This month sees the release of the latest in the Halo series, Halo ODST. Still having the classic Halo feel, developer Bungie has mixed things up with a new open world storyline following four Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (ODST’s).

Giving the game a more human feel, you’re no longer playing a super soldier, meaning you need to be more tactical in how you play, or die much quicker. We caught up with Bungie Studios' Lars Bakken and Microsoft Game Studios' Ryan Crosby to talk tech, gameplay and sci-fi fandom…

So how did the different, ‘human’ outlook of ODST come about?

Brakken: That was one of the biggest things we wanted when we started ODST; to tell a different kind of story, a more character driven piece where you’re not just playing as a faceless guy. They have relationships, conversations, they take their helmets off, etc. We don’t have Master Chief, but that was a cool challenge.

Where did you take your inspiration?

Brakken: I think film noir is actually a really big inspiration for us. I like that style of storytelling. (You can see that) when you’re in New Mombasa at night: it’s very dark, there are a lot of shadows, you can’t see everything: it’s a mystery story at heart. You’re going through this big expansive city at night, trying to find clues and figure out what happened to the rest of the squad over the course of this day.

What was the hardest time in the development process?

Brakken: I think the last month of post-production was pretty grueling. When we decided to make New Mombasa the biggest level ever in a Halo game that proved to be extremely challenging in a lot of technical ways. I think had we known how difficult it would be we might not have made it as big or as expansive as we did!

How have you technologically improved on past Halo games?

Brakken: Well we’ve actually made a lot of little improvements all over the place. We touched up the AI, the graphics processing, the lighting, the effects: everything got subtle upgrades.

Part of the reason why – I’m my opinion - the game looks visually better than Halo 3 is because when we started working on ODST, the game engine was already complete.  We had a fully functioning engine in terms of the tools pipeline etc, so the reason the game looks as good as it does is because the artists had a year to work on just pure content. They didn’t have to worry about dealing with the tools breaking or certain things coming online. All the features were there from the beginning, so we just added some new things into the AI and some other graphical tweaks too.

So how does the gameplay differ, going from a Spartan to a mere human?

Brakken: Gamers may have to come to grips with the fact that they have to tone it back a bit, work together to take down a hunter whereas in the past as a Spartan you took those things down by yourself.

Crosby: We’re trying to make the ODST not feel like a super soldier. Turning off the motion tracker, combined with non-regenerative health, lower jumping, the ability to take falling damage, and not being able to dual wield combine to make the gameplay experience different.

So we’ve heard you’ve got some famous sci-fi actors playing the characters. How did this come about?

Brakken: Well, Nathan Fillion from Firefly and Serenity is a huge Halo fan. He played a small role in Halo 3 and he actually came and asked us if he could be involved. We were totally star truck as we’re huge Firefly fans, so getting him, and then Adam Baldwin and Alan Tudyk who also in the series and movie involved (as the voices of the ODSTs) was great. We then got Tricia Helfer from Battlestar Galactica in too, and it was like a sci-fi geekfest in the office!