Take down the Covenant alongside three of your pals, online or by linking consoles, in Halo 3 Campaign mode. The world stops turning.

Bungie Studios, the team responsible for the Halo series on Xbox, announced some flabbergasting news last night. Halo 3 will feature not just two- or three-player cooperative missions but up to four players – either across Xbox LIVE or using System Link that connects Xbox 360 consoles locally. No doubt extra Achievement Points will be awarded for completing missions as a team, as was the case in Gears of War and its two-player buddy mode.

The official Bungie blog mentions how the game has been carefully balanced to make team-play feel unique – not just a bunch of guys falling over each other trying to shoot and / or escape. Although each player will have identical abilities, there will be occasions to define individual strategic roles and some areas where an ambush is just begging to take place.

So as not to have a crowd of Master Chiefs trotting around the battlefields, Bungie has designed 4-p co-op to include a couple more Sangheili characters. Player one will always be Master Chief however, while player two takes charge of an Arbiter.

If you want to read the full enthusiastic blurb from Bungie it’s all here: http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&link=thesoundofsack