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Microsoft to expand Halo franchise further
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 30th January 2009
Microsoft is keen to further expand the Halo franchise and create more games in the Halo universe.
"We tend to view the franchise side of Halo as an entertainment property, and something that we hope to expand in many different directions: both through additional genres of gaming and additional ways to tell the story that may not be game-related at all," said Jason Pace head of the Halo franchise, told Eurogamer.
Jason is also working as Lead Producer on the new Halo Wars console RTS at the moment – another of Microsoft’s attempts to further expand Bungie’s massively successful and popular franchise. He’s also working on the upcoming Halo: ODST standalone expansion to the game too.
“I think it's fair to say we're always looking for new opportunities, new genres to tell the story in. And whenever we find a great fit we'll pursue it."
Pressed about other Halo projects Jason refused to comment, but nor did he outright deny that Peter Jackson’s Halo project has been abandoned. Jackson’s secret project was announced back in 2006 and has been through various stages of rumoured neglect ever since.
Halo Wars is the next confirmed expansion for the series, with a demo set for February 5th and the full release on February 27th – the day after my birthday. Just in case you were wondering.
Are you still excited about the Halo franchise, or do you think the whole thing is massively over-hyped and tired? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
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I don't see the problem with it so long as it's not just an FPS as Master Chief (which none of the future games seem to be), they're going in different directions with gameplay styles for a universe that has a lot of fans.
Second book was awful, I agree, but the rest are much better.
The Halo games are excellent shooters with a great storyline. If it was released by anyone but Microsoft, I'm sure nobody would be like "OMGOMG THEY R DOIN IT FER MONIES". Calm down, they're good games.
every developer milks a series of games, if they continue to sell well, expect more sequels as i'm sure with the current state of play they will all be.
roll on COD8, MGS7, res evil 12, and halo 117 :o)
COD is the worst IMO, once a year we ge ta new game that has not changed since COD 1, COD has become more overrated then HALO IMO, in fact, perhaps the most overrated game franchise ever.
Gaming unfortunately has become this, more and more like the music industry, sticking to safe trends and appeal to the widest main stream audience as possible.
If you don't like it don't play it.
Mainstream game makers are always going to make mainstream games whether they are all in one franchise or not.
The Eric Nylund Halo books are all quite good really. They're not Niven or Asimov, but they make for an engaging read.
More of these please.
Here's to Halo 4 :D
For me, it's not the fact that they make the sequels, it's the fact that the follow-on to the first game has been so pathetic.
I really loved the first Halo, I played it for hours on end, both PC and Xbox. It was great. The story wasn't half bad, either. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. It found an acceptable middleground for "Those are the badguys, shoot them" and "This is a story, pay attention.", everything was fine and dandy.
Halo 2 felt like someone had realised Halo was the second coming of christ, and forgot to polish the game before they ran it down to the local stores.
Halo 3 felt like Halo 2, but even less time had gone into it before they ran down to the store. Two and three felt horribly unfinished.
On top of which, I feel certain that both two and three slowly decreased in length. Three felt like the kind of length I would have expected from £15-£20 DLC, not a £40 full blown release.
They had no difficulty curve, playing easy was akin to playing Legendary. The first game, there was a challenge between the difficulty levels, it was genuinely harder. In two, there was still a challenge, but there was not so much of one. In three it's gone entirely. I have been playing H:CE on the PC recently, and Legendary is harder than the same setting in 2, and far harder than the same setting in 3.
ODST is likely to follow that trend, although, I won't be buying it, as I've had enough of giving money to this franchise.
Almost every games/film franchise that has had 3 or more release's, it's always been the first one thats been the best and the rest have slowly declined usually into something horrible.
So we get less & less and eventually get left with a bad memory of once great titles and very empty pockets.
They really need to start thining up new ideas
Halo was not innovative, it did nothing new, it was just the first shooter on console to really do what it did, but it certainly did not innovate. I guess from a console standpoint it did, shooters on console were rare back then, but for the genre it did nothing.
Sam
I want Halo chess pieces mmm
Is a good idea, am surprised they havent done it yet.
Even if the series starts going down hill fast I'll still keep buying (while complaining at the same time). :D
Yes it is overhyped but is it horrible? no infact the games have all been very good with Halo 3 setting the bar beyond all previous standards - Im not even a big halo fan and I think its a great game with allot of media hype around it.
There arnt many games that do what Halo 3 has done and as well? look at the depth it has, the matchmaking system is awesome, I have never had any visible lag despite who i get matched with, the gameplay is awesome, the forge, replays everything it does, it does really well.
Not a single game comes to mind that does it as well - Its a solid shooter all round and its only had 3 installments and suddenly its overhyped, milked beyond recognition? I really dont think so.
Metal gear Solid, final fantasy, super mario, Zelda, mortal kombat, Tekken, resident evil, street fighter (dont get me started on that one), gran turismo, grand theft auto....the list goes on and on...all these games have countless sequels -
So what exactly do we define as over-milked? a game in its third installment and soon to be 4th and 5th? or the ones i mentioned that have had countless sequels and spinoffs but still get rated high marks regardless?
Hmmm
Welcome to the internet :):)
I happen to like the halo universe and enjoyed all the books as a sort of "light" sci-fi read, they all are good light reads and I'll finish the series.
it's called brand recognition, they'll continue to make the games until they stop making money. SInce people are still buying them, obviously it hasn't been completely juiced yet
halo 1 is a great game
halo 2 is a crap game. Its far to short and most of the difficulty is gone
halo 3 got worse. 8hrs play start to finish ? ?
i wont buy halo wars despite owning the first 3. When did microsoft last release a half decent rts game. And id assume it will have a small unit cap for the 360s hardware to cope. Otherwise it will be lag city
Still think RTS games belong on only pcs. Sorry console owners
I take back everything I said in another thread about nobody buying games because they're all crap, if this is the attitude.
The Halo epitomises every negative thing I can think of about bland, uninteresting, undifferentiated entertainment, and it's disheartening to see it being supported here. Good grief, this is supposed to be a forum of gaming connoisseurs - we're supposed to be better than this!
No it's not, it's supposed to be a forum for hardware enthusiasts :p