With the release of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, old gamers discovered and new gamers re-discovered honored moments, stories, and characters. Master Chief, Cortana, Sarah Palmer, and Jameson Locke received fresh coats of paint and recaptured a sense of imagination and love that people look for when they play video games.
And while the revered storytelling and gameplay are refreshing, what won't be refreshing is being the weakest member in the party in Halo 3: ODST's Firefight mode. After six years of begging, this fan-favorite has finally been revived. And with this new challenge, now is the time to review some common tips from the professionals that even an amateur can embrace to go from runt to alpha dog in a Firefight.
10 Never Part With The Pistol
Not until the pistols of Apex Legends came along did the sidearm matter as much as it does in the Halo series. The temptation for any amateur is to throw down their Plasma Pistol or Magnum in exchange for a really cool looking Needler or Gravity Hammer must be resisted.
While they might not look like the spiciest guns, their near-infinite range and versatility make for a critical role in the weapon loadout. If the player finds themselves looking up instead of down on the scoreboard, the culprit is usually an unwillingness to use the tool at their side.
9 Mount Up
Check the map for turrets and learn where they are for next time. Unlike in the single-player, Cortana won't be around to identify these locations. Firefights will spawn seemingly endless hordes of minions, but they often filter into areas overlooked by a turret. If the gamer is initially fighting these waves on foot, they are consuming valuable ammunition and grenades.
Let the turret do the heavy work at the start of these waves before the team's position gets overwhelmed. When the team is running out of ammunition before wave five starts, this is the advice they likely ignored.
8 Focus On The Scoreboard
Is the goal of a Firefight to win? Surprisingly, no. Even the best of gamers will be frustrated by surviving longer than other teams and somehow finding that they lost the real battle; the fight to score 200,000 points. Halo Wars is all about conquering great units, but Halo 3: ODST's Firefight mode is all about doing it in style.
Getting kill streaks, headshotting enemies, using melee weapons, and avoiding death all give a boost to that final score. On the first few waves, while the minions can be dispatched quickly, try to kill them in a fashion that yields to most points.
7 Choose The Right Battlefield
The Halo series is no stranger to offering up some of the most difficult level designs in the world of gaming. So one should know automatically that the eight maps in Firefight are bound to have their own unique challenges and getting to know them is critical to the success of the mission.
After testing each one, choose the maps that seem the easiest when queueing up a new Firefight. On Normal difficulty modes, Lost Platoon and Alpha Site are generally considered the most straightforward when it comes to stacking up points and farming achievements.
6 Save The Power Weapons
This is not Marvel's Avengers, where strong weapons and heroic abilities should be used whenever they are available. The Firefight mode requires conservation. Getting past waves four and five with nothing but a Plasma Rifle and a Submachine Gun is nothing but a fanciful dream.
So the big, powerful weapons should be saved until absolutely required in the final waves. When the player gets to fight off a Covenant Elite with a Spartan Laser instead of their bare hands, holding off on the satisfaction will be well rewarded.
5 Confront Claustrophobia
One thing sure to scare off newer players is how enemies seem to pour in from everywhere in a Firefight. Not just from the sides, but from the skies and underneath the ground as well.
Sure, the option to fight outdoors like in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War exists, but that's not the ideal Firefight situation in Halo 3 ODST. Instead of being bombarded from all sides and furiously looking left and right and down and up, get comfortable in a smaller room with a single entry and focus fire straight ahead!
4 If It Can Be Blown Up, Blow It Up
The big transport ships are impossible to kill. Not just video game impossible, where it means really, really hard, but actually, functionally impossible. But that rule doesn't apply to the vehicles that are manufactured for combat.
With a well-placed rocket or a well-thrown plasma grenade, these Wraiths and Ghosts will explode. This will make the fight easier of course, as dead enemies always helps with that, but taking away enemy toys also yields a substantial number of coveted points!
3 Talk It Up
This should be no surprise to any gamer that takes co-op gaming seriously. Joining the chat and talking through strategies with teammates makes Firefights twice as easy. When the enemies spawn at a certain place or particularly tough enemy is heading down a specific hallway, the quicker the teammates learn this information, the better.
Keep speaking to quick and informative statements. It's perfectly fine to have an individual plan, so long as everyone else knows what that plan is. And in between matches, feel free to share some hilarious Halo jokes.
2 Resetting Streaks
Need permission to end a combo? Consider it granted. If the goal is to achieve that illustrious 200,000 point goal, then dying and switching up weapons is actually a viable strategy.
After one-hundred straight kills, the gamer will get their final streak reward. Dying at this point refreshes the counter and enables an additional climb back up to one-hundred kills. Likewise, after getting the points for ten straight kills with a certain weapon, go ahead and get a quick kill with another weapon, switch back, and let the kill streak begin all over again!
1 Difficulty Over Skulls
One tempting way to get points is to turn on a skull modifier, which adds difficulty in exchange for more points. This is a newbie trap and it tempts many new players to play on an easier difficulty and turn on these skulls in an effort to get more points.
The pros actually turn on fewer, if any, skulls and play on Legendary difficulty. While the enemies are obviously harder, the bonus points for killing them are worth five times compared to those on Easy mode. And a headshot is still a one-shot kill, so instead of surviving for two hours on Easy, it's actually easier and faster to hit the goals in twenty minutes on Legendary.