While many players were able to play the multiplayer portion of Halo: Reach via the beta that was occurring a couple of weeks ago, E3 marked the first time Bungie showed the single-player portion of the game to the public. I was fortunate enough to see this along with the new multiplayer mode: firefight. From what I saw, this game is guaranteed to sell millions.

For those not in the know, Halo: Reach is actually a standalone prequel to the original Halo: Combat Evolved. You take the role of a soldier in Noble Team. The game takes place on planet Reach; which, as many of you know, is a planet that will eventually get decimated. Once again, you will fight the Covenant.

The demonstration began at a beach. As you move up the beach and begin to see your giant ships fly away in the sky, covenant pods begin to slam down at the planet and gun fire ensues. I know it’s cliché to say, but the music here is best described as “futuristic techno.” There’s tons of explosions raining down at you from multiple directions and it’s precisely what you expect out of a Halo title in terms of presentation.

As we blast our way up the beach, we finally enter a facility environment. Here a cut-scene ensues and it shows your allies roughing up some covenant chums. Eventually, we enter something called a Saber, a jet spaceship of sorts. Here is where it gets interesting. While previous Halo games allowed you to hop into small aircraft and fly around in multiplayer, you never had the ability to jump into a spacecraft and duke it out Freespace style; that changes with Halo: Reach.

The space gameplay portion of Halo: Reach looks like an entirely new game.  As previously mentioned, it looks a lot like the old Freespace space fighters on the PC. In the demonstration, the game required us to defend our space station and to shoot down at enemy aircraft in the process. Now here is arguably the best part: you can do a barrel roll in the game. Yep, that’s right. What’s not to love?

Another thing that is easy to love is the fact that Halo: Reach will allow for up to four players in the campaign over Xbox Live. But that’s not the only part where multiplayer will offer something new.

The game’s new competitive multiplayer offerings will include a new mode called Firefight. Firefight is a mode much like Gears of War 2’s Horde mode. Players will team up together to take down waves and waves of increasing enemies. What separates this mode from Gears, however, is the fact that you can customize what these waves will consist of. That’s right, you can determine what enemies will appear and when they will appear. You can then upload your created preset online and other players can try it out for themselves.

Halo: Reach is aiming to add new multiplayer classes, weapons, modes, and more. With this being the supposedly “last Halo game.” Halo: Reach is guaranteed to sell when it releases this September.