ring.

Hold it. What the hell? Did something

just hit us? Move in.

>> In the early 2000s, there were few game

series as influential as Halo. From its

gameplay, art, music, story, and

multiplayer. Its success had defined the

genre and created such great demand for

a sequel that when it finally arrived,

its launch broke the record for the

biggest 24 hours in US entertainment

history. This record was broken soon

after, broken by none other than Halo 3,

the final mainline game in the trilogy

that satisfactorily wrapped up the story

and delivered an exceptional multiplayer

experience. So, how has a series known

for its innovation, story, and genre

defining gameplay failed to capture any

of these aspects? and why has its

dwindling fan base lost interest in the

IP and grown resentful of the studio

steering it? To understand how this came

to be, this video will be covering the

rise and fall of Halo for the mainland

games development, lore, campaign, and

multiplayer experience, as well as the

series often antagonistic relationship

with Microsoft.

Jason said it best, I think. He said

that Microsoft is building the biggest

cannon in the world and they're pointing

it right at Sony and and we can be the

bullet in that cannon.

>> In 1999 and 2000, Sony boasting the

power of the PlayStation 2 promoted it

in such a way that it threatened

Microsoft and inspired fierce

competition. Quote, powerful and

traditionally inexpensive game consoles

and the processors haven't had anywhere

near the power of even a low-end PC. PC

makers don't fear them right now, but

they should. companies such as Sony have

something in mind other than just

games."

Microsoft, the '90s tech giant, took

this personally and intensified

development of its own console. The

console was referred by the development

team as the DirectX box for the DirectX

software that it utilized. Though

Microsoft's marketing team felt it could

create more appealing names such as Map,

Mike, Mega, or even Face. Evidently,

this was the marketing team's second run

at names. As the first batch of names

quote were so bad, we didn't even save

them," unquote. Due to the absence of an

appealing name, the development team's

internal name was chosen for the

console, although it was shortened now

to the Xbox. Microsoft had its cannon,

but not the required ammunition. In

February 2000, Ed Freeze, the soon-to-be

vice president of Microsoft Game

Publishing, received a call that could

help remedy that. And Peter said, "Hey,

Ed, um, you know, we're kind of in

financial trouble. Uh, we're thinking

we're going to have to shut the company

down or sell it to someone."

>> Bungie, a Chicago based development

company, was in dire straits. This arose

partly from Bungie's real-time strategy

game, Myth 2, Soulblider. While the game

itself was wellreceived, all copies were

recalled just before its official

release, as it was found that the

uninstaller would delete more than just

Myth 2. Only those seeking to wipe their

entire hard drive will be pleased by

this bug. Even the demo was afflicted by

this devastating bug. A bug and a recall

that placed Bungie solidly on the path

of financial ruin. The only thing that

could save this company was an

ambitious, untested shooter.

Halo initially revealed at Mac World

1999 began as Blam. The name of the game

would change, but Blam would remain as

the engine used to create the game. A

game that at one point was

conceptualized as an RTS. Now it was

conceptualized as a third person shooter

releasing for the Mac and PC. Halo,

headed by Jason Jones, the co-founder of

Bungie and written by Joseph Stton, took

inspiration from the 1986 film Aliens.

It was set in the far future and carried

a mature tone of mystery, of vastness,

of desperation, as was in Aliens.

Despite humans being technologically

advanced, they could hardly overcome

simple yet ancient horrors. The name

Halo and the music created by Martin

O'Donnell and Mike Salvatorei with their

Gregorian chants alluded to a religious

component. After all, the game is an

allegory for Noah's arc. Yet,

Microsoft's marketing team felt skittish

on the concept. Quote, they said, "If

there is one thing you take away from

this meeting, it's that we absolutely

think you should change the name." And

we laughed out loud and was like, "We

are not going to listen to you." They'd

had somebody cut a 2-minute video

together to Heavy Metal. all quick cuts

and fast action. No story, nothing. I'm

like, what's this? This didn't look or

sound like Halo at all."

Even so, by 2000, anticipation for the

game only grew, and Microsoft's

acquisition certainly got the attention

of market leaders such as Steve Jobs.

Quote, "I got an email from Microsoft

Chief Executive Officer, Steve Balmer,"

which was unusual for me. It was pretty

short. It basically just said, "Steve

Jobs is mad that you bought Bungie. Call

him and calm him down." And then it had

a number. Okay, I guess I have to call

Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs had to address Microsoft's

acquisition of Bungie and Halo during

that year's Mac World.

>> What would that mean about the future of

Bungie's games on the Mac? About the

future of Halo on the Mac? To clear that

up for us all, it's my pleasure to

introduce Ed Freeze, the vice president

of games for Microsoft. Yet, Apple and

Microsoft are going to team up with the

executive vice president of publishing

from Bungie, Peter Tampy, to form a new

company. And that company is going to

take hopefully over time our entire line

of games to the Macintosh. To everybody

here,

though Halo would eventually find its

way to the Macintosh, the plan to launch

it on the computer had changed. It was

now sent to launch exclusively on the

Xbox. as not only would their work for

the Mac port seemingly go to waste, but

it also meant that they would lose the

goodwill of their customer base.

Furthermore, Halo now had to launch with

the Xbox, meaning that Bungie had less

time to work on the game than they had

hoped. The silver lining in this

acquisition was that Bungie still had

the freedom to flesh out their vision

for Halo. Microsoft was more concerned

with the marketing of the game and

requested it be subtitled in order to

steer clear of Halo being confused as a

religious game instead of a futuristic

shooter. The game was set to release as

Halo Combat Evolved. After the

acquisition, the lead game designers and

core team moved into Microsoft's office

located in Redmond, Washington. How you

doing?

>> He's walking in to the new space for the

first time. Hey guys, got something for

you.

Okay,

Dan's new place. And Dan gets the

leather couch. We don't know why.

>> That's my casting couch.

>> Bungie had to defy expectations. They

needed to make their now firsterson

shooter operate smoothly on a console.

The challenge came in the form of the

controls. Sheamus Blackley, the creator

of the Xbox, in an interview with IGN

recalled the scaling commentary as

quote, "A shooter would never work

without a mouse and a keyboard." and

this was a widely and passionately held

belief."

Though the famous 1999 Nintendo 64 game

Golden Eye had made strides in the first

person shooter console genre, the

controls were not at all up to par with

computers. Rather than having a free-

floating aiming reticle, players had to

contend with a single analog stick and

relied on movement and a slight auto aim

mechanic to hit enemies. It was only

with a toggle that players could enter a

precise aiming mode that both sacrificed

movement and had players fight against a

reticle that aggressively directed

itself to the center of the screen. Even

at the time, modern shooters such as

Alien Resurrection were ridiculed for

using what is now considered to be a

modern dual analog stick control scheme.

Quote, "The game's control setup is its

most terrifying element. The left analog

stick moves you forward, back, and

straights right and left, while the

right analog stick turns you and can be

used to look up and down."

This is why it was believed that Halo

would suffer the shortcomings of all

console shooters, as the Xbox was set to

launch with a similar dual analog stick

controller, aptly nicknamed the Duke.

Side note, the sheer size of the

controller attributed to poor sales of

the Xbox in Japan. And I can remember

putting it on my leg in Japan and trying

to say, "See, you can rest it on your

leg." And this Japanese TV host put it

on his leg, which is much smaller than

mine, and it immediately fell off. And

he said, "No,

>> the Duke was a non-starter in the Asian

market, period."

>> With the Xbox launch said in November

2001, Bungie had several upcoming

deadlines to hit. Marcus Leato, the art

director, has stated on the crunch,

quote, "We had an insanely short period

of time to figure our [ __ ] out to

actually convert Halo from a third

person to firsterson game and build a

real world. I swear it was like 9

months, just a ridiculous period of time

to build the entire first game and ship

it." The crunch meant that several plot

lines, levels, guns had to be cut.

Multiplayer was also on the chopping

block where the team initially

envisioned 32player battles. The

multiplayer, which came secondary to the

campaign with only three to four

developers working in it just several

months away from release, was now aiming

for a smaller arena style experience

that games like Quake popularized. When

it finally came time to showcase the

game at E3 2001, the campaign showed

much promise. There was live

demonstration highlighting the dynamic

and strategic ability of enemy and

friendly AI, a system in where units

moved to pre-desated squares depending

on morale, if they were winning or

losing, and on the intel units had which

depended on where they last saw an

enemy. The single player through the

design of weapons, AI, vehicles, and the

story of the last super soldier

discovering the truth of a mysterious

ring world showed much promise. That

much could not be said about the

multiplayer. As seen on the show floor,

the four player split screen had

tremendous frame rate issues. The

console's still very much under

development. We the the machines we had

to show their halfspeed uh graphics card

at that time. So everything's running

half speed. Um

>> they try to show this multiplayer demo

on the floor and it doesn't really

impress people. If you read the press

from that time, it's very h I don't

know, wait and see. Unlike the upcoming

Nintendo Gamecube or the Sony

PlayStation 2, the Xbox was releasing

with a built-in hard drive and a

built-in Ethernet port to futureproof it

for a potential online service. This

feature would also be utilized for land

parties. It would allow up to four Xbox

systems to be connected under a single

network as to have 16player battles. But

Bungie questioned whether the system

link would be utilized and if the

multiplayer was worth keeping now that

the company was cycling employees from

its other projects. Getting closer and

closer to the deadline for Halo, each

one of those teams ended up getting

absorbed into the Halo team because

there was just no way we were going to

make it.

>> We almost cut multiplayer out of it a

few days before we had to ship the build

cuz it wasn't really working that well.

You know, we were having arguments about

how many people can actually connect a

box together. We're like, "Yeah, maybe

in college dorms people will do it, but

who's going to carry a TV to their

friend's house?" The decision was made

to keep multiplayer in. As the

performance of the Xbox through its

development had drastically improved,

the multiplayer frame rate issue had

disappeared. The last thing to do now

was to ship the game and console. As

Bill Gates did when he revealed the

final luck of the Xbox, he also attended

the launch party and handed over the

first console.

No one at Bungie could have foreseen the

tremendous success Halo brought to the

Xbox to their studio or how their

innovations would set standards for

decades. Halo Combat Evolved in its

beautiful simplicity was a tremendous

success. Its campaign and multiplayer

were universally wellreceived.

I remember when I I gave this to the

game designer whose level it was used

in. He came to me. He said, "Boy, you

know, I spent so much time listening to

that piece and that, you know, I just

love that chick singer."

And I said, "Paul, uh, that was me."

>> We set up 10 Xboxes. Actually, that

meant 10 TVs or screens of some sort.

Turned out we had four LCD projectors.

>> They keep on bringing in more stuff and

it seems to be expanding.

>> Would you agree that without Halo, the

Xbox may not have might not have

survived without that killer app?

>> I think you're probably right.

>> If there's one game that almost

single-handedly made the Xbox, it's

Halo.

>> Launch titles that don't suck a concept.

Where contemporary console shooters

relied on uncanny, narrow, and linear

levels with enemies segmented throughout

as if they only existed to wait for the

player, Halo Combat Evolved ushered in a

new era of design. It created an active

world where players could stumble into

battles between the alien opposition

known as the Covenant and the human

marines after Crash Landing scattered

across a mysterious ring world. The game

through its open and sometimes narrow

level design encourages the player to

use a wide arsenal of purpose-built

weapons and vehicles. Close encounters

encourage the use of grenades and melee,

which have their own dedicated buttons.

Even the aiming reticle, albeit always

large and generous changes based on the

weapon being used. In more than just

this way, was a gameplay supported by a

well-thoughtout art direction. The

humans were seemly inspired by the

Marines and aliens. Their technology was

advanced, yet still resembled familiar

and modern equipment. The Covenant

relied on bright, round, smooth, and

glimmering tech. Their pronounced color

palette and art direction made it easy

to inform the player on Elite Rings, and

most importantly, their location as to

make sure they will not blend into the

background. I probably wouldn't have

made the Covenant guys so colorful, but

that was a request from Jason. Shinier,

brighter, more color. I'm like, dude,

you're nuts, man. This things like

rainbow is horrible. Obviously, it

worked. I mean, he he knows it from a

gameplay perspective. Like, this is what

makes games tick.

>> Even the grunts were designed in such a

way that the design allowed their weak

point, their heads, to be silhouetted

against their shiny armor. They were

also the only English-speaking Covenant

members, which provided the player much

needed information on their changing

tactics.

This much could be gathered from

gameplay demos prior to the game's

release. However, Bungie did well to

keep the two additional factions a

secret. Do you remember how careful we

were to not let anybody know that I mean

this was the big twist.

>> After finding the Covenant through a

moody and foggy forest, a player enters

a facility of neither quote unquote

human or covenant origin. Within the

player discovers traces of a recently

fought battle. Though discarded weapons

and blood are present, only the corpses

are missing. What is left is a lone

distressed marine that actively shoots

the player while rambling of other

worldly horrors. This and a recording

left by the marine squad builds up to

the introduction of the flood, a

parasitic ancient horror that

assimilates biomass, covenant, and human

alike. It is shortly after that the

player is introduced to the final

faction of the game. I am the monitor of

installation 04. I am 343 Guilty Spark.

Someone has released the flood.

My function is to prevent it from

leaving this installation.

>> 343 Guilty Spark serves the presumably

extinct forerunners, the creators of the

mysterious ring world and also serves to

provide exposition on the flaw.

Similarly, the human AI Cortana provides

exposition and commentary where the

player's character, the Stoic Super

Soldier, the Master Chief, cannot. It

was at this point that the scope of Halo

story shifted to a much larger and even

more mysterious universe. The purpose of

the player shifts from maintaining the

remnants of marine forces scattered

through the ring world to eliminating

the flood through the firing of the Halo

rings. This is the exact reason it was

built. But before the player is able to

achieve this, he is abruptly stopped.

>> Hog, that wasn't supposed to happen.

>> Oh, really?

>> The flood is spreading. If we activate

Halo's defenses, we can wipe them out.

>> You have no idea how this ring works, do

you? Why the Forerunners built it? Halo

doesn't kill Flood. It kills their food.

Humans, Covenant, whatever. We are all

equally edible.

>> Exciting. This is to have a record of

our lives.

>> He looks excited, doesn't he?

>> All of our What does that mean?

>> Human history. Is he?

>> Oh,

fascinating. That's a clue.

>> Among this revelation is the hinting

through 343 Guilty Spark that the

Forerunners were ancient humans.

>> Chief, I'm picking up movement.

>> Why would you hesitate to do what you've

already done?

>> We need to go right now. Last time you

asked me if it were my choice, would I

do it?

>> Having had considerable time to ponder

your query, my answer has not changed.

>> With the secret of the ring revealed,

and after several battles, the player

returns to their crashlanded ship to

destabilize the fusion reactor, thus

creating a massive explosion to destroy

the ring. The final segment has players

drive through waves of forerrunner

sentinels, flood forms, and covenant

forces in order to reach a smaller

spacecraft and outrun the explosion.

>> Halo, it's finished.

>> No, I think we're just getting started.

>> Bungie, through their comparatively

small team by today's standards, had all

aspects of the game's design worked

together. It was no secret that the team

was infamously hard to work with, but

also equally passionate for their vision

of Halo.

>> We are the most cynical people. Like, we

are the jaded crowd who if a game

doesn't entertain us in 5 minutes, we

stop playing it.

>> The music was not omnipresent and was

designed in mind not just for the tone

of the level it appeared in, but also

the exact location in said level. This

type of design extended to weapons,

players regenerative health, enemy

forces, allied forces, and vehicles.

While some levels, such as the library

would be criticized for its repetitive

layout and frustrating difficulty, and

certain lines were written for

environments that were envisioned far

different than they were implemented.

>> Here's my favorite line in the game.

>> I don't know if they show it.

>> Yeah, don't we show it? Here it comes.

>> This cave is not a natural formation.

>> It's not. It's not a natural formation.

>> I don't believe Uh, no duh.

>> The game as a whole innovated and

delivered an experience where all parts

worked together to flesh out Halo's

gameplay and story to the larger set

pieces to the soundtrack and religious

significance of a Halo. It all invoked a

sense that there was something greater

at work in the universe of Halo. And it

gave Bungie plenty to work with should

there be a sequel. Still yet, the game

had more to offer. Multiplayer, the mode

that was nearly cut, was a selling

point, perhaps even more influential

than Golden Eye for the Nintendo 64.

Halo through its split screen

multiplayer became known as a party

game, a revolution in console gaming

that successfully made land parties

easily accessible and Halo a must-have.

Quote, "Every week the Xbox would sell a

certain number of units and something

like 50% of those sales would convert

into Halo sales. So, it just kept

selling. two years after it came out, it

was still in the top 10 sellers on the

console. That's almost unheard of now."

Hel sold consoles and primed an audience

for online multiplayer. Though the game

was celebrated the development, the

crunch to finish the game had exhausted

the developers at Bungie. And though the

studio had garnered prestige for their

work as per their contract with

Microsoft, Bungie did not get much else.

So the core development Bungie team

threatened to leave Microsoft just after

their major hit.

>> What I remember was a general

disappointment in the you know sort of

sharing of profits. Well, it turns out

of course that there is no such thing as

profit sharing uh based on you know

merit or your performance over over a

diff a certain product inside Microsoft.

As a matter of fact, I remember Robbie

Box saying to me in a meeting, Marty,

you know, we we don't give profit

sharing to people who do Microsoft Word

or Office or Excel or whatever. And I'm

like, yeah, yeah, no, no, we get that.

The seven people who were saying, I

think we should we should be getting

something better from Microsoft, at

least for the next one, Halo 2. And then

he goes, Marty, you got to understand,

Microsoft does not negotiate with its

employees. Robbie, that makes total

sense. I get it. That makes total sense

to me. And then the guy started to get

up. We were all going to leave the

office because it was over. Like he just

he said, "We don't negotiate with our

employees." And as we were reaching the

door to leave, he goes, "Wait, wait,

wait. Guys, guys, come come back. Come

on, let's talk." So I sat down again and

I thought to myself, hm, maybe Microsoft

does negotiate with its employees. So we

negotiated a deal. We negotiated

probably the only product related profit

sharing plan maybe that Microsoft has

ever done. I don't know. It's possible.

So our profit sharing plan was for Halo

2 and that caused us to stay instead of

leaving. We were going to leave and

start our own studio.

>> Bungie was going to make Halo 2. This

was already presumed through the success

of Halo Combat Evolved. What was not was

their promise to impress with the

sequel. Quote, "You already know Halo 2

is the sequel to Halo. You already know

Bungie has no intention of disappointing

anyone. The game itself is everything

you loved about the original Halo, but

with all the knobs turned up to 11 this

time around. This is not a quicky quote

unquote Halo 1.5 followup using the same

engine. We are using a completely

rewritten graphics engine which allows

our artists to work in previously

unimaginable complexity and detail.

Anyone who thinks the original Halo

stretched the Xbox's graphical abilities

to the limit is mistaken.

Only 5 days later, Microsoft announced

Xbox Live. Quote, "In addition, at least

seven Xbox Live enabled games are

currently scheduled to be available on

November 15th, with up to 10 more to be

followed by the end of the holiday

season."

Halo 2 was named amongst these games to

launch with Xbox Live in 2002, but

Bungie knew they needed more time to

make the game they wanted. quote, "I

remember having a very voseiferous

discussion with Pete Parsons, who was

then sort of Bungie's manager as an

internal Microsoft executive. He said,

"Marty, it's inconceivable for us to not

be a launch title for Xbox Live, which

was coming in November 2002, just a year

after the first Halo's release." And I

said, "Yeah, and I want to have a baby

in 4 months. There are just things that

cannot happen." He told me, "You've got

to understand that Microsoft has already

planned their fiscal year." I said,

"Fuck the fiscal year." Which became

sort of a statement that everybody knew

at the studio. I wasn't saying screw

Microsoft. I explained the only way you

truly motivate a game development team

and especially Bungie is by saying we

have to get this done for E3 or get it

finished by Christmas. If you say, "Oh,

we need to get this done for the fiscal

year," they just won't. They will not do

it.

Microsoft was not the only company using

Halo to market itself, as there were

various games desperately trying to

emulate or even topple Halo.

>> This is Brute Force. It's been called in

the United States the next Halo. It's a

tactical based team shooter and um it's

it's more of a thinking man's shooter.

Players that have been used to Halo um

will will jump right in with this game.

We're looking more for pure action. So,

uh you're running around and it controls

basically just like Halo.

This is Sony's first person shooter.

It's really going to be their Halo

killer. That's what they hope it to be.

>> Among the many teams attempting to outdo

Halo was Bungie with Halo 2.

>> This process began with the end of Halo

and realizing all the stuff that we had

left out and Jason and I and Jamie and a

few other people sitting down and

thinking really hard about, oh wow, what

did we really want to tell? I don't know

if we're crazy or stupid or we just like

good stories or or what, but we we

certainly worry about that a lot more

than you might think we'd have to in a

game that's mostly just about action and

and about not thinking.

>> Bonji sought to tell a dramatic

expansive story with her sequel, one

that would reveal the mystery of the

foreigners, the intentions of the

Covenant, and satisfyingly wrap up the

fight with the Covenant. To do this,

Halo 2 would have two playable

protagonists. The game would take place

shortly after the events of combat

evolved. It highlights the repercussions

of the destruction of the Halo ring.

While the Master Chief is being awarded

for saving the galaxy, the highranking

elite who discovered the ring alongside

the humans is being shamed by the three

prophets of the covenant. Three

hierarchs known as the prophet of truth,

prophet of mercy, and prophet of regret

for allowing the ring to be destroyed.

It is the intent of the prophets and

their covenant to fire the rings under

the guise that it would take the galaxy

on a great journey, a new plane of

existence. This is evident by the

absence of the foreigners who fired the

rings long ago. And as there are no

living traces of them, they must have

successfully transcended into a higher

plane of existence. Though the player

knows the purpose of the rings, this

convincing lie sets the stage for a

tragic story where all but humans are

unwittingly fighting to the death for

their death. The prophets brand the

forerunners as gods. The monitors such

as 343 guilty spark as oracles and the

humans as heretics. The high-ranking

elite is shamed, branded, and bestow the

title and responsibilities of the

arbiter. He is tasked with killing an

elite separatist. But this brings more

questions.

>> The Oracle.

>> Hello, I am 343 Guilty Spark. I am the

monitor of installation 04.

>> Ask the Oracle about Halo. how they

would sacrifice us all for nothing.

>> After the defeat of the Separatist,

Tartarus, a brute, a newly introduced

race to the series, and the same brute

that branded the Arbiter, shows no

reverence to the Oracle, snatching it

before it can reveal the truth of the

Halo rings to the Arbiter. Tardus, who

represents the Brutes, is uncaring for

the cause, and similar to the prophets,

is using the religion to gain power.

None hungrier for it than the prophet of

truth. He has prime access to forrunner

artifacts and as his storyboard

demonstrates knows all too well not just

the purpose of the halo rings but also

far more damning secrets around the

foreigners. The prophet of truth emerges

as a true antagonist of Halo 2 who

allows the assassination of the prophet

of regret by withdrawing elite forces.

The prophet of truth uses this event as

a reason to change the guard from elite

to brutes further fueling their tension.

This is unprecedented, unacceptable.

>> The hierarch is dead, commander.

>> His murderer was within our grasp if you

had not withdrawn our fabins.

>> Are you questioning my decision?

>> As to tie up any loose ends, he also

orders the assassination of the arbiter.

>> The prophets learn of this. They will

take your head when they learn.

Fool. They ordered me to do it. The

Arbiter falls to what should have been

his death. Earlier in the game, the

Master Chief should have also shared a

similar fate.

>> Let him be.

The great journey awaits for no one,

brother, not even you.

>> The Prophet of Truth allows the Prophet

of Mercy to die via the flood. Through

the course of the game, Truth has

demonstrated his strategic ability. He

has executed a plan that has eliminated

his greatest opposition and made him the

sole ruler of the Covenant. Truth orders

TardeRus to fire the rings while he

stations himself on a foreigner

structure known as the ark. This is both

saved from the firing of the Halo rings

and is located on Earth. The profit of

truth's plans is only foiled by the

manipulation of the gravemind, a sort of

physical compound brain of the flood who

shares the interest of the humans, the

arbiter, and a growing contingent of

elites who want to stop the firing of

the halo rings. It is only through the

gravemind's meddling that the firing of

the halo ring is stopped, that the

arbiter was able to exact his revenge on

the profit of truth, and that there was

a grand reveal that humans were ancient

forerunners. As a human skeleton is

discovered on the ark by the arbiter. It

is inferred that the prophet of truth

knew the humans were forerrunners all

along and was aiming to quote unquote

become a god by taking this ancient

human's place. This also means that the

covenant was throughout the human

covenant war fighting against the very

gods they worshiped. In this way, the

story of Halo becomes poetic. It is the

story about how a single influential and

deceitful figure manipulated an entire

galaxy into war and nearly into

self-destruction.

The characters were wellritten and

intelligent, always making optimal

decisions dependent on the knowledge

they had at the moment and goals they

maintained. The end of the game through

a postredit scene was meant to tease a

potential Halo 3 where the Gravemind,

the only thing that was able to trump

the profit of troops manipulation, was

being set up as the next and even

greater antagonist. Joe Stton, the

cinematics and narrative director, had a

grand vision for the game, but perhaps

too big for the rest of the team. Quote,

"One conversation I remember very

specifically was when Marcus and I

finally sat down to review the script.

He was terrified of the scope it

implied. His job in that meeting was to

assess how many props are you asking

for. How many custom cinematic stats,

you know, it was a big game at that

point.

It was not just a story, but also the

art and mechanics of everything they

wanted to implement. This ambition

extended even beyond Halo 2 because

Bungie was attempting to develop another

game with a separate Phoenix team,

leaving even less resources for their

highly anticipated sequel. As opposed to

Halo Combat Evolves development, more

the smaller team shared or disputed

their vision for the game. Halo 2

through its lack of leadership,

everexpanding team, and massive scope

led to the disaster known as the E3 live

demo. Bungie and their delusion desired

to prove to their fans and to themselves

that Halo sequel would be superior in

all aspects and then some. It was

decided that a live gameplay demo would

be showcased. This highlighted among new

mechanics such as dual wielding, vehicle

hijacking, and a vehicle damage system,

an engine that supported a stencil

lighting model that brought to life

otherwise flat textures. The live demo

consisted of the Master Chief fighting

through a wartorrn city, first on foot,

then manning a warthog cannon. The

gameplay was scripted and cinematic, and

fans loved it.

>> I don't say the word awesome.

Usually dude doesn't come out of my

mouth, but the truth is the game is

awesome, dude.

>> We came back with E3 with actually less

than what we wanted to. We came back

from E3 with a demo. We did not come

back from E3 with a playable part of a

level.

That was really bad. Actually, that

wasn't the goal. We've got 50, 60 guys

now on the Halo 2 team. They're waiting

to be told, "Hey, what do we do? What do

we, as this massive, smart, talented,

hardcore, devoted guys that are going to

stay up really late? What What do we do?

Tell us we want to do it."

>> Though Bungie had created a demo that

impressed and lived up to their

promises, it was unfeasible. The Xbox

would never be able to run such a

visually complex lighting system, or at

least not be able to run it consistently

above three frames per second. Quote,

"We can't ship this. It wouldn't run.

There was no way we could do the whole

game this way. It was a huge, horrible

realization that the entire plan that

had been worked on for 2 years was

basically going to be thrown out."

This was not an exaggeration. The engine

had to be rebuilt to accommodate the

hardware of the Xbox. The campaign had

to be basically redesigned. Quote, "A

lot of people sacrifice themselves in

ways that you should never have to for

your job." unquote. To make matters

worse, Bungie, through an embrace of

work culture and an unheard of

independence on the Microsoft campus,

had long been trying Microsoft's

patience, from missing the launch of

Xbox Live in 2002, to now requesting

another year to finish the game for a

2004 release date, not the present year,

2003. Microsoft wanted their flagship

game this year, and they were determined

to get it.

>> Now Halo is too important. Okay, now

everything,

all the marketing people, all the

planning, everything wants to revolve

around Halo and the next Halo and

there's huge pressure to get the next

Halo out and and to rush it out. I meet

with my boss, Robbie Bach, and say we

need to spend an extra year. He said,

>> "Let's have a vote."

So he brought in all his senior staff

members, Jay Allard, Mitch Ko, other

people you don't know, uh, and went

around the room. Should we force Bungie

to ship on the original schedule because

Halo is so important to the company or

should we give them the extra year that

they want? Every person in the room

voted we should force them to ship on

the original schedule.

>> These guys don't see

>> except for me.

>> Yeah. And I walked out of the room and I

said, "I will quit now if we don't give

them this extra year."

>> Even though Ed Freeze would quit soon

after, his threat to quit had won Bungie

the extra year to finish their game. And

so Bungie prepared for what was possibly

the worst crunch they would ever

experience.

>> I'm enjoying the sunset, the last row of

rays of light because uh the next 5

months or so, I don't think we're all

going to see very much sun. As a matter

of fact, I don't think we're going to

see any sun at all for the next 5 or 6

months. Enjoy it while it lasts.

>> Employees working 7 days a week, all

day, every day, and significant others

bringing in changes of clothes. Quote,

"I slept at the office some obscene

amount of days in a row, like almost an

entire month at the end. I canled my dog

for almost 2 months. There would be

mornings I'd wake up at home and not

remember how I got there, and many

others where I'd wake up at my desk. It

was that way for a lot of people. a lot

of relationships got fractured and that

felt irreparable at the time."

With all hands on deck and the team

working tirelessly, there was finally

steady progress and a solidified

deadline that under no circumstance was

going to move, as was made apparent at

E3 2004. It's in stone. Well, actually,

that's not the only place it's in.

I got your release date.

right here.

November the 9th,

the moment Xbox Nation's been waiting

for. Halo 2. And yes, that is 2004.

>> The extra year and having all hands was

still not enough. Bungie had a singular

option left.

We have this fantastic story arc that

we're trying to get across and we have

all this backstory that we're trying to

get across and there comes a point where

we look at the amount of time that we

have left to finish this game and we

realize that we're just crazy. We're not

going to be able to do all of this. And

so we pick our battles with, you know,

what we can cut out and everything that

wasn't essential. All these things that

we just love to see in the game, they

all they get put on the bottom of this

list and we end up start we start

hacking them off.

>> Here comes the knife out of the script.

What's important? That isn't, you know,

goodbye my lovely child.

>> In order to meet their deadline, Bungie

had to cut a large portion of the single

player campaign. There was a fear that

this butchering would be noticeable.

Still, there was no time left and the

game needed to be ready for a November

9th release.

There are those who said this day would

never come. What are they to say now?

>> Rated M for mature.

>> Where Halo Combat Evolved sold

gradually. Halo 2 was going to sell

steeply. This game was going to sell

like nothing else. The demand for Halo 2

had ballooned to the point that there

was 1.5 million pre-orders for the game.

As Xbox saw it, the game's launch was

going to rival even the launch of the

original Xbox.

>> In the next 72 hours, Halo 2 will be

sold in 27 countries in eight different

languages. And there's going to be

another 1,200 stores in London, Seoul,

Tokyo, Toronto open in similar midnight

matters events. I mean, this is bigger

than a video game. This is a true

entertainment phenomenon.

>> Quote, "One of the things we'll look

back on in 24 hours is what size is the

industry? It is very clear to us that

this kind of entertainment is usurping

others. Moore said, "There was a

commotion about the film The Incredibles

making $70 million over the weekend. I

guarantee that we'll make that up by 400

p.m. tomorrow."

>> Look at this line.

>> This is crazy. This is just for

registration.

>> This was a common sight across the

United States. The fervor of major

theatrical releases could not compete

with the demand for Halo 2. In just 24

hours, there were 2.4 million copies of

Halo 2 sold, amounting to $125 million

in sales. This figure was even higher

than what Peter Moore, the vice

president of Microsoft, predicted. The

launch of Halo 2 broke the record for

the most money generated in a single day

in entertainment history. A video game

surpassing a film's release was unheard

of. The campaign, besides a small area

with overtuned snipers, was wellreceived

until players experienced the game's

abrupt ending.

>> Well, we had such a great ending to Halo

2 where Master Chief said, "I want to

finish the fight."

>> Master Chief, you mind telling me what

you're doing on that ship,

>> sir? Finishing this fight.

>> Which uh had most Halo players

universally screaming and throwing their

controllers at their TVs because they

didn't get to finish the fight.

Well, I didn't say anybody threw their

controller. They might have dropped it

in in amazement.

>> Quote, I beat Halo 2. And I think the

first words out of my mouth upon victory

were, "What the crap?" To describe the

ending of Halo 2 as anticlimactic would

probably be a bit of an understatement.

Towards the tail end of the game, I just

gave up on trying to understand the

story line and its innane ending. If you

thought you were pissed at the end of

Matrix Reloaded, you haven't seen

anything yet. It's kind of [ __ ] that

there's going to be a Halo 3 when Bungie

said that Halo 2 would wrap up the loose

ends when instead it has only made it

worse and making us wait a few more

years for the answers."

Bungie had cut out the entirety of the

final act. This means the story ended

right as the Prophet of Truth was headed

to Earth. Thus, there was no reveal that

the Forerunners were human, no

retribution for the Arbiter that players

did not universally appreciate playing

as, and no satisfactory conclusion. This

was greatly disappointing, but was not

all that Halo 2 had to offer. If we do

this right, if we are able to really

pull off the engine and Xbox Live and

the social community,

it it's going to destroy everything else

that's out there. As Combat Evolved was

revolutionary for its local multiplayer,

Halo 2 was revolutionary for its online

multiplayer. In the same spirit of

Combat Evolves and land parties, Halo 2

created what Bungie called the virtual

couch or party system. This allowed

users playing split screen on the same

Xbox to all play together online and

join other parties. Among this was the

introduction of skill-based matchmaking,

several game modes like capture the

flag, big team battle on Slayer, custom

game modes, proximity chat, statistics

that were tracked and viewable online, a

clan system, and on top of all that was

the option to play as a Spartan or an

elite. This was only a single element of

the customizability. Players could

change the color of their characters and

the color and design of their emblem.

Halo 2 was a game that broke records

across the entertainment industry

through the party system. It was a game

that surpassed even what was available

in the PC dominated multiplayer space.

Other consoles such as the original

PlayStation 2 and the Gamecube while

offering online multiplayer required the

addition of a network adapter. And worst

of all, they did not play Halo 2. From

July 2004 to July 2005, the number of

users subscribed to Xbox Live doubled

from 1 million to 2 million. Xbox

exclusive games such as Halo were

undoubtedly responsible for this

increase.

>> In 2005, Xbox is the fastest growing

platform for game sales. Right now, six

of the top 10 selling games are Xbox

titles.

>> This was coming at the end of the Xbox's

life cycle. By the end of the year,

Microsoft wanted to release their next

console generation, an entire year

before Sony and even Nintendo. This

console, among offering a graphical

upgrade, was gearing itself up to focus

even more on the Xbox Live service and

the Xbox marketplace. The Xbox 360 would

also offer a removable hard drive.

Altogether, this would theoretically

allow future downloadable content like

the Halo 2 map expansion that was sold

separately on a disc to be purchasable

and exclusively downloadable online. A

greater focus was also placed on user

profiles and their social elements. This

console was sent to retail for $399,

a price point that would end up favoring

Microsoft. In 2006, Nintendo shifted its

approach to the console market. Their

Nintendo Wii was to be more family

oriented on top of utilizing older and

thus inexpensive hardware. Sony also

shifted their approach somewhat. Though

they planned to compete with the Xbox

with modern but difficult to work with

hardware, the new PS3 was meant to be a

modern media machine capable of running

Blu-rays. And so their 20 GB console was

$100 more than the 20 GB Xbox 360. This

bloat and the effect it had on its price

gave Microsoft an immediate advantage.

>> You know, Robbie's strategy to launch an

a year earlier than everyone else to uh

to uh keep the price low.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh worked very well and and Xbox grew

its market share a huge amount in that

time. While it had design flaws that

would cost Microsoft possibly over a

billion dollars in recalls, the Xbox 360

was a serious competitor to the

PlayStation 3. As more games took a

greater focus on multiplayer, the amount

of users subscribed to Xbox Live service

doubled this year to 4 million. Sony,

through its at the time free online

service, sought to inflate its numbers

of online users as well. and attempted

to create exclusive quote unquote Halo

Killers. But Bungie now had the time and

a console powerful enough to create a

game more accurate to their vision, a

task that they were somewhat reluctant

to do following Microsoft's allegedly

lackluster compensation to Bungie for

the success of Halo 2. So, we were like,

"Okay, Halo 2 shipped. We got something

from it." Uh, we did not get what we

were expecting and what we had all

thought we'd agreed on. It turned out to

be that good business for them was not

necessarily doing what we thought they

were going to do for the team. So then

we said, "Okay, well that's it. We we

are done now."

>> Yeah.

>> We're not making anything after Halo 2.

>> Ah. So that was like the real the real

starting point. Yeah.

>> That was like, "Okay, so you aren't

going to be good to your word. We are

going to leave and we're going to start

our own company and we're going to do

what we want to do. Good luck with

Halo." Some of Bungie's top employees

left in response to this and the

terrible crunch of Halo 2, such as Jason

Jones, who was the project lead for Halo

1 and 2. Bungie were still making Halo

3, and throughout the game's production,

they were negotiating a deal to split

from Microsoft. While not as tumultuous

as the production of Halo 2, Halo 3

suffered a lack of leadership. It also

lost Joe Staden as the narrative

director when he took an extended

sbatical after getting into a giant

argument with a fellow developer. In his

time away, he wrote the book Halo:

Contact Harvest. In his place was a

committee set on finishing the story.

What they lacked was Joe Staden's vision

to wrap up the plot threads. There was

much deliberation on how to write the

story for Halo 3. Without a strong

project lead, and without a single

narrative director, certain

contradictory story elements were baked

into the final product. Paul Russell, an

environmental artist, has said on the

matter, quote, "I don't believe that

management gave a single [ __ ] about any

story element. They only cared about

shipping a game."

Nearing the end of the project, Joe Sten

came back. While he was satisfied with

certain plot points, it was clear Halo 3

was not capturing the final act of Halo

2. The game was set to go in a

different, less character-driven

direction. In the first five missions of

the nine mission game, the story hardly,

if at all, progresses. It begins with

the Master Chief inexplicably jumping

off Truth's ship from the end of Halo 2.

He fights his way through the jungle

with Sergeant Johnson and the Arbiter.

Sergeant Johnson gets captured and

rescued. The Chief then fights his way

through a UNCC base under siege, through

a town to disable an anti-aircraft

battery, and back through the same town

to fight through hordes of flood that

crash landed on Earth.

What is it? More brutes

worse.

>> This is where the story picks up. Rather

than the ark be a forerunner facility

built on Earth, it is instead its own

installation. A massive space platform

that creates Halo rings and can activate

them remotely. Through a portal on

Earth, the Prophet of Truth now heads to

the Ark and all the main characters

follow. After much fighting, high

charity, the holy covenant city,

assimulated by the flood in Halo 2,

crash lands on the ark. At the same

time, Johnson gets captured a second

time by the Covenant, and the profit of

truth, whose character has been reduced

to a one-dimensional egotistical madman,

utilizes him to activate the Halo rings.

Miranda Keys, the daughter of Captain

Keys, who died on the first Halo Ring,

crashes a pelican into the control room

with no backup and dies a pointless

death. It is in this control room that

the Arbiter, the Master Chief, and the

Flood all team up once more to stop the

firing of the rings.

>> You must be silenced.

>> After Truth is killed by the Arbiter and

the rings are stopped, the Flood once

again turns hostile. After the Chief

escapes with the Arbiter, it is revealed

that the Ark has made a new replacement

Halo ring. With the Covenant leadership

decapitated, defeating the Flood takes

priority because all of its forces are

on the Ark. This is where the Master

Chief launches a solo mission to

infiltrate High Charity and rescue

Cortana, who has the index, which is

necessary to fire the Halo rings. But

because the ring is still under

construction, firing it will cause both

the ring and the ark to be destroyed. As

the flood is on both installations, this

will successfully eradicate them. 343

guilty spark seeking to preserve the

forrunner installation lands a mortally

wounding blow on Sergeant Johnson and

reveals that humans were in fact

forerunner.

>> You are the child of my makers,

inheritor of all they left behind. You

are forerunner,

but this ring is mine.

>> The chief and the arbiter then escape

the ark only to be caught in the

explosion. If we don't make it,

>> we'll make it.

>> It's been an odd pursuing with your job.

>> The cut scene that follows shows that

only the front half of the ship made it

through the portal back to Earth, the

part that the Arbor was on as he was

piloting the craft. The Chief is

presumed dead.

As we start to rebuild, this hillside

will remain barren, a memorial to heroes

fallen.

They enbled all of us, and they shall

not be forgotten.

It hurts.

I remember how this war started, what

your kind did to mine.

I can't forgive you,

but

you have my thanks

for standing by him to the end.

Hard to believe he's dead.

>> Were it so easy?

>> This was the emotional sendoff to

Bungie's Master Chief and the end of the

trilogy. However, there is a postredit

cut scene that shows the Master Chief

did survive. What remains of the ship is

floating in space and the Master Chief

ends as the series began in crownic

sleep. This time with a ship drifting

towards a undefined planet.

>> Wake me when you need me.

>> Halo 3 story may not have been dramatic

nor brimming with intelligent and

cunning characters, but the campaign was

incredibly cinematic. The level design

was equally well done with the player

given even more liberty with vehicles

and weapons as well as several

confrontations with the massive walking

covenant tank, the scarab. The brutes

saw an expansion to their tribalist

culture portrayed not only by their

dialogue, but also by their designs,

weapons, and abilities. Multiplayer saw

even greater innovation. Halo 3 was to

release with a theater mode and a forge

mode that would allow players to move,

add, and remove certain assets in

multiplayer maps. Halo 3, while not as

boundary pushing as 1 and 2, was

arguably the most anticipated Halo game,

but it could be more. Halo 2 managed to

break entertainment records that only

Hollywood was known to set. With this

mindset, the marketing team that was

given millions to promote the upcoming

game decided they were not going to

treat Halo 3 as they would any other

video game. Rather than run commercials

of sizzle reels to highlight gameplay or

otherwise reduce it to a simple

firstperson shooter, the marketing team

decided that this was bigger than that.

They planned on marketing Halo 3 as if

it was a cultural milestone, meaning

that they wanted to show great respect

to the IP and advertise the world of

Halo. It would not compete with upcoming

games like Uncharted, but rather larger

traditional products like blockbuster

movies. Quote, "Our aim was to position

Halo 3 as a landmark entertainment

industry launch, competing against the

Spider-Man and Caribbean Pirates of this

world, not Mario and Laura Croft."

This strategy was ambitious, but it also

had the money to achieve it. The

marketing team decided it would, through

the campaign's various phases, appeal to

the hardcore fans, newcomers, and people

who have never heard of Halo or had

little interest in the product.

Microsoft was putting everything they

had into this game. It was even the last

thing they showcased at E3 2006.

Although the game was set to release in

late 2007, the marketing team began

their campaign late 2006 with the starry

night ad. In line with their cinematic

approach, it opens with a young Master

Chief thinking about the possibility of

other intelligent life in the universe

before cutting to modern day where he's

fighting said life. The marketing of

Halo 3 was hardly limited to television

commercials. In April 2007, players

could register to access a beta of Halo

3's much anticipated multiplayer.

Players could register at halo3.com or

by purchasing specially marked versions

of the Xbox 360 game Crackdown. Another

lag of the campaign was the alternate

reality game, a sort of puzzle that the

community is meant to collectively solve

to reveal more information about Halo 3

and its lore. This is something the

marketing team did with Halo 2 as well.

This expansive strategy arguably went

beyond what would be expected of a film,

but it would not end there. A stall car

was sponsored to advertise Halo 3. There

existed a Halo 3 themed Pontiac that

could be won through a sweep stakes,

Halo 3 Mountain Dew game fuel, Halo 3

Slurpie Cups, Halo 3 Doritos, the Halo 3

Burger King meal, and nearly 100 unique

miniatures with many more planned to

release by several different companies

after the launch of the game. As for

product directly related to the Xbox

360, there were custom controllers,

headsets, Xbox 360 skins, the Xbox 360

Halo 3 edition, and more. To cap it all

off, at the end of the campaign right

before launch were the Believe ads.

According to Brand Week, this alone cost

$10 million. Believe centers around a

massive diarama depicting a battle

between the humans and the Covenant.

This is the centerpiece for the

fictional Museum of Humanity. When

Master Chief armed his grenade, I was in

the back of an overturned Warthog firing

an M41.

>> How did you manage to keep it together?

>> We knew Master Chief was still in the

fight.

He gave us hope.

To quote Brand Week on the success of

this estimated $40 million ad campaign,

after 10 months of marketing, everyone

should have gotten the invitation by

now.

>> With Halo 3, finally, after months of

waiting and enduring Halo on the

Mountain Dew bottles and Halo over at

the Burger King, the game is out for

Xbox 360. People lined up overnight for

their chance to finish the fight. Bill

Gates as he did with the Xbox sold the

first copy of Halo 3. Again, thousands

of people across thousands of retailers

lined up across the country for the Halo

Midnight release. Halo 3 broke the

record for the most money generated in

entertainment in a single day at $170

million. The game sales were such a

phenomenon that the launch of Halo 3 was

blamed for poor theater ticket sales.

Though the story was lackluster and the

campaign was even shorter than Halo 2,

Bungie took the lessons they learned

from Halo 1 and two to refine three. As

such, there was reduced focus on dual

wielding because it disturbed the core

gameplay.

>> Whatever weapon that you start off every

round with is going to really affect the

decisions you make. There was this thing

we didn't really identify in Halo 2 that

if you spawn everybody with a dual

wieldable weapon like the SMG,

it changed the game.

People stop meleeing and people stop

grenading because when you're dual

wielding, you can't do either of those.

The assault rifle works really well with

the golden three things of Halo, which

are weapons, grenades, and melee.

>> The golden things of Halo are weapons,

grenades, and melee. Halo 1 through 3

has equal starts. All players spawn with

identical gear. Players are encouraged

to salvage the battlefield to obtain

more powerful or long range weapons. The

rush to obtain this gear causes

short-range encounters where grenades

and melee are present. Melee is

typically a move of desperation or

assassination as striking a player in

the back will instantly kill them.

Grenades are used more strategically

because the standard grenade can be

bounced off walls. And while they do not

do enough damage to kill players at full

health, the damage gives an advantage in

an upcoming encounter, they can also

effectively be used against vehicles and

to make an escape. But if one were to

dual wield, meleeing or throwing

grenades would have that player drop

their off-hand weapon, discouraging

players to do anything but shoot, and

the game becomes who shoots first or

more accurately, a method of combat that

is less varied. On top of this, Halo 3

replicated or improved upon playlist,

ranking systems, social elements that

included the addition of downloadable

clips and forge maps, and customization

that now expanded to armor. Armor sets

could be unlocked through multiplayer,

single player, or in the case of recon,

initially only given out by Bungie to

select players. Bungie employees also

had flaming helmets, which further

spurred player curiosity. Players would

spread rumors on how to obtain this

highly coveted piece of armor, like

having it unlocked by completing a

certain custom map or through programs

that in reality could have been key

loggers or something just as malicious.

Bungie knew how fabled the standard

recon helmet had become and would

eventually release a way to obtain it

through the completion of various

difficult challenges. Before that was

possible, some players would even modify

their Xbox just to have it. This modding

extended to the forge feature where

players would spawn vehicles that were

not meant to be replicated or even go

beyond the intended replication amount

set by Bungie. Halo 3 was a massive game

with a wealth of new features players

could get lost in. And above all else,

it was a cultural milestone. Shortly

after the game's release, it was made

public that Bungie was splitting for

Microsoft.

>> The deal was essentially we make a

couple more Halo games, we leave Halo

with Microsoft and we can split

Amibulli. So, I mean, ultimately the

price of our freedom was to to leave our

baby behind, to move from being Halo

developers to Halo fans.

>> One more Halo game and a campaign

expansion to Halo 3. This is what

Microsoft required from the newly

independent studio. The immediate issue

to solve was, how does one go about

making Halo 4? Halo 3 had quote unquote

finished the fight. Through three games,

the Covenant was utterly defeated. Their

leadership was no more. Their holy city,

High Charity, was entirely consumed by

the flood, and that same city, alongside

the gravemind and its army, crashlanded

on the ark in Halo 3. The ark was

destroyed with a flood on it in that

very same game. Furthermore, Halo had

been established as an IP. That story is

played out through several games. A Halo

4 could be self-contained. But would it

be worth bringing the Master Chief back

right after Bungie had given him a

satisfying ending? And who would he be

fighting? Bungie could plan out a new

series of games with a new antagonist

and leave the story to whichever studio

was meant to pick it up. But seeing how

even Bungie failed to capture Joe

Staden's vision for the series after a

short departure, how well would the new

studio do to honor a passed on vision?

What if they wanted to tell their own

story entirely? There is a simple

solution to all of this, and that is do

not make Halo 4. Ensemble Studios, known

for the real-time strategy game Age of

Empires, was making a Halo real-time

strategy game. The game would take place

20 years before the events of Combat

Evolved. In this way, the game takes

place in the Halo universe with the

Covenant still as the main antagonist.

These are reasons why Halo Reach is

perfect to satisfy a Halo game. It was a

prequel to Combat Evolved. The game was

to follow a team of Spartans that all

but one die. They die in heroic but

sometimes sudden and meaningless ways.

This also expands to the mythos of the

Spartan and how they perished. As stated

clearly, even in the back of Halo 3's

game case, the Master Chief was the last

of his kind. The plan Halo 3 campaign

DLC could have gone in a similar

direction, telling more of the story of

the Master Chief prior to the game's

ending. Instead, they went in a new

direction. the DLC placing the character

in control of an orbital drop shock

trooper or ODST for short. They are the

Navy Seals of the Halo universe. The

project eventually expanded and became

its own game, renamed Halo ODST from

Halo Recon as to not confuse the brands

of Halo and Ghost Recon. The game was to

be much smaller in scope than Halo Reach

and had a much smaller team working on

it. This was partly due to employees

choosing to work on Halo Reach because

they would get a larger royalty package

from the larger game. Marty O'Donnell,

the lead audio designer, was also Bungie

standin marketing director.

>> You shouldn't be in charge of PR and

marketing. That's too much. The CEO, I

said, "Let me I'll I'll handle PR and

marketing. I'm going to do a horrible

job at it, but so we should open up a

position to be head of marketing."

>> He set in motion a plan to reveal Halo

ODST on bungee.net net at the end of a

mysterious countdown that was posted

prominently on the website's front page.

>> We had a countdown clock and we found

out like 2 days earlier before E3 before

the countdown clock was done. We found

out that Don Matrick pulled the plug on

it. He didn't like the plan.

>> Well, me as marketing director said,

"Screw that."

>> Marty O'Donnell as marketing director.

I'm going to keep the countdown clock

going and when the countdown clock hits

zero, we're going to say, "Oh, sorry

everybody, but our overlords have

decided that we can't show this thing."

>> Oh, is that

>> So, that was a bit of a what we call a

marketing disaster.

>> Marty did not, nor did Microsoft, enjoy

his temporary position as marketing

director. Conversely, the developers of

ODST, for the first time with the Halo

game, had a pleasant time making it.

There was no need to design or master a

new engine, and ODST was to release with

the addition of Firefight, a wave-based

survival mode. Additionally, ODST came

with a separate disc that contained not

only Halo 3's multiplayer, but all of

its expansion packs. The goal was to

underpromise and overd deliver with a

$30 price point. But Microsoft, seeing

how big the DLC turn game was, decided

to double that to $60. When the game

released, it was criticized because the

campaign was even shorter than Halo 3's.

Still, ODST in 2009 released a positive

reception and massive sales, fulfilling

one of Microsoft's obligations and

further funding Bungie's independence

and projects for a post Halo Bungie.

Halo Reach released the following year

and made $200 million in the first 24

hours of its release. Though it made $30

million more than Halo 3, it did not

break the record for the biggest day in

entertainment history. that was stolen

by GTA 4 in 2008 at a whopping $310

million in sales. Breach was not

marketed as heavily as Halo 3. It was

not a continuation of the game and was

really a stop gap. The game was not

revolutionary for its multiplayer that

also featured a loadout system that was

predetermined by the game type or map

being played. These loadouts came with

abilities like the infamous armor lock

that offered a period of

invulnerability.

Also controversial was the ability to

sprint. The latter was controversial for

the same reason loadouts were. It was

because they too closely resembled the

loadouts available in the Call of Duty

series, a firstperson shooter series

that had grown greatly in popularity and

now competed with Halo. Call of Duty is

known for its loadout system, which

included perks similar to Halo Reach's

abilities. For Halo to emulate even some

of Call of Duty's mechanics, was defeist

to some.

>> Hey, anybody in here play Call of Duty?

You're so cancer. [ __ ] you. As the

series was looking to emulate rather

than innovate on its gameplay, Call of

Duty also had a robust progression

system where the player could unlock new

weapons and the like. Halo Reach also

further defined its progression system,

allowing a much larger catalog of armor

pieces and now armor effects to be

unlocked, maintaining the Halo standard

of equal starts. Halo Reach may not have

been groundbreaking in its multiplayer,

but it did innovate in virtually every

other aspect. It included ODST's

firefight mode, Halo 3's theater mode,

and a massively improved forge mode.

Where Halo 3's forge, outside of the DLC

map sandbox, allowed the placement of

smaller assets, mostly amounting to

weapons and vehicles, Halo Reach's Forge

placed a larger emphasis on map

creation, allowing a library of base

building assets to be used. These could

now phase through one another, be frozen

in position, rotate to a specific angle,

be moved incrementally for more precise

placement, and easily snapped onto each

other. We realized that Reach was our

swan song to Halo. And what better way

to do that than to to let people do what

we've been doing all along, which is

creating

new cool maps.

>> It's nice to go with a bang. And uh this

is this is a pretty big one.

Wake up, John.

Chief

John Yeah.

Heat.

Microsoft had been building up the new

studio 343 Industries for the sole

purpose of making Halo games. The studio

was going to employ some former Bungie

developers and Microsoft selected

employees. Bungie, before Halo gained

experience as a studio and with

firstperson shooters through the

development of the Marathon series. Halo

Combat Evolved was a collection of ideas

that even drew from the real-time

strategy games. The studio began with a

very small and cooperative team. They

had a vision that could easily be

altered amongst this small team and most

importantly they had a blank slate to

work with. 343 had not made a single

game but had produced Halo properties

such as the anthology film Halo Legends

and in collaboration with Certain

Infinity created map packs for Halo

Reach. Bonnie Ross 343 studio head was

formerly the general manager of

Microsoft game studios in charge of

publishing. Microsoft at the time was

losing interest in Halo. They were

focusing less on gaming in general as

the newly planned Xbox One was to be

sold as a general media console. This is

similar to PS3 with Blu-rays. Xbox were

electing to have third party studios

like Gearbox, the developers of

Borderlands, make the new Halo.

>> Just finding another um partner to do

that. And I went to Shane and I put this

proposal together that I pretty much

thought that was blasphemy, you know, to

do that. But they were just basically

like, "Hey, I think it's um like it's

maybe good for another game or two and

let's just like cut our losses and like

tell another story."

>> Bonnie Ross did not want Halo to be a

third party product that would make a

singular installment of the game. She

wanted to keep it in house and tell

another expansive story with the same

gusto that Bungie had. Quote, Okconor

then had Bungie help with the

transition. He went into his first

meeting with Ross, expecting a suit,

looking to check off the boxes. Bonnie

came in and really surprised everyone,

he says, because she read all the

novels. She was deeply immersed in the

fiction, and she played all the games."

343 made Halo 4, brought the Master

Chief back, and were terrified of how it

would be received. That's why they were

likely relieved when the initial reviews

came in, though these reviews were

limited to only the experience of the

campaign. This isn't just the best Halo.

It's probably the best Xbox game this

year and quite possibly the best video

game on any platform in 2012. Quote,

"Halo is in new hands, but guess what?

343's debut effort out Bungie's Bungie.

Halo 4 is a triumph."

Halo 4 had glowing reviews in the

beginning. The overly positive coverage

of Halo 4 was suspicious. This article

from Eurogamer dissecting an image of

Jeff Keelley reads quote lost humanity

18 a table of Doritos. Rap Florence

contemplates a tragic vulgar image. Here

is an image doing the rounds on the

internet this week. It is an image of

Jeff Keelley, a Canadian games

journalist sitting deadeyed beside a

garnished Halo 4 poster and a table of

Mountain Dew and Doritos. It is a

tragic, vulgar image, but I think it is

the most important image in games

journalism today. I think we should all

find it and study it. It is important."

The author of this column would step

down from Eurogamer because of it. When

Halo 4 reached the hands of a wider

audience, it was not so wellreceived.

Its flaws in time would become apparent.

Ryan Peyton, a creative director who was

demoted to narrative director, who then

left the project entirely, stated,

quote, "I think the problem we had doing

something creatively challenging and

risky is that we were attempting to do

this with a new team that had never

shipped anything together. I believe

that both my success and failures at 343

were ultimately the results of my nevate

about how important it is to have a

solid team with multiple titles under

its belt before taking on something as

wild and crazy as I was proposing for

Halo 4." unquote. 343 Industries had to

understand Halo's Blam engine with

little documentation on how to use it.

The game would be made without the

original trilogy's art director,

composer, narrative director, or

producer. 343 with Halo 4 was aiming to

respect the expanded lore of Halo, which

includes the books made by various

writers, but the game made sweeping

changes to the detriment of the

gameplay. These were made without any

express purpose outside of 343 creating

their own vision for the game. The music

and art direction was significantly

different from Bungie's. The Master

Chief's armor was a muted green. The

armor pieces were more segmented and

bulkier, exposing the under layer of

armor, a design the Master Chief begins

Halo 4 with. These changes, in theory,

would be inconsequential. Changing the

sound effects of the energy sword or the

shield recharge may alter the

experience, but not to a large degree.

Changing the design of the enemies does

significantly so. The grunts in Bungie's

Halo always had bright or at minimum

reflective armor. Their pacifier-like

methane masks had a small blue glow as a

contrast to their orange or red armor.

Even the plasma pistols, needlers, or

fuel rods had a light glow to them as to

effortlessly inform the player on where

they are and what weapon they are using.

If a grunt is facing directly towards

the player, their gray head is

silhouetted by their armor. If looking

at a side profile, their head is still

visibly protruding. Grunts, like the

rest of the FOD enemies, are easiest

when taken out using a single shot of a

precision weapon, such as the battle

rifle, Magnum, or DMR. Though their

armor is bright and cartoonish, they

serve to deliver vital information and

were purpose-built to be in a game. They

were designed to avoid subtlety. The

most useful data we got from our play

test was a list of things to avoid.

At the top of this list is subtlety.

If it's not totally obvious, it's too

subtle. Even if you make something as

obvious as you can possibly make it,

most of the people will miss it the

first three times they see it. For

example, uh in Halo, the grunts run away

when the elite is killed.

Initially, nobody in our play tests

noticed this, so we had to keep adding

clues to make it more obvious. By the

time we ship the game, we had made it so

not only does every single grunt run

away every single time an elite is

killed, they have an outrageously

exaggerated panic run where they wave

their hands above their head.

They scream in terror and half the time

one of them will say, "Leader dead, run

away."

I would estimate that less than a third

of our users made the connection.

>> The grunts were redesigned in Halo 4 to

the detriment of the gameplay. Gone were

their reflective and bright armor

elements. They were given helmets which

made their weak points even less

perceptible, and they no longer spoke

English, greatly detracting from their

silliness, leaving the player to

decipher their actions dependent on the

panic in their squeals.

Nearly every design in Halo 4 was made

more complex. The Covenant across the

board were given leathery skin. The

elites redesigned entirely from their

proportions to the armor they wore.

There was a reduction of the black under

layer they were once fully equipped

with. Their once sleek appearance was

exchanged for a monstrous brutish look.

Because of the way they now arched over,

and due to their skin being exposed, the

elites now look like large jackals from

far away. Their rank distinction no

longer relies on bright, distinguished

colors. Outside of the gold elite

warrior, the elites blended into one

another. This is 343 altering a

template, making an existing enemy type

worse, but not frustrating to face. That

is reserved for the new enemy faction.

>> Cortana.

>> I'm picking up unknown energy

signatures.

>> Where?

>> This can't be right.

>> The Prometheians. These were the new

faction that the player was facing off

against. Due to their blue and orange

glow, they stick out much better on the

battlefield. But their design,

particularly the knights, in which there

are four variants of, are terrible at

communicating what they do. At a glance,

the Prometheian Knights look identical

to each other. Many players will not

even realize that they were facing off

against different variants of the same

enemies. Bungie color-coded their

enemies on top of maintaining a theme of