cut. After hearing a remark from yet another SPARTAN, this time in red and yellow armour, about our SPARTAN’s survival on “Pegasi”, to which the commander replies the signature line “SPARTANS never die, George, they’re just missing in action”, we find the SPARTANS heading off towards the Hornet gunships, the new soundtrack of Halo: Reach blasts its way into the trailer. Sounding more like the brassy, booming sounds of Halo 3: ODST rather than the softer ones of Halo 3, the music track reaches a terrific climax at the end of the trailer.

Meanwhile, the SPARTANS engage in some small talk, and we’re given some little tidbits about the situation; for example, the assumed player-SPARTAN is a lieutenant, and is new to the SPARTAN squad. The SPARTANS are then flown off towards a line of mountains, beyond which we can see the fumes of battle and a huge explosion, similar to some of the imagery of Mordor in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings films. The trailer then finishes off displaying the title “Halo: Reach”, boasting a fall 2010 release date, followed by the roar of an alien Covenant Elite wielding an energy sword.

The new soundtrack sounds yet again like the famous Martin O’Donnell usually does, albeit this time with a tougher, more battle-hardened approach. The trailer’s graphics, on the other hand, are showing that the Halo engine is starting to get dated, and while they are still good, the pre-rendered cutscene doesn’t look sublime.     

Halo: Reach looks like yet another interesting take on the Halo franchise. While Halo 3: ODST took it to stealthy, brooding new settings, Halo: Reach seems to be a darker, grimmer tale compared to the rest of the franchise. There are some intriguing possibilities on the horizon, such as the potential implementation of SPARTAN squad-based gameplay (later in the trailer, the commander tells the SPARTAN that they can “leave all that lone wolf stuff behind”). We also got a look at some possible customizable armour (each SPARTAN has their own personal touch to their MJOLNIR armour, apart from the silent SPARTAN, who wears black with an ODST-based helmet), and perhaps the appearance of melee combat, as demonstrated by the SPARTAN wielding a machete. Lastly, the reveal of this dark, gruesome atmosphere of Halo: Reach may spark the question; could we be taking a trip back to Halo’s M-rated roots? 

You can check out the full trailer below: