![halo 4 promethean halo 4 promethean](http://hce.halomaps.org/images/files/lg/Knights.jpg)
We went through literally dozens of different concepts. Again, we knew we had to get them right, to make sure they could stand up to the Covenant and hopefully become as well-loved an enemy to fight. On the visual side, we explored totally different concepts for the Prometheans. It was a very long process, almost three years of development and iteration. We knew we had to get it right, to make them feel very different from the Covenant, yet still feel like they fit in a Halo game. Those core behavioral components stuck from the beginning, and we just kept iterating and iterating. And we looked at the Knight and the different ways it could move around the battlefield to dramatically shift your focus as a player. Then we added the Watchers’ ability to resurrect the Knight. That was a core concept, and we started out prototyping simple behaviors, like the Watchers’ ability to shield other enemies.
![halo 4 promethean halo 4 promethean](https://i0.wp.com/haruspis.blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/prometheans.png)
From the beginning, one of the concepts that resonated with the design team was the idea that the enemies would be collaborative, that they would represent a certain level of challenge individually but when you put them together, they would complement one another on the battlefield. That led us to explore Forerunner enemies. That really made sense as we were honing in on wanting to explore Forerunner culture and going to a new location that would be the core of much of our story. The obvious addition was a new class of enemies. With familiarity comes predictability, and we wanted something that would breathe new life into the Halo sandbox and really challenge players in new and exciting ways. We knew players had been fighting the Covenant for a decade - more than a decade by the time the game came out. That was one of the biggest bets we decided to make almost from the very beginning. The alien Covenant in Halo 4 still feel very much like the Covenant, but the new enemy, the Prometheans, as promised, are playing a very different tactical game.
#Halo 4 promethean series
Follow the final installment of my three-part Halo 4 interview series with creative director Josh Holmes, we explore the game’s refined tactics and deadly new enemies, illumination through death, the new episodic content and why Microsoft isn’t charging for it, and how Master Chief is still the man despite lagging technologically behind Halo 4‘s new breed of Spartan super-soldiers.