We thought Master Chief would be finishing the fight back in Halo 3, since he single-handedly brought an end to humanity’s war with the alien Covenant, but the end of the game left us with a bit of a cliffhanger. Chief was stranded on the edge of space, floating around in half of a UNSC ship, and (if you beat the game on Legendary) was drifting towards a planet. Obviously, he wasn't done yet.

Halo 4 picks up right where we left off, but now the title is out of Bungie’s hands and in the care of developers 343 industries. They are making some significant changes to the Halo franchise, introducing players to new enemies, weapons, and tweaking multiplayer and co-op modes. And there is definitely a lot to keep up with. But for your convenience, we’ve gathered up all these changes, plot points, and reveals and put everything we know right here.

All of Halo 4’s secrets haven’t been revealed yet, but we will be updating this article as they are revealed. So, be sure to check back often.

That’s right, we’ll be looking through the visor of good ol’ John 117 once again without having to step into the boots of an inferior Spartan III or an ODST.

Chief won’t be exactly as he was in Halo 3 though. He is getting a little bit of an upgrade in his armor and capabilities than he had before. Namely, a new vision mode, and a handful of new weapons.

At the end of Halo 3, we saw Chief and Cortana drifting into deep space on the derelict Forward Unto Dawn ship. Four years later, Chief awakens when he is about to “land” on an artificial planet called Requiem.

The hero is far away from any human colonies and the UNSC. Or so he thinks. It seems that the UNSC Infinity, a deep-space exploration ship (that boldly goes where no one has gone before), coincidently crash lands on the same planet Chief finds himself stranded on. But he finds that he will be running into more than just the Infinity’s personnel.

Just because Chief is a galaxy away from home doesn’t mean the Covenant won’t make an appearance. So far, we’ve seen small groups of Covenant forces, comprised of Elites, Jackals and Grunts, patrolling in the E3 gameplay demo, and the most recent campaign trailer showed what looked like a fleet of Covenant Banshees and Phantoms surrounding the downed UNSC Infinity.

So, expect to see some familiar grenade fodder from the series. There are some intriguing new foes that made an appearance, and they look like they will be the primary enemy threat.

The Prometheans are the mechanical enemies we’ve seen during the E3 gameplay demo, comprising of the Crawlers, Watchers and Knights.

The Crawlers are nimble quadropeds that attack from multiple angles using projectile and melee attacks. Watchers act as defensive units and can heal allies and even catch and toss back grenades Chief throws at them. Knights are the Forerunner equivalents of the Covenant Elites. They are armed with powerful energy weapons that vaporize their targets. But what's the best about them carrying around such advanced weaponry is that the Chief can pick them up and use them for himself.

The majority of the weapons from the Halo series are making a return in Halo 4 including the Battle Rifle, Magnum, Spartan laser and Covenant weapons like the Needler, but what really had us intrigued are the new Forerunner weapons. The Lightrifle and Scattershot made an appearance in the gameplay demo during E3, and both packed a punch.

The Lightrifle seems similar to the Covenant Carbine, shooting accurate energy bolts for long range engagements. The Scattershot is a close-range, energy-based shotgun that is perfect for close encounters. In addition to being a powerhouse, the projectiles also have a schismatic dispersal effect which has them ricochet off of hard surfaces. Sounds like the ideal weapon for enclosed interiors or getting killshots around those pesky corners.

From the looks of things, Chief is going all Predator-in-the-jungle with advanced vision modes for his visor. The image above depicts Promethean Vision, which allows him to see his new Forerunner attackers through solid objects and jungle foliage.

This is the first new ability we've seen, but we're sure there will be more revealed down the line.

Master Chief and Cortana go together like peas and carrots. She provides the intel while he bashes in skulls. But sophisticated AIs aren’t supposed to go on for too long without a memory wipe, which explains why Cortana looks to be going crazy in the trailer.

This will certainly end up being a narrative driver in Halo 4. Perhaps Master Chief must accomplish his mission before Cortana goes completely rampant, maybe he’ll have to find a cure within the Forerunner technology, or maybe Cortana herself will become the next major threat to the universe. Who knows? It’s all speculation at this point.

The classic multiplayer modes are going through quite a bit of tweaking in the hands of 343. Custom loadouts, persistent leveling, and weapon unlocks are all part of everything you accomplish in Halo 4’s multiplayer and co-op modes. In addition, story elements will be heavily integrated in both competitive and co-op multiplayer.

Stay tuned for when we get the specifics about loadouts, power-ups and class abilities, but in the mean time, get the details on the multiplayer modes on the next few pages.

The War Games mode is comprised of the competitive modes like Halo’s standard Slayer (Deathmatch) mode, Infinity Slayer where players earn points used to call in ordinance drops that provide special weapons and power-ups, and Regicide where the top-ranking “king” player becomes an increasingly valuable kill as they rack up their own kills. We got our hands on the competitive side of Halo 4's multiplayer at this year's E3. Check out our impressions in our Halo 4 multiplayer preview.

Most of it seems pretty standard so far, but we're most interested in seeing how competitive multiplayer will mesh with the campaign's story. We know that the War Games are training simulations for the Spartans on the UNSC Infinity, but that's about it. Other than that info, 343 is staying tight lipped.

In Spartan Ops, up to four players can take on objective based missions set within an extension of the main campaign's storyline. After the game's launch, weekly cinematic episodes will release with five additional co-op missions to play through.

This sounds like an excellent way of providing the online community with fresh content, and by the sound of things, it will be a ton of content. For all the details on Spartan Ops, be sure to check out our hands-on impressions in our Halo 4 Spartan Ops preview.

Well that's everything that has been revealed so far. What do you think of Halo 4? Does it diverge too far from the Halo formula or is it staying too safe? Got a bone to pick about player loadouts, or loving the co-op missions?

Let us know what you think in the comments. For all our coverage on Halo 4, check out our Halo 4 page and be sure to check back as we gather more details on Halo 4 as they become available.