Halo 3: ODST is a 2009 first-person shooter video game created by Bungie and released by Microsoft Game Studios. It is the fifth game in the Halo series and was launched for the Xbox 360 in September 2009. Players take on the roles of United Nations Space Command Marines, called "Orbital Drop Shock Troopers" or ODSTs, during and after the events of Halo 2 and before the events of Halo 3. In the campaign mode, players explore the ruined city of New Mombasa to find out what happened to their missing teammates during an alien invasion. In the "Firefight" cooperative multiplayer mode, players fight against increasing numbers of enemies to earn points and survive as long as possible. The game also includes all of Halo 3's multiplayer content on a separate disc.
Although Bungie regained independence from Microsoft in 2007, the company had a contract to make two more Halo games for Microsoft. ODST was originally planned as a downloadable story expansion for Halo 3 to release during the gap between Halo 3's completion and Halo: Reach (2010). Instead of featuring well-known characters like Master Chief, the developers focused on the ODSTs. Joseph Staten, the story director, wrote a detective story inspired by film noir styles, settings, and characters. Composer Martin O'Donnell changed his previous Halo music to create a calmer, jazz-influenced soundtrack. During development, the expansion grew into a full game. Marketing for the game included a comic book, live-action trailers, and advertisements in print and online.
When it was released, ODST became the best-selling Xbox 360 game worldwide. Critics gave the game mostly positive reviews, praising its atmosphere, music, and storytelling. Some reviewers believed the short campaign and included extras were enough to justify the price, while others disagreed. The game was the top-selling title in the United States in September 2009 and sold over 3 million copies worldwide. Publications like Softpedia, Time, and Wired named the game one of the best of the year. The single-player campaign was later added as an extra for the Halo: The Master Chief Collection on Xbox One in 2015. The campaign was included in The Master Chief Collection on Windows in 2020, and "Firefight" multiplayer was made available on both platforms. In 2025, the game had a crossover with Helldivers 2, developed by Arrowhead Game Studios and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, with weapons and armor from ODST added as downloadable content.
Gameplay
Halo 3: ODST is a video game where most of the action is seen from the player's point of view. The game takes place in a large, open area called New Mombasa, an updated version of the Kenyan city of Mombasa. While the gameplay of ODST is similar to other Halo games, the player does not control Master Chief, the main character of Halo 3. Instead, the player controls soldiers known as "Orbital Drop Shock Troopers" or ODSTs. Unlike Master Chief, ODSTs do not have special armor or fast reflexes. They cannot jump as high, move as quickly, or survive large falls. Instead of Master Chief's energy shield, the game uses a stamina system that regenerates over time. When the player takes damage, the screen turns red, and their stamina decreases. If the player takes more damage before stamina recovers, their health decreases. Losing all health causes the player's character to die, and the game restarts at the last saved point. Health can be restored by collecting medical packs found in the game world. The player's screen includes a "VISR" mode that highlights enemies in red, allies in green, and important items in blue or yellow.
The game's Campaign mode can be played alone or with up to three other players. As a soldier named "the Rookie," the player must find clues to learn what happened to their missing teammates. Finding evidence, such as a sniper rifle hanging from a power line, triggers a flashback mission where the player controls the missing soldier from six hours earlier. After finding the first clue, players can choose the order in which they complete campaign levels.
The multiplayer mode includes 21 maps from Halo 3, plus three new maps: Citadel, Heretic, and Longshore. It also includes a map editor called Forge, which allows players to customize multiplayer levels.
A cooperative mode called Firefight challenges players to survive waves of enemies in a timed survival game. Firefight can be played with up to three players online or two players on the same console. Players begin with only "the Rookie" as a character; completing the campaign unlocks other characters and maps. Players earn medals for special kills, and scores are tracked for individuals and teams. All players share seven lives, which are restored after completing five rounds. Difficulty increases with "skulls," which give enemies new abilities or reduce player advantages. For example, the "Catch" skull makes enemies throw more grenades. The first three rounds of each set activate one skull each, while the fourth round activates all skulls, requiring players to survive for 60 seconds.
Campaign
The game ODST takes place in the 26th century, when humans, led by the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), are fighting a war against a religious group of alien races called the Covenant. In the 2004 video game Halo 2, the Covenant learn the location of Earth and attack the city of New Mombasa in Africa. The UNSC stops most of the enemy fleet, but a large Covenant ship hovers over the city and drops an invasion force. The ship later escapes using a special kind of space travel called a slipspace jump, causing a powerful shockwave. While the rest of Halo 2 follows the ship to an ancient structure, ODST focuses on the events after the shockwave, when the Covenant still control the city.
During the game, players can unlock audio files that tell the story of a civilian girl named Sadie, who is trapped during the early stages of the Covenant invasion. Her story helps players find hidden weapons in the game.
The main character is a new soldier called the Rookie, who is part of a group of soldiers known as Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (ODSTs) or Helljumpers. These soldiers often jump into battle using small vehicles called Human Entry Vehicles (HEVs), which are also called Single Occupant Exo-Atmospheric Insertion Vehicles (SOEIVs) in the game. The Rookie is helped by a city computer called the Superintendent or Vergil, who assists him in finding his team. The Rookie’s teammates are Buck, Dutch, Romeo, Mickey, and Dare, the last of whom is a secret agent working for the UNSC.
The game begins with Dutch, Romeo, and Mickey talking about the Covenant’s giant ship above New Mombasa, while the Rookie sleeps nearby. Buck arrives and introduces Dare. Romeo wakes the Rookie, and the team enters their vehicles to jump into the city. At the last moment, Dare changes their path to avoid the ship because of a secret mission. The Covenant ship escapes into slipspace, sending a shockwave toward the ODSTs. The Rookie’s vehicle crashes into Mickey’s, and both crash to the ground, knocking the Rookie unconscious for six hours. He wakes up and searches for clues about what happened to his teammates.
Buck lands roughly and fights through Covenant forces to find Dare, but she is gone, leaving only her helmet behind. Buck finds Romeo instead, and they decide to search for the others and leave the city. Dutch lands near a nature area and helps soldiers fighting there. Mickey takes control of a tank and fights along a street in Mombasa. Dutch and Mickey later protect a secret base from the Covenant, destroying it to stop the enemy from capturing it. They are rescued by a police ship but are shot down. Buck and Romeo save Dutch and Mickey, but Romeo is badly hurt. The team steals a Covenant ship but decides to return to the city to find Dare, who has continued her mission alone.
Back in the city, the Rookie is helped by the Superintendent, the city’s computer. The Rookie receives a distress call from Dare and finds her in the city’s underground tunnels. They reach the Superintendent’s data center, where they learn the Covenant is searching for something hidden beneath the city. Inside the center, they find a Covenant Engineer, a type of alien that acts as a powerful computer. The Engineer explains it has been forced to work for the Covenant but wants to help humans. Dare changes her mission to protect the Engineer instead of just collecting data. The Rookie, Dare, and the Engineer reunite with Buck and fight their way out of the city. They join the rest of the team and escape in a stolen Covenant ship as Covenant forces destroy New Mombasa and uncover a large alien artifact.
In the ending, one month later, the ODST squad guards the Engineer. A soldier named Sergeant Major Avery Johnson arrives and asks the Engineer to share all it knows about the Covenant. The Engineer agrees by lighting Johnson’s cigar. If the player completes the game on the hardest difficulty, a scene shows a Covenant leader named Prophet of Truth overseeing the excavation of a mysterious alien artifact buried beneath the city.
Development
Much of the team working on ODST started their work on Peter Jackson’s Halo Chronicles video game while Halo 3 was being made. However, the failure of a Halo movie and the cancellation of Chronicles left many team members without a project. Around the same time, work on Halo: Reach began, and Bungie saw a chance to create a new product. Producer Curtis Creamer called it a two-to-three-hour "mini-campaign." After reviewing the plan and budget, studio head Harold Ryan approved the idea.
With a game engine already built, the team focused on improving the concept. Bungie wanted to change the classic Halo format, which had not changed much over three games. Developers spent weeks deciding which characters to include. Letting players control characters like the Master Chief or Arbiter would bring expectations and story issues. At one point, the team considered a story about a Covenant elite strike force. Instead, they chose to focus on human characters. They considered Avery Johnson but finally picked the ODSTs. "The ODSTs are popular with fans," said Bungie’s community director, Brian Jarrard. "We never really explored the ODSTs before," said story director Joseph Staten, who saw this game as a chance to learn more about the black-armored soldiers.
Making the player an ODST required changes to keep the classic Halo style while adding new ideas. Adding silenced weapons and a new pistol helped separate the ODSTs’ weapons from those in Halo 2 and Halo 3. Sound designers made the submachine gun louder to feel more powerful. A health system was added to create tension; "it reminds you that you’re vulnerable," said Staten.
With the main characters decided, the team chose a setting. "Fans wanted to know what happened on Earth after being left out of Halo 2," said Jarrard. New Mombasa’s city fit the game’s needs because Bungie felt the change in protagonists required a new location. "Master Chief deals with big alien threats," said Staten. "ODSTs might handle smaller parts of the larger conflict, like fights they can finish in a day."
Returning to a previous setting gave artists new challenges. Walking through New Mombasa at night inspired a film noir look. Color changes and strong contrasts made the game’s visuals more detailed than earlier Halo games. The team studied concept paintings to decide how lighting would affect gameplay. The game’s style also influenced character names and roles. The player fits the idea of a lone detective. To make the world feel real, Bungie added details like ads, trash collectors, and civilian versions of military vehicles.
Bungie started working on ODST in March 2008. It was the first Bungie game completed in under three years, taking 14 months. With a small team of about 70 people, including a five-person design group, the team had to focus on key features. For example, they did not completely redesign enemies but added a few new AI behaviors. Because the game had an open world, changes like a new map and weapons were needed. Unlike traditional Halo games, where enemies were placed in specific spots, ODST required enemies to react from any location. "We had to make sure Covenant soldiers patrolling the city could respond to attacks from anywhere and look smart doing it," said Creamer. Though the game engine stayed the same, improvements like a full-screen shader system and parallax mapping added more detail.
The Firefight mode was added later. Staffer Tim Williams created a prototype after Halo 3 was released, placing players in a Halo 3 map to fight enemies. When ODST development began, Williams’ idea was used and improved. Designer Lars Bakken said Firefight offered a more casual multiplayer experience. The team reused the scoring and medal system from Halo 3 to add competition.
Sadie’s Story was made by Fourth Wall Studios with help from Joseph Staten and artist Ashley Wood. Fourth Wall was formed by members of 42 Entertainment, who made the I Love Bees game to promote Halo 2. Staten said, "In Halo, we show the clash of big military groups, but it’s the soldiers’ stories that matter." ODST gave a chance to explore the civilian side.
By December 2008, the game was "representational," meaning players could play through it, though it was unfinished. All Bungie staff tested the game and gave feedback. Unfinished parts included missing voice lines, which Staten filled with placeholder audio. The game was completed just before its presentation at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009.
Bungie’s audio director Martin O’Donnell and his partner Michael Salvatori composed the music for ODST. Unlike Halo’s use of Gregorian chants, ODST had no choral music or previous Halo themes. Two hours of the game’s three-hour soundtrack were released on a two-disc album in September 2009. O’Donnell wanted new music that felt like Halo but had a different direction because the story focused on humans, not cyborgs. For scenes showing the Rookie’s rain-soaked investigations, O’Donnell chose a jazz style to match the noir feel. Other characters did not have specific themes but were paired with music that fit their roles.
O’Donnell started writing music while Bungie made the ODST announcement trailer. The trailer’s music was based on a short part of his first piece, "Rain." Salvatori joined in February 2009 and helped finish the music in two months. Salvatori traveled to Seattle to arrange and record live musicians. Most music was recorded in early 2009. Additional work was done by Bungie’s sound designer C. Paul Johnson and orchestrator Stan LePard. The Northwest Sinfonia, which played music for Halo 3, performed orchestral parts at Studio X in Washington.
Some Bungie members liked the TV show Firefly, and this influence was seen during Halo 3’s development.
Release
Halo 3: ODST was released as a two-disc set. The first disc includes the campaign mode and the Firefight co-op mode, while the second disc includes the multiplayer mode with all the Halo 3 maps. Players who owned the game received an invitation to join the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta, which started on May 3, 2010. Pre-orders of the game included a token to unlock Avery Johnson as a playable character in Firefight mode. This token was only available through specific retailers. A special Collector's Pack included the game and a wireless Xbox 360 controller with an ODST-themed design. Toys "R" Us offered an ODST action figure and a $20 gift card to encourage purchases.
By April 2009, market research firm OTX reported that ODST was the most anticipated video game, a position it held until late August. Before its release, ODST was the top-selling game on Amazon.com based on preorders alone, remaining at the top of the site’s top 100 video game list for 107 days. Copies of ODST were sold early in France. Microsoft investigated this and threatened to ban players on Xbox Live who played the game before its official release. Xbox lead manager Stephen Toulouse later stated that legitimate buyers would not be banned.
Microsoft planned a large advertising campaign for the game. Entertainment Director Stephen McGill said the game was a key title for Microsoft and the first time they had done something like this. Promotional materials were shared through Xbox Live, online ads, and television. Marvel Comics released a limited comic series called Helljumper, featuring characters from ODST.
A live-action trailer titled The Life was posted online in September and used in television ads. Filmed in Budapest, Hungary, The Life follows an ODST named Tarkov from a military funeral to his training and battle experiences. The short film was made by advertising agency TAG SF with effects by Asylum, directed by Rupert Sanders from production company MJZ, who also directed the Halo 3 "Believe" ad. Legacy Effects created props, weapons, armor, and a Covenant Brute costume in two weeks. Bungie provided 3D designs to help make accurate in-game items and gave input on UNSC uniforms. The film’s opening scene was shot inside a cooling tower of an active nuclear power plant in Budapest, with a mud pit and obstacle course built nearby to simulate training. Hungarian special forces members acted as drill instructors, using blanks. The final scene was filmed at an abandoned Soviet-era aluminum refinery, though one additional scene was filmed there but not included in the final version.
Launch events for ODST were held across the United States. Bungie and Microsoft hosted an official event at the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum in Seattle, Washington. The event included panels about the Halo series and previews of other Halo content, such as the anime collection Halo Legends. About 800 fans attended the event before going to nearby stores to buy the game. GameStop held nearly 3,700 launch parties nationwide.
Upon release, Halo 3: ODST became the top-selling Xbox 360 game worldwide. Over 2.5 million copies were sold within two weeks, generating more than $125 million in sales. ODST topped UK game sales and became the 12th highest-selling single-platform title in the UK market. It reached the top of Australian game charts at launch and later regained the top spot after being outsold by FIFA 10 in October. In Japan, where first-person shooters typically sell poorly, ODST sold 30,000 copies by September 27. In the United States, ODST sold 1.5 million units in September, making it the best-selling title that month. In October, it sold 271,000 units in North America (ranking sixth for game sales). Microsoft reported that ODST sold 3 million units worldwide by November. It was the ninth best-selling game of 2009 in the United States, one of only two Xbox 360 games to chart. UK retailers lowered the game’s price in April 2010, expecting increased sales as players wanted to access the Halo: Reach beta.
The remastered campaign of Halo 3: ODST was released as downloadable content for Halo: The Master Chief Collection on May 30, 2015. It was free for all owners of the collection who had purchased it from launch until December 19, 2014. The campaign is also available for purchase separately for those who did not qualify for a free code. ODST later launched on Windows as the second-to-last installment of The Master Chief Collection on September 21, 2020, along with the addition of the Firefight multiplayer mode for Xbox One and PC.
Reception
Halo 3: ODST received mostly positive reviews and has an average score of 83 out of 100 on the Metacritic website. Lev Grossman of Time magazine called ODST a "milestone" because it showed that Bungie could use the same tools to create different experiences, which helped keep the Halo series popular. In contrast, Pete Metzger of the Los Angeles Times said ODST was a good game with a strong story, action, and graphics, but noted that similar qualities are common in many first-person shooters today. Jeremy Parish of 1UP.com said that while ODST had some problems, it successfully combined elements that appealed to players who enjoyed either the multiplayer or campaign parts of the game.
Critics had different opinions about whether ODST was worth its price. Ryan McCaffrey of Official Xbox Magazine said the game’s campaign, multiplayer mode, and second Halo 3 multiplayer disc made it a good value for $60. Other critics, including Edge staff, Parish, and Mike Jackson of Computer and Video Games, considered ODST a complete game. However, Erik Brudvig of IGN thought ODST was more of an expansion than a true sequel and still recommended buying it. Others, like Ben Kuchera of Ars Technica, Charlie Barratt of GamesRadar, Tom Bramwell of Eurogamer, and Narayan Pattison of IGN Australia, disagreed. Seth Schiesel of The New York Times wrote that Microsoft charged too much for a game that lacked enough content for its price.
Critics also disagreed about whether ODST improved the Halo series. Parish said fewer enemy types were balanced by experimental changes Bungie made. Edge and Bramwell praised the contrast between the Rookie’s nighttime scenes and fast-paced flashbacks. Edge noted that while the story wasn’t groundbreaking, it helped players explore different weapons and strategies. Parish said the ODST’s abilities were different from the Chief’s, but Mike Jackson said the game still felt like a Halo title, which was not a bad thing. Brett Molina of USA Today said the game disappointed because it spent too little time in the Rookie’s open environment, with most combat feeling like traditional Halo gameplay.
The game’s visuals and atmosphere were praised. McShea said the Halo 3 engine showed its age, but the art design made the game impressive. Parish noted that playing cooperatively changed the feel of Mombasa. Travis Moses of GamePro said the graphics were not the best, but the frame rate remained high. Digital Foundry said the graphics engine had flaws, like a resolution lower than 720p and less detailed human faces, despite improvements in AI.
The game’s audio and sound were praised. McCaffrey said the music from Halo 3 felt too familiar, but ODST allowed the composer to create his best work yet. Kuchera of Ars Technica said the saxophone music sounded inappropriate, and Anthony Gallegos of GameSpy said the music didn’t work well during combat.
Firefight mode was called "addictive" and praised for its strong enemy AI. Jeff Marchiafava of Game Informer said the enemies made Firefight different from similar modes in other games. Official Xbox Magazine UK said Firefight’s depth made Gears of War’s comparable mode seem simple. Bramwell said Firefight felt frustrating because many levels repeated the campaign’s style.
Bungie representatives told G4TV that mixed reviews partly came from how they marketed the game, first as an expansion and then as a full game. They said some critics felt overcharged for a product that was not a full game. They also wanted to improve pacing, navigation, and Firefight matchmaking if they had more time. Frank O’Connor of 343 Industries said he was glad ODST did not become a big success because it let the team focus on Reach.
Lev Grossman and Peter Ha of Time ranked ODST as the eighth best game of the year, calling it a "dark, slow, jazzy, hard-boiled take on the Halo world." Softpedia named ODST the best first-person shooter of the year, saying it had a good plot, music, and characters. Chris Kohler of Wired ranked ODST as the third best Xbox 360 title, saying it brought fresh ideas to the Halo series.
Halo 3: ODST won "Best Original Score" at the 2009 Spike Video Game Awards. The song "The Life" won "Outstanding Visual Effects in a Video Game Trailer" at the Visual Effects Society’s 8th annual awards.