Colin StevensWill The Next Halo Be The Last From Bungie?
July 25th 2008 00:51
There seems to be a little tension in the air at the moment surrounding the relationship between Bungie and Microsoft ,who are a minority stakeholder after the two split in 2007. And in these times of exculsives becoming cross platform, it creates an interesting situation for rumour mongers. Will the next Halo title be the last for Bungie?
In what has been a rock solid front from the two companies over the years, a fracture has appeared in the form of Bungie being pushed aside from the Microsoft press conference due to "time issues". Bungie’s Harold Ryan has said, “keeping things clean, I certainly didn’t agree with the decision to delay our news until sometime after E3.” He went on to say, “Bungie is always concerned first and foremost with our fans. Whenever we are prevented from exceeding their positive expectations it is not a laughing matter.”
An independent event is said to be planned to announce the new title.
To add fuel to the fire, head writer of the Halo series, Frank O'Connor, had left Bungie to go and "work more closely with Microsoft on Halo" this May, suggesting that more Halo titles could be in development as genuine first party titles. And with MGS owning the intellectual property for Halo, it's probable that we will see a similar situation here as with Crytek and Ubisoft over Far Cry 2. Let's hope so as it will mean two great and different games from MGS and Bungie, double the gaming goodness.
To give some background perspective, in an interview with Seattlepi.com last year Harold Ryan of Bungie Studios gave details of the nature of the arrangement of the two companies split, which sounded less than rock solid; "Microsoft is and will continue to be, a brilliant, inventive and creatively collaborative publishing partner. Practically speaking, nothing has changed and you guys won't see much, if any difference, for a while. ..."
Bryan Jarrod has also said to kotaku, "As we continue to grow as a studio, we are able to branch off and allow some people to explore new ideas and IP while allowing others to continue to explore the Halo Universe."
So get ready for an even bigger annoucement some time after the upcoming Halo annoucements. With the Halo head writer now at MGS and with Bungie planning towards complete independance, the split in opinion over the Microsoft E3 Press Event might be the beginning of a new era for Halo and Bungie.
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