REVEALED - Legendary Map Pack Map 2- Avalanche (aka Cotton Ball)
Finally Bungie has proved generous enough to show us the 2nd of 3 maps (the 1st one was Ghost Town) that will be available in the Legendary Map Pack coming out April 15th.
This 2nd map, called either Avalanche or Cotton Ball, apparently both names work just fine, fits in well with the artic paint schemes of the new vechicles we posted about earlier. Described by the guys at Bungie as a lovingly crafted re-imagination of Halo: Combat Evolved’s classic Sidewinder Map. One could probably argue that calling it a remake isn’t entirely wrong, as apparently there are elements of Avalanche certainly “borrowed” from Sidewinder – it has the same familiar U-shape, multiple routes from one base to another base, and a whole sandbox full o’ vehicles to play with. But there are many, many changes too.
Designers Niles Sankey and Lars Bakken, along with effect artists Mike Buelterman and Jason Sussman were on hand to answer some questions about Avalanche. Here’s some of the highlights of the Q&A session:
Question: What did each of you do on Avalanche?
Lars Bakken: I did the initial map set-up work (weapons, game types, vehicles, etc) and then handed it off to Niles so he could make it better. Towards the end, I oversaw any bug fixes that impacted design.
Mike Buelterman: I somehow got slapped with the ownership of the map but we all did our part to help pull the map together to really let the soul of Sidewinder shine through with Avalanche. …I worked with design to help fix the issues that occurred on Sidewinder when it came to stalemating and infantry fatigue while on foot.
Jason Sussman: I worked on the Forerunner center pass section and the outer portions of the bases.
Niles Sankey: Designer. This generally entails guiding environment artists in developing the spaces, As a designer I also work on objective and object placement and weapon/vehicles types.
Question: What’s the fictional setting for Avalanche?
NS: Snow… duh.
LB: Hopefully I’m not ruining it for anyone that hasn’t finished Halo 3 yet, but I believe it’s on the new “under-construction” Installation 04, yes?
JS: I think we all had this idea of it being some sort of power plant type of structure where the power was being drawn from within the ice.
MB: Avalanche is a large forerunner power station set on the front of a huge glacial shelf on an under construction Halo installation. The structure is pulling its power out of the densely compacted ice that constantly builds up behind the station before it falls into the ocean below.
Question: Why Avalanche instead of [someone from the Internet’s favorite map, here]?
JS: Honestly there are so many maps I would personally love to see placed within Halo3’s DLC. And for me and others Sidewinder was one of them. I think it’s just one of many we really wanted to do. Not to mention I believe there were allot of folks banging on the door requesting it.
LB: Since the Halo: CE days, Sidewinder has been a fan favorite. Sure it might not be on EVERYONE’S list, but it seemed to be on the short list for a lot of incredibly vocal fans. And hell, it’s HUGE! And we needed more BTB maps.
MB: It just made sense. Looking back at the release maps and DLC1 maps, everyone could see that we needed another Big Team Battle map along the lines of Sandtrap, and with the Community’s love of Sidewinder, it was a great fit.
NS: Two reasons: Sidewinder is one the most requested remakes and we also needed another big vehicle map. And maybe this isn’t the only classic we’re remaking. There’s always hope for said Internet Halo fan.
Question: How will objective gametypes play out?
NS: We wanted to try something new with Avalanche. One idea was to include the Scorpion tanks seeing as they are so iconic in the original sidewinder, but in the past felt as though it was too powerful to include it in our big maps.
Question: What are your favorite gametypes on Avalanche?
JS: My personal favorite is neutral bomb with Multi Flag coming right behind. But honestly having so many vehicles and man cannons on this size of map is great for any game type.
MB: Personally I think CTF (one flag and multi flag) is where the most fun can be had but territories and king of the hill really focus the vehicle mayhem into one big wet spot.
NS: One Flag CTF.
LB: Team Slayer, and Team King are good, but the favorite Friday afternoon playtest has become Multi Flag on Avalanche. It’s definitely brought back memories of Halo CE LAN parties. The games are completely epic, and by adding vehicles into that mix, crazy things are guaranteed to happen. Can you say Capture the Flag with a Hornet?
Halo 3 will have this available on Xbox Live for DLC (Downloadable Content) on April 15th, 2008 for 800 Microsoft Points.
