The word so far seems to be that the Arbiter will accompany the Chief on certain missions; as such, it may be assumed that he is invulnerable, or else he may disappear from the game before completion.

Other NPCs that accompany the player through the game will not be invincible.

No answer yet.

Preliminary media, such as screenshots released on Bungie.net and in major magazines such as EGM, as well as the "Et Tu, Brute?" video documentary released on XBL and Bungie.net, have shown several new weapons. Spartan Laser An anti-vehicle weapon of high power and long distance, but with long recharge time and limited ammunition. Spiker (or Spike Rifle) Apparently the default weapon for Brutes, something along the lines of the Elites' standard plasma rifle or the marines' SMG. Very likely a replacement for the red Brute plasma rifle.

There are indications that although dual wielding will return in Halo 3, there will be somewhat less emphasis on it.

Bungie's public comments about Halo 3's weapons so far do not provide a complete answer to this. Their weapon balance philosophy, though, can be seen in their comments about the revised assault rifle, a weapon created to be a default spawn gun with medium range, decent accuracy, not capable of headshots, and not dual-wieldable. Its ammunition capacity will be somewhere between the copious amounts the original assault rifle held, and the relatively meager capacity of the battle rifle.

Halo 3's methods for handling grenades and grenade limits will likely change due to the introduction of the Spike Grenade, and the reduction in the number of grenades of each type that can be held from 4 to 2. However, indications are that multiplayer game types will be even more customizable in Halo 3 than they were in Halo 2, so although there is no explicit mention of it, it is conceivable that there might be an option for unlimited grenades of one or more types in a multiplayer game.

Early screenshots of Halo 3 multiplayer action, such as the attached, have shown vehicle boarding. While all features are subject to change prior to release, it's probably a good bet Halo 3 will still have this popular feature.

According to Bungie, the release dates of the game and the film "will not affect each other." Source: Halo Weekly Update 05132006

According to Bungie's director of cinematics, CJ Cowan, texture pop "has already gone bye-bye" in Halo 3. Source: Halo Weekly Update 05132006

Again, Bungie has said nothing yet, but here's hoping they change things. Speech in Halo 2, in my opinion, doesn't work terribly well. Enemies can always hear you within a given radius, even through structures, while the interface requires you to specifically signal that you want to communicate to remote teammates-- and even when you do so, nearby enemies can still overhear you.

Bungie hasn't said so but it certainly seems likely that they would stick with the Easy, Normal, Heroic and Legendary modes from Halo 1 and Halo 2. UPDATE: Whether Halo 3 will have any difficulty-modifying skulls, such as the Mythic and Thunderstorm skulls in Halo 2, is unknown. Although most skulls have some effect on difficulty, those two in particular do so, as Thunderstorm changes all enemies to specops, and some players refer to "Mythic" as a separate difficulty level, even though it is not accessible from the menu as such.

UPDATE: No. Most of Halo 3's features are known at this point. Bots are not in the game.

This always gets asked. Bungie hasn't ever done a multiplayer game with bots. It's conceivable, I suppose, but not at all likely.

It's most likely way too early to answer this, although presumably Bungie is well aware of the concerns of fans regarding both methods. UPDATE: With a public beta test scheduled for spring 2007, it's likely many fans of the game will have a chance to test what spawn methods Bungie has implemented and to offer their opinion.

UPDATE: The below was written in early 2007. Approximately two months before release, Bungie announced that Halo 3 will feature cooperative play via split screen (two players per box) as well as system link and Xbox Live (four players per game). In a four-player game, the host players the Master Chief, and the other players are the Arbiter and two other Elite warriors.

Any combination can be used; four players can use separate consoles over XBL or system link; two players can share a box and connect to players on one or two other separate boxes.