E3 2002: Halo online plans

At its pre-E3 press conference this evening, Microsoft revealed that an online version of Halo is in the works. Jason Jones, lead designer at Bungie, was one of a number of developers to speak on the potential of 2866617Xbox Live . He mentioned that with the service, it would be possible to "build the part of Halo that Bungie wanted to do." With these comments, we are reminded of the original multiplayer plans that Bungie had discussed for Halo.

After Microsoft acquired Bungie in 2000, the game's focus became the single-player experience. However, back when the game was slated as a PC first-person shooter, Bungie had ambitious plans to develop cooperative team-based multiplayer for Halo. At this early stage, Halo's multiplayer was to feature combat between Terran and Covenant forces on a massive scale, and players would be rewarded for taking specialized roles, such as driving and flying vehicles for teammates. The Halo world itself was envisioned as an enormous world that would allow seamless transitions between environments.

This online version of Halo will not be one of the games to ship at Xbox Live's launch this fall, and Microsoft has not yet discussed specifics on the first-party Xbox Live games. We'll have details on the Halo online game as they become available.