When you're designing for multiplayer, you have to be selfless. Not only including halo 4 armor and other weapons, but also your heart.

Part of the responsibility facing Certain Affinity, and all developers that specialize in multiplayer, is the intense relationship players have with the modes and maps they play. Unlike single-player games, which are experienced once or perhaps a few times, multiplayer games are experienced again and again. They are lived. They are also very public testing grounds for people who take their skills very, very seriously.

Not only, but also, through map-editors like Forge, have players understood the fundamentals of multiplayer level design. Ten years ago, players might have enjoyed a multiplayer map, without stopping to think about the subtleties of sight blocks and cover positions.

Hoberman says, "We're very aware of the gravity of our responsibility. We're creating this content that people are going to play time and time again, sometimes thousands of times, for one map or one game mode. It feels like a massive responsibility. We mandate internally that we play this stuff over and over. We have to be fans of our own work and we have to put it to the test day in and day out.

"We insist that our developers participate in daily play tests. It can be tough. Our artists, for instance, they have a big to-do list, but we make them take an hour out of their day to play test. We think that's invaluable. Fans are going to pick these things apart. They're passionate about every detail. It's critical that everyone working on these things is also passionate about every detail and understands how these things are going to be experienced by the players."

He points out that in single-player modes, the story embraces the player as well as the characters in the game, but only the actual player is having a real emotional experience. But in multiplayer, it's about everyone who is on screen. Are these weapons or master chief armor can make you win? No!

" When you're designing campaign levels, you're inherently designing something asymmetrical. You're designing for the player. You don't need to care about how the enemies feel. You don't need to care about how the Covenant feels about their experience. When you're designing multiplayer, you have to care about everybody.