The long-standing "voice" of Bungie, Content Manager Frank O'Connor, is leaving the Halo studio in order to "work more closely with Microsoft on the Halo franchise." In his final Weekly Update, O'Connor sends a heartwarming thanks to the community for a number of things, among them for "not following through on the death threats" (his emphasis, not ours).
The most interesting part of his goodbye later is the tease on the "coming years." Said O'Connor, "I was busy working on a story for one of our next games, an experience that is destined to surprise, amaze and entertain like nothing we've ever made before. That game has an amazing team invested in it, and one that will be tasked with building the Next Big Thing. You should see what they've already achieved, you truly should." We'll be watching with eager eyes. Take care, Frank, you'll be missed.
Everyone knows that Cinco de Mayo celebrates when Mexican Spartan forces destroyed a batch of French Covenant troops in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. So it seems only fitting that the bravery and sacrifice of those armored soldiers be honored with a Halo 3 Double XP weekend (which has already kicked off) and a new playlist for Fiesta (which spawns players with random weapons) called "Cinco de Mayo."
Two words of warning before you begin jamming cervezas and the right trigger: 1. Everyone can get double XP but you need the Heroic and Legendary map packs to play in "Cinco de Mayo." 2. The party only lasts until Tuesday, with the fiesta becomes a siesta.
When Red Storm creative director Christian Allen (of Ghost Recon fame) joined Bungie last year, we speculated that he'd be working on a Halo-themed squad game. Lending further credence to our mutagenically induced prescience, EGM's Quartermann rumor column reports that Bungie's first game post-Microsoft will be a third-person Halo prequel "chronicling early skirmishes between the ODST troops and the Covenant" (read: no Master Chief). They're not sure if this is the same as Peter Jackson's mysterious Halo project, though it would appear that they're hiring a team specifically for that. EGM says that Microsoft will be ready to reveal all once the hype-train for Gears of War 2 has come to a halt.
So, we've been hearing about Peter Jackson's Halo project since the Kennedy administration, but we've heard nary a peep in recent months. Now, MTV Multiplayer reports that it suspects Microsoft is hiring folks for the project this week, based on a recent job listing for a team to "help develop a new experience in the Halo universe."
The listings says that the team will work with an "external luminary" on the project, which has MTV thinking: Peter Jackson, duh. It has us thinking, "Are you seriously just now getting started on this?" Here's hoping we find out more about the mystery project in the coming days.
Update: Microsoft has confirmed with MTV that the job listings are for the Jackson project. "Microsoft Game Studios has been hard at work collaborating with Peter Jackson and Bungie on the development of [a Peter Jackson-helmed Halo project]. At this time, it's necessary to grow the internal team to keep pace with development. Bungie will continue to remain involved in multiple aspects of the Halo Universe with MGS."
In case you didn't mark your Cortana swimsuit calendar, we wanted to remind you that today, April 15, marks the release of the "Legendary Map Pack" for Halo 3. For 800 points ($10) you can pick up Ghost Town, Blackout (a remake of Halo 2's Lockout) and Avalanche, a new take on Halo: CE map Sidewinder.
When the Heroic map pack went free (as we presume Legendary will at some point) there was actually a mini-renaissance of Halo 3 around the Joystiq offices. Now, that doesn't mean we're going to drop 10 bucks for one fresh map and two remakes, but we are looking forward to the Legendary pack going free. We are curious though: Are you playing enough Halo 3 to justify the purchase? Or will you be waiting?
Our pals at X3F scored early access to Halo 3's looming Legendary Map Pack, and -- bless their hearts -- they've decided to share. True, Bungie gave us a tour just yesterday, but X3F's video is no gallivanting stroll through a ghost town; there's no disarming charm to blackout the scrutinizing wit of the audience (that's you). This is a dissection darnit! An avalanche of insight seen through the carefully trained lens of the critic ... Oh, who are we kidding? They're just giddy Fanboys like the rest of yous!
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At the MI6 marketing conference in San Francisco, GameDaily reports on how Halo 3's marketing molded the image of Master Chief. Jerret West, global group product manager at Microsoft, explains they didn't want to portray Master Chief "as a reckless American cowboy." They needed him to be accepted as a savior of humanity and integrate Halo into pop culture. West notes the team had pop culture benchmarks like making the cover of Time or Wired, and worked with numerous other companies to push marketing ideas.
Chris Lee, a product manager from Microsoft, points out that Halo didn't have an awareness problem, it had a perception problem for being too hardcore. Looks like the team's efforts to make the Master Chief mainstream worked out. Halo 3 ended up becoming one of the best selling games last year.
And what such a prestigious achievement amounts to is, well, an awfully large amount of money. You see, the Develop 100 aims to rank "the world's most successful game studios" based on the revenues earned by their products at UK retail. Leaping to the top of the list for 2007 is Nintendo, its titles earning £129.83 million ($256 million) and boasting a significant lead over the £68.78 million ($136 million) belonging to number 2 producer, EA Canada.
Other notable studios in the top ten include Ubisoft Montreal with £52.17 million, Konami with £41.67 million and Maxis, which raked in £36.84 million. You'll also spot Infinity Ward with £39.6 million and Bungie with £31.45 million, both of which coasted in on a single game.
[Final "million" word count: 9. 10 if you count that "million." Oh, great, now it's 11.]
Of the three new maps coming in the "Legendary" Halo 3 pack, "Ghost Town" is the only one that's completely brand new with no roots in earlier Haloz. So it's understandable if you become a little disoriented the first time you play it or, like us, if you start spinning wildly, firing in every direction before finding a safe spot and having a good cry. But there's no need for tears, little one! Three Halo 3 developers are going to take you on a tour in the amusingly named Vidoc: "Mapmaker, Mapmaker, Make Me A Map."
There's also dirt on the other maps, which, frankly, look delectable. Also, we just want everyone to know right now that we're never playing a game of Halo 3 without the old-timey filter. It's sepia or see-you-later, that's our motto.
Wow, this new trailer for the Halo 3 Legendary map pack sure has us feeling nostalgic, and it's not just because two of the three maps are remakes! The trailer reminds us of the mid-autumn media frenzy that was the Halo 3 launch, with all its glitz and splendor. Those were high times for the video game blogger.
Back then it was just "OMG, this is new media for Halo 3! Consume!" You didn't have to worry about what you wrote because you knew no one was reading it. Check some of those old jams out, we bet half of them are just "All work and no play makes Joystiq a dull boy" over and over again. In fact, we're feeling so nostalgic for those halcyon days that we're about to go old school and leave this post with a completely underwhelming ending.
Bungie's resident mascot Mister Chief (no, not that one) has popped up on Bungie's radar as a group effort from every single Europe, African and Asian Halo 3 player that banded together in Halo 3 multiplayer.
... Well, it was either that or some quick image manipulation job by the Bungie staffers themselves, putting a "constellation" of Mister Chief on the map. We opt to believe the first story because it's infinitely more epic. Note that one tiny blip in South Africa, which was Joystiq's own Ludwig Kietzmann's contribution.
When Infinity Ward producer, Mark Rubin, told Eurogamer that the number of online users for the PS3 version of Call of Duty 4 was "monstrously huge," we can only assume he was referring to a beast of significant size and infinite terror -- which pretty much rules out those Pokemon things. Indeed, the multiplayer monster appears to be of the house-trampling, child-eating variety, with Rubin having declared, "No other game has come close, either online current, or total unique users in a day."
The battle between Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 for Xbox Live supremacy was also mentioned, with the former shooter's "between 1.2 and 1.3 million users every day" trumping Bungie's slightly more spartan servers. As for the percentage of total game owners (over seven million at last count) that have taken their tactics online, Rubin describes the number as "startling." Who knew statistics could be so scary?
While you're busy downloading the now free Heroic Map Pack, indulge yourself with news of even more maps coming to Halo 3. Coming on the heels of Ghost Town and last week's Avalanche – itself a remake of Halo 1's Sidewinder – and rounding out the triptych of new battlegrounds is the above pictured Blackout, a remake of Halo 2's Lockout map. As promised, Bungie has dropped details of the final map, including pics (hit up the gallery below) and an interview with four of the contributors to the project. The Legendary Map Pack is scheduled for release on April 15th for 800 points ($10) and, if it follows the basic model laid out by its Heroic predecessor, should be free-of-charge in roughly late July.
Happy free Heroic Map Pack day everyone! For those with a little patience, you'll be rewarded today with Halo 3's former $10 set of maps for the cost of air (but not PerriAir; that the Spaceballs still charge for). The pack includes Standoff, Rat's Nest and Foundry. While we'd love to tell you all about these levels, we're getting our first taste of them today.
With all that said, there's currently a hiccup in the system and the content – which was supposed to be free at 2AM pacific last night – is still listed for $10 on Xbox Live Marketplace. Bungie's forum has a nice thread (about to break 100 pages) on the issue and we're trying to get an answer from Major Nelson for the Microsoft angle. We'll update when the map pack actually becomes, you know ... free.
While Bungie is probably hoping that everyone will get excited about their quickly approaching Legendary Map Pack, we'd wager that a larger percentage of the Halo 3-playing populous are instead anticipating the price reduction on Bungie's last expansion, the Heroic Map Pack. In their latest weekly update, Bungie announced the discount would come sooner than expected -- as of 2 a.m. this coming Tuesday, the pack will be free to download on Xbox Live Marketplace.
