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Killer Instinct's Arbiter Uses Halo Controls For Some Moves
The announcement that Arbiter from the Halo series would be appearing in Killer Instinct's third season was met with a good amount of fanfare. We recently had the opportunity to go hands-on with Arbiter (look for our impressions soon) and quickly noticed something very interesting that Iron Galaxy has done in bringing this Halo favorite to the fighting game.
Arbiter's punches rely heavily on the energy sword (known as the Prophet's Bane for some variants of the character), but Iron Galaxy wanted to give a nod to fans of the series he came from. To do this, Iron Galaxy mapped two of Arbiter's most recognizable attacks to the same buttons that they're mapped to in the Halo games. The left bumper causes Arbiter to toss a plasma grenade, which can stick to enemies. Using the left stick, you can control whether you want the toss to be a lofty throw for anti-air or a line-drive right at someone. You can also augment any of Arbiter's throws by tapping the left bumper in the middle to have him finish the throw with a plasma grenade.
In addition, the right trigger causes Arbiter to quickly draw his Covenant Carbine and blast enemies. The carbine is effective at juggling enemies and is very fast. To avoid projectile spam with these two very powerful projectiles, Iron Galaxy has made it so each attack can run out of ammo. The plasma grenades slowly regenerate, but the carbine ammo does not; once you run through all your carbine ammo, that's it for the entire match, not just that round. Once the carbine is out of ammo, the right trigger becomes a melee attack using the gun.
Killer Instinct Season 3 is set to hit Xbox One and Windows 10 on March 29. The Combo Breaker bundle will be available for $19.99 and includes all characters, while the Ultra bundle will be $10 more at $29.99 and include all Season 3 characters and their costumes. If you're looking to just now get into Killer Instinct, you'll be able to pick up the Complete Collection bundle for $59.99, which includes all characters and costumes from the first three seasons of Killer Instinct.
Our Take
Arbiter being in this Xbox One/Windows 10-exclusive fighter was cool enough for fans, but having him control in this way is a really cool nod to Halo fans.
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