It’s about the games
Kinect may have extended the Xbox 360’s life, Xbox Live Arcade titles may forecast its future, but as always it is the games that remains the console’s lifeblood. And no series is more easily identifiable with the Xbox and the Xbox 360 than Halo.
"I think that Halo has been at the heart of both platforms, and will continue to be," said Frank O’Connor, Halo franchise development director at 343 Industries Studios. "The delicate difference is that in the case of Halo 3 and Xbox 360, it wasn’t a launch title. That’s an accident of chronology and production, but again, when Halo 3 arrived soon after the launch of the Xbox 360, it arrived with really interesting and compelling new ways to play and share content socially. Really it was about converting this giant sci-fi world into a clean, well-lighted space that even new players could navigate and enjoy."
When Halo first arrived on the Xbox it delivered innovation through the minutia of dual-stick control, solidified the conventions of multiplayer and gave gamers a big, explorable environment.
"These weren't radical inventions," O’Connor said, "they were cleanly evolved, logical extensions of systems and experiences people had played for years on PCs and consoles."
Halo 2 brought with it a push into online gaming and an evolution of gameplay. Halo 3, the first on the Xbox 360, increased the fidelity of the imagined worlds of the Halo universe and gave gamers new ways to share their own take on Halo gaming.
Halo 4 and its Reclaimer storyline, O’Connor promises, will continue to evolve the series.
"We’ll have lots of cool stuff to share about Halo 4 in the coming weeks and months," he said, "and we hope that people can see that we’ve managed to strike a careful balance between honoring what makes Halo great to begin with, and innovating incrementally and radically to expand and improve the experiences people have come to know and love, but welcoming new players with open arms and sharing an incredible world and an incredible adventure with fans old and new."
While Halo 4 promises to provide a deeper story and more exploration, O’Connor says it will remain a shooter.
"Certainly there will be huge emphasis on sandbox, exploration and renewed and enhanced emphasis on storytelling, but the addictive heart of Halo is still there – moment-to-moment combat that’s going to be just as challenging against real-life opponents as fictional sci-fi ones," he said.
The game will also continue to expand upon Halo Waypoint, the free service that allows fans of the game to track their in-game experiences outside the world of Halo. And, O’Connor says, there are no plans to follow in the footsteps of Call of Duty Elite’s premium content and start charging for that service.
"Halo 4 will feature deeper integration with Waypoint than any previous Halo game, and we have long-term plans to continue growing and evolving the experience in new and innovative ways. That said, we have no plans to charge players to use Waypoint beyond the standard Xbox Live Gold subscription needed to access the service."
Any planned evolution of Waypoint to include more ways to connect and share with friends, perhaps with other online services like Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, are purely speculative, and O’Connor said they aren’t quite ready to talk about that. "But we’re excited to reveal more soon," he added.
Halo 4 will be Microsoft’s biggest Halo to date, said Steve Beinner, director of marketing for Microsoft Studios Core Games.
"I’m confident Halo 4 will remind everyone why that is one of the most iconic and enduring game franchises," he said.
