Halo Franchise Being Stretched Another Six Years
By Gavin Allmond on Monday, October 12th 2009
The past ‘face of Bungie’ Frank O’Connor, now the creative director of 343 Industries (the people responsible for all things Halo), told USA Today that “We do have a plan that goes out at least six years [...] eventually, it will become very apparent that there is a plan for the way the canon all ties together and the way the comic books and the novels all tie together.”
I have something of a place in my heart for the Halo universe (the Haloverse, if you will). Halo 2 was my first ‘proper’ online game and with it ushered in my first ‘proper’ online community. Much of my XBL friends list still consists of gamers reamed from honour-rule games of zombies on foundation. However, it’s blatantly apparent that Halo is no longer a console-launcher success. It’s a cash cow.
Halo merchandise is available in every branch of life. From cups to bags to animé to action figures, and of course: spin-off videogames. In addition to the recently released Halo 3: ODST pseudo-expansion pack, there also exists the not-that-successful swansong RTS of Ensemble studios: Halo Wars, Halo: Reach is already in the works (a prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved, says Frankie.) Normal humans can’t take this much Halo. This is above and beyond the reccomended daily amount of alien shooting.
When asked about Master Chief, Frankie also said, annoyingly;
I think that (his) fate, Cortana’s fate and the identity of that giant, dark planet at the ending (Legendary ending) are probably big mysteries that would be irritating if they were just cliffhangers
This is plain wrong. LEAVE THEM ALONE! If you try to squeeze any more action out of the chief he’s going to break down and cry. No one wants to see that.
Via: Edge Online
YouTube
iTunes
Tumblr
Friend Feed
yeah you be on ta something there. this is sadly true man… grrr wish bungie would just go and do an original IP which might be fresh and interesting. instead theyre turnin into Kojima; trapped making the same type of games in the same universe cause too financially successful to be creative.
i never liked halo. The designs of the creatures (them grunts being sync`d by angry teenagers), some very weird vehicle designs (come ON, PURPLE fighters?) and a sub par story kept me off. Only H3 could overcome that with really good dramaturgy and the graphics. So from my point of view, they can milk Halo a little more. But if its going in the direction of ODST and Halo Wars, no thanks. Those sucked.
Yeah, I think its sad how many Mario knock off… I mean 5 Halo games total. And how could they even think to sell items based around a universe that is popular. OMG. Because your hayday was during Halo 2 it doesnt mean that someone elses wont be in ODST.
@NoZart: Haha. I loved ODST, by far the best structured game in the series. Halo 1 will always be my favorite though, and Halo Wars did not suck. ;)
@Ron Workman: The hay day was halo 1 not halo 2.
Let’s be honest here, who didn’t see this coming? As long as anything with the Halo tag on it sells like hotcakes covered in meth, they’ll keep making them. The 6 year plan is going to grow into an 8 year plan, and then 10, and so on.
Now that’s not to say that the games aren’t good. I love me some Halo multiplayer with friends, and I feel like 3 and ODST finally brought in enough of a story to make the campaigns worthwhile. It’d be really nice if future iterations would try to break away from the mold and do something new, but that’s not going to happen. In all fairness, that may not necessarily be a bad thing; Bungie has proven that while they may have become a one-trick pony, it is still a pretty damn good trick.
It’s the videogame industry. New IPs cost dollops of money to develop, and are risky *points to Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space for EA.*
Halo is a safe investment for Microsoft, and since Master Chief has become the face of the Xbox 360, this was always going to a-coming.