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Joystiq interview: Bungie's Jarrard talks Halo 3: Recon, new weapons, details

by Dustin Burg { Oct 15th 2008 at 8:00AM }

Recently, Bungie Studios community director Brian Jarrard - better known to Halo fans as "Sketch" - took some time to clear up a few lingering questions about Halo 3: Recon and Halo 3's upcoming Mythic Map Pack as well as some general Bungie topics.

From our informal chat, we learn that Halo 3: Recon will stay relatively true to Halo 3's formula, meaning that we won't be seeing any game engine improvements or added features. But Jarrard did confirm that (at minimum) one new weapon will make an appearance in Recon and a new soundtrack will debut. We also touch on the topic of Recon's Forge, learning what it is not and discuss why Bungie chose to not make it as feature-rich as a map editor like, say, what Far Cry 2 has to offer. There's Vidmaster achievement and Mythic Map Pack talk as well and the conversation somehow leads to the topic of global domination and pie.

Gallery: Halo 3: ODST controller/pack shots

Continued →

PAX 2008: Halo Mythic ain't mythical, it's here... sort of

by Kevin Kelly { Aug 30th 2008 at 4:00PM }

Is this what Microsoft was not so quietly sweeping under the carpet when they nixed the Bungie announcement during their E3 keynote? We have no clue as of yet, and all we can get out of Bungie is a "we can't talk about it." We're going to try and batter down Bungie's doors today to get more info.

So far, here's what we know. The menu screen says System Version 1.2, when the Halo 3 retail version is only at 1.1, and there's only a multiplayer option, no campaign. What does it all mean? We caught up with Bungie's Brian Jarrard who told us the screen was from a build that they brought on Friday that "wasn't really meant to be seen. However, it's really not that exciting, it's gotten kind of blown out of proportion."

While the shakey-cam photo above from Addict Gaming might be the only visual evidence of Mythic, it's definitely coming. At some point. Bungie wasn't forthcoming with details, but we'll see what we can find out.

[Thanks, Robert]

Bungie reemphasizes community content support

by Dustin Burg { Mar 6th 2008 at 11:30AM }

IGN recently got a chance to chat it up with Bungie's community man Brian Jarrard where he talks about the future of Halo 3, its community and again lands on the subject of community content. And again we get a warm fuzzy feeling when discussing said content, because Jarrard (just like he told Eurogamer) reemphasized that Bungie feels community created content is where Halo 3 is headed and they plan on supporting it. Jarrard tells IGN that "user-generated content and a focus on the social and community aspects of our games is definitely part of our future as well as our past" and that Bungie is "actively working on website improvements and ways to integrate user created content outside of the game". Suh-weet!

Like we said, Jarrard has previously mentioned Bungie's commitment to rolling out a new way to search for Halo 3 community content, but hearing it again makes us feel more secure in this knowledge. We say, bring on the Halo 3 upgrades now!