Weekend Confirmed 109 - Prey 2, Trials Evolution, Fez, God of War: Ascension

Catching up on the latest Halo 4 information to be released, I wanted to discuss a new mode of cooperative multiplayer they've announced that I'm extremely excited about called Spartan Ops.

Firstly, a little background of how Spartan Ops ties into the main story:

Floating above the planet Chief and Cortana stumble upon at the end of Halo 3 is a 3km long human spacecraft called UNSC Infinity: a secret training facility for the next evolution of Spartan soldiers known as the Spartan IV's (Master Chief is a Spartan II), that we've been told will tie into Master Chief and Cortana's campaign story.

Essentially, it serves as the canonical foundation that ties the single-player to the multiplayer. When you boot up Halo 4 competitive MP - the standard Red vs Blue Slayer matches we all know and love - you are fighting as a Spartan IV recruit inside a "state-of-the art combat deck" onboard the UNSC Infinity, not dissimilar to the holodeck in Star Trek, training for missions you will embark upon in Spartan Ops.

Spartan Ops serves as the next evolution of Firefight found in Halo 3: ODST and Reach. It is a 4-player cooperative campaign that will follow a storyline surrounding your own Spartan IV recruit and other Spartans over a "season" of episodes released weekly via Xbox Live. 343 has said that the scope and scale of the Spartan Ops campaign will be comparable to that of Master Chief's campaign (which you will still be able to play 4-player coop in), but episodically on a weekly basis.

Here's an extract from the Gameinformer article:

[ Each week, players gain access to a new CG movie sequence that slowly unfolds the story of the UNSC Infinity mission, chronicling the struggles the Spartans encounter along the way. Along with each story component, five objective-based cooperative missions will release. These missions are new content offering unseen events, locations, and challenges to overcome for that week. ]

And the best part about these episodes? They're free! When you buy Halo 4, the season is part of the Halo 4 experience.

I enjoyed the concept of Firefight in previous Halo titles, but I found the enjoyment of taking on endless waves of Covenant without any context was only enjoyable for a certain amount of time. I've been a massive proponent for story-based DLC much like the GTA Episodes, LA Noire's downloadable cases and Minerva's Den for Bioshock 2, and this sounds like exactly what I want: a cooperative experience that follows the arcing story of a team of Spartans, like Noble Team from Reach.

What do you guys make of this new mode?