At the Penny Arcade Expo, a panel was held for the recently announced Halo 4, which is being developed by 343 Industries, the division established by Microsoft Game Studios to take up the reigns after Bungie concluded their work on the franchise with Halo: Reach.

Halo 4 is still a long, long way off, so 343 wasn’t able to talk a whole lot about the project, but they did have a couple of small things to share with eager fans, as well as some concept art from the early stages of the game’s production.

First of all, the game will begin a brand new trilogy of games, and 343 announced that this new trilogy has been named The Reclaimer Trilogy. And what is a “Reclaimer,” some of you might ask? Well…I haven’t the slightest clue. But the Halo Nation Wiki page does have a description, which you can see below along with the video of the various pieces of concept art shared.

Here is the description of a Reclaimer in the Halo universe:

A “Reclaimer” (Latin: Homo Sapiens Augeous) is an individual who, whether by chance or by precedent, has been placed in charge of activating a Halo super-weapon. The individual must journey to retrieve the Halo’s activation key (the Index) from the ring’s Library and then use it to activate the Halo Array. It has also been demonstrated that it is the role of a Reclaimer to activate Forerunner technology on installations such as the Ark or the Shield Worlds; it is also true that other, undiscovered Forerunner constructs also require a Reclaimer to operate in some fashion lay scattered across the galaxy.

The exact qualifications of a Reclaimer are not entirely clear; however, it appears that only a human or Forerunner can be a Reclaimer. Many or even most fans consider the word “Reclaimer” to mean any individual of either species, but as this term is used many times throughout the Halo games and literature with no clear-cut definition, this cannot currently be proven.

Not much is known apart from that, apart from the fact that instead of going off on separate storylines like Halo: ODST and Halo: Reach did, Halo 4 will pick up after Halo 3 left off, and will reunite fans, finally, with Master Chief. More specifically, says Frank O’Connor of 343 (and formerly of Bungie), “It will deal with the fate of John and the fate of Cortana,” later adding “You’re definitely going to have the opportunity to dive deeper into John’s mind in this trilogy.”

Concept Art

[Source: Game Informer]