Upcoming Bungie shooter Halo ODST won't be a straight-forward linear shooter, rather blending elements of traditional shooters with the open world exploration of Grand Theft Auto, Bungie told he Seattle Times in a recent interview.
"We're doing a lot of pretty neat things in terms of mixing it up, introducing some non-linearity, some free exploration," Staten told the Times. "This is also a mystery story so there's a lot more clue-finding and mystery-solving than you would normally find in a game of this kind - nothing that strays too far from the fun 'Halo' experience, but we definitely decided to take a little bit of risk and have some fun with this one."
ODST allows players to explore the world trying to piece together clues to unravel what happened to the other members of the ODST team. When a player wants to drop into a more straight forward mission they just have to head to specific sites in the city to trigger a flashback, according to the Times article.
The Seattle Times article also touches on the future of Bungie and a bit more on the little known Halo game Reach.
Bungie told the paper that they got an early look at Project Natal. Studio head Harold Ryan said it could be used in "Reach." "I absolutely think 'Reach' could be enabled with it," he said.
Finally, Bungie told the paper that they are in the midst of relocating their offices to downtown Bellevue, Washington. The new offices would be located in the 80,000-square-foot former Galleria multiplex theater.
Developers at Bungie ready to spring new heroes in the 'Halo' universe [Seattle Times]