tagged w/ Halo 4
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With Bungie moving onto greener pastures and leaving their most famous franchise behind, the future of the Halo series has been left in the hands of off-shoot studio - 343 Industries. The announcement of not only a new entry into the Master Chief storyline, but a whole new trilogy of games has many of us excited, yet we can only doubt the capabilities of 343i, until we hear word of some concrete details. Alas, we do hold faith in 343i, and we have compiled 4 reasons as to why the onset of this new Halo trilogy will hopefully not be a repeat of the disappointment that was the second Star Wars trilogy.
4. The Return Of Frank O’Connor
First of all, we have franchise director and creator of Master Chief, Frank O’Connor, on board. Why is this one man so significant you may ask (stupidly)? Well, if you are anything like us, you may have seen a slight drop in the quality of the franchise after Halo 3. The Master Chief was dropped from the games after the sequel was released in 2008; this gave Bungie room to explore some other parts of the franchise. They tried out some new mechanics, fiddled with multiplayer modes and gave the series a whole different feel. Unfortunately, this ‘feel’ proved hard to get used to after traipsing around in Chief’s boots for so long.
3. Fresh Eyes On The Franchise
Now this next point is actually more of a hit or miss, rather than a definite positive. While the team that make up 343i are certainly not amateurs, what PR does not talk about are the projects that some of the team have worked on. Put it this way, do you think 343i was formed from the best individuals in the industry, or rather those who had lost their job or were in the process of losing it. Well, it’s more of a mixed bag really. Fortunately, there are some very good titles that can be brought up when discussing the previous work of the team, but a lot of it is either completely dissimilar to Halo in every way, or is a very commercial project bereft of much creativity - not to say that Halo is not commercial of course.
2. This Is Not A Side Project
Let’s face it, Halo 3: ODST and even Halo: Reach were just gap-fillers in comparison to what 343i is working on (Halo Wars is different). As Bungie were left without O’Connor – the connoisseur of the franchise – they had to work away from the main storyline in the Halo universe. Other than exploring other narrative threads, it seemed Bungie wanted to make Halo more of a ‘modern’ (warfare) shooter and an effort was made to ‘spice up’ the Halo multiplayer experience with a number of experiments.
1. Forward Unto Dawn
Halo 4 is going to be the start of a whole new trilogy. The end of Halo 3 saw the demise of the Flood, Master Chief was considered dead to the inhabitants of Earth, and the remains of the frigate, Forward Unto Dawn (in which he and Cortana ended up), were floating towards an unknown planet. The original storyline has been seemingly concluded, with no ties to the past left to clear up. This gives 343i a lot of room to bring forth the new, the shiny, and the fantastic. That potentially means new locations, characters, enemies, technology – everything! Of course, we do not expect this new trilogy to depart from the characteristics of the series too much, and after all, we are still following what can be considered the two main protagonists in the franchise. However, many of the core aspects of the original trilogy have no reason to be carried over necessarily.
2. This Is Not A Side Project
Let’s face it, Halo 3: ODST and even Halo: Reach were just gap-fillers in comparison to what 343i is working on (Halo Wars is different). As Bungie were left without O’Connor – the connoisseur of the franchise – they had to work away from the main storyline in the Halo universe. Other than exploring other narrative threads, it seemed Bungie wanted to make Halo more of a ‘modern’ (warfare) shooter and an effort was made to ‘spice up’ the Halo multiplayer experience with a number of experiments.
1. Forward Unto Dawn
Halo 4 is going to be the start of a whole new trilogy. The end of Halo 3 saw the demise of the Flood, Master Chief was considered dead to the inhabitants of Earth, and the remains of the frigate, Forward Unto Dawn (in which he and Cortana ended up), were floating towards an unknown planet. The original storyline has been seemingly concluded, with no ties to the past left to clear up. This gives 343i a lot of room to bring forth the new, the shiny, and the fantastic. That potentially means new locations, characters, enemies, technology – everything! Of course, we do not expect this new trilogy to depart from the characteristics of the series too much, and after all, we are still following what can be considered the two main protagonists in the franchise. However, many of the core aspects of the original trilogy have no reason to be carried over necessarily.
make sure and check out Video Game Pride for more of this great info.With Bungie moving onto greener pastures and leaving their most famous franchise... more
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There is no denying the massive success of both Gears of War and Halo for the XBox brand. Halo 3 is one of the highest grossing video games of all time. However, GOW is looking to take that title with the Nov. release of GOW 2. So who is the bigger badass? Master Chief or Marcus Fenix? Is Halo the undisputed master or are we on the eve of a Gears takeover? Or maybe there is another game waiting in the wings to boot party GOW and Halo into the dirt. What do you think?There is no denying the massive success of both Gears of War and Halo for the XBox... more
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