he Halo 3 beta floodgates open May 16, with thousands of eager players ready to check out Master Chief’s next-gen debut. We got a chance to talk to Brian Jarrard, Bungie’s community lead, about fan expectations, the new equipment and the single-player campaign.

Game Informer: Are you happy with how the beta turned out?

Brian Jarrard: Yeah, I think we are. Even though it’s just a beta, and we call it a beta because it’s not our final game, it’s still a public release. People have been working really hard to polish it and fine-tune it and tweak it—actually, this is our delta, really. Our alpha started internally last year. This has actually been in playable form with these three maps, it’s been iterating on since last November-ish. I think it’s come a long way, and we’re really happy with how it turned out. It’s fun.

GI: It is a lot of fun. So how many players do you hope will be playing it?

Jarrard: Over the course of the beta?

GI: Yeah.

Jarrard: For the friends and family [beta], which starts today, we’re probably talking about 15,000-20,000. But next Wednesday [May 16], when the whole Crackdown floodgates sort of open—I think last I heard, Crackdown has sold three-quarters of a million copies. It’s done really, really well. So I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple hundred thousand people log in and try the beta at some point in time. You know, you can play as guests and split-screen, so who knows how crazy it could get. It’s exciting, but it’s a little scary as well. With things like our save films and being able to share those films online, that’s a really big thing for us that’s new. And we have to test that on a really big scale to work the bugs out, so we’re hoping to get a lot of people banging on the game hardcore for three straight weeks.

GI: So why not just keep the beta wide open until you guys release another beta or demo or something like that?

Jarrard: There’s definitely not going to be another beta. I mean, I can adamantly say that. Someone else asked me that question too, and at some point, even just administrating the beta for three straight weeks definitely takes some bandwidth away from the team, and we have to get the game finished. That’s got to be our priority, getting the game out the door. That’s the reason we’re not going to just let it run indefinitely, because it is a hit to the studio, it’s a hit to Live, and there are other priorities. Honestly, too, you got to leave people wanting more. What do we need to get our test data, and what’s going to be a good experience for the people, but then what’s going to make them not get burned out and play so much that they maybe don’t want to play anymore? It’s just sort of balancing all of those things.

GI: What things are you searching for with this beta test?

Jarrard: The biggest priority is sort of back-end networking infrastructure—servers, stuff like that. Like I mentioned, being able to tape an entire game film and upload it to your shared space, exchange those films with fans online—that just requires a lot of infrastructure and bandwidth and things that are just a little new to us and untested. So that’s our biggest goal. Beyond that, we’re really hoping that maybe somebody will find a way to exploit the ranking system or people may find a way to break the map. All of those things that people over the course of Halo 2’s life in the wild people started doing that, we’re hoping that a couple hundred-thousand people will find some of those problems now, if there are those problems.

GI: Can you explain what modes are available in this beta?

Jarrard: Pretty much all the classics are back. We have Slayer, obviously, and Team Slayer and Capture the Flag games in there. We have Oddball’s return, King of the Hill’s return—we sort of have one and a half new game types. The brand-new game type is called VIP. I don’t know if you got a chance to play that or now. It’s a little confusing right now, because not everyone knows what it is and there’s no real manual or information site, and most of my experience has been so far in the beta people just think it’s Slayer and just kind of go crazy. The goal of that is that one person on each team is the VIP, and you only get a point by killing the other team’s VIP. And you sort of do that back and forth until you either hit the target score or time runs out. There’s also other variations of VIP, where there’s a team on offense who has a VIP, and their goal is to literally escort the VIP from point A to point B to point C while the other team’s trying to stop them the whole way. You’ll see variations of the game VIP. And Territories is not new, but it’s been totally overhauled for Halo 3. It plays differently now. Some of the Territories modes are actually round-based, so one team will be on offense and one team will be on defense, and it kind of plays back and forth where you have to capture as many as you can within a time limit and then you switch sides and try the other way around. I actually think Territories is a lot more fun now—it’s something that the team has worked really hard on, trying to make it a better game type.

GI: Another thing you guys have done is switched up things with the weapons. Are you happy with the way it is right now, and what happens if the beta people complain a little bit too much or something’s imbalanced? Is that something that might get tweaked?

Jarrard: Regardless of what happens in the beta—let’s be honest, people are going to complain no matter what, just like people complain about everything else that we do. We know that’s going to be the case. Our guys are going to keep iterating and changing everything up until the last minute. The more we playtest, the more ways we find ways to fine-tune. And there are some things that currently aren’t in the beta, as well, and you have to weigh those things against the current sandbox. It’s a balancing act, but that’s why we have guys where that’s their specialty, and they’re going to work really hard on it. We’re obviously going to be looking out for it in the beta, and if some guys just decide that a certain weapon makes the map play entirely differently than we ever intended to or becomes a de facto weapon like the Halo 1 pistol, where it sort of breaks the whole game and that’s all it turns into is sort of a headshot-fest—that’s certainly going to warrant a close look from our guys.

GI: Halo 2 seemed to focus a lot more on dual-wielding, and right now the beta doesn’t seem to focus as heavily on that. Was that a conscious decision from your team?

Jarrard: Yeah, I think it was. Jamie [Griesemer] is our sandbox designer, and he’s talked a lot about how in Halo 2, we start you with an SMG. That, by itself, is not very effective. The range is really bad on it, it doesn’t do a lot of damage—so you really don’t have a lot of options. Your next step was to usually pick up another weapon. At that point, everyone is dual-wielding and just holding down triggers and hoping you get the last shot off before the other person does. I think with Halo 3, the decision up front was to move away from that and actually get back to where Halo 1 started. Where it’s a little more deliberate, there’s a little more skill and a little more tactics involved. I think the assault rifle is, what we’re hoping, is the epitome of combining both of those games. Early in the day, the assault rifle was actually called the USW—the Ultimate Spotting Weapon. We didn’t even know what it was going to look like, but that was sort of the design goal for it. To make a weapon that, when you spawn with it, is fun, it’s actually effective, but it’s not too powerful. But if you only have that and some grenades and some melee, you can actually hold your own. I think the assault rifle’s awesome right now. When you spawn, you feel like you have a chance. You actually have a chance. In Halo 2, it just came down to grabbing another gun really fast and just holding triggers down. That was a decision we made—making Halo 3 more about tactics and options and decisions for players.