If you were under the impression that Bungie’s upcoming shooter Halo 3: ODST would be a straight-forward linear shooter, you’re very mistaken, said Bungie to The Seattle Times in a recent interview.

“We’re doing a lot of pretty neat things in terms of mixing it up, introducing some non-linearity, some free exploration,” said Joseph Staten, writer and creative director of ODST.

“This is also a mystery story so there’s a lot more clue-finding and mystery-solving than you would normally find in a game of this kind – nothing that strays too far from the fun ‘Halo‘ experience, but we definitely decided to take a little bit of risk and have some fun with this one,” he continued.

Along with that, Bungie also got a early look at Project Natal, a motion-sensing controller that Microsoft is developing for the Xbox 360. Bungie Studio President Harold Ryan said, when speaking on Project Natal, that ” he absolutely think[s that] ‘Reach‘ could be enabled with it.”