Halo 4's Promethean Baddies And Blasters Revealed

343 Industries has been slowly pulling back the curtain on the Prometheans, an enemy race that Master Chief encounters as he explores Halo 4's Forerunner world of Requiem, but a weekend infodump reveals quite a bit more about the new baddies and their arsenal. The latest issue of Game Informer has a series of character and weapon cards that paint a picture of the Promethean forces.

The Prometheans themselves break down into two fairly broad categories: Knights and Crawlers. Basic Knights are essentially footsoldiers, though their ranks are further fleshed out with Lancer, Commander, and Battlewagon variants. Knights also spit out Watchers, a flying robot that projects shields around its maker, resurrects fallen Knights, and summons the robodog-like Crawlers to battle.

Forerunner weapons come in a number of different flavors, including six projectile weapons and one grenade. Each of the six weapons is essentially the Forerunner take on something familiar. The Scattershot, which we've seen before, is essentially a shotgun, except its burst spread of projectiles is able to ricochet off of surfaces.

For pistols, Prometheans rely on energy blasts from the Boltshot, a weapon that the Forerunners apparently used in their war against the Flood. The Binary Rifle is a particle accelerator-fitted sniper rifle while it's powered-down cousin, the Lightrifle, is a scoped burst-fire weapon that is comparable to the humans' Battle Rifle.

The Suppressor is another of the Forerunner weapons used against the Flood; it amounts to an assault rifle, though it fires "bolts of charged Hardlight that pierce and destroy organic material of any type." Sweet. Not as sweet, however, as the Incineration Cannon. You'll pick these puppies up off of fallen Knight Commanders, and you'll then marvel at the weapon's potent rocket launcher-meets-shotgun-meets-flamethrower design.

Lastly there's the Promethean Pulse Grenade, a thrown weapon that slows down vehicles while also causing damage to both shields and health like any good grenade should. I expect the vehicle slowing effect to come in quite handy during multiplayer sessions. You can find the enemy and weapon cards, complete with official descriptions, in the new issue of Game Informer.