Franchise director Frank O'Connor says development on upcoming sci-fi shooter is finished, game now headed to Microsoft certification.
New Halo developer 343 Industries has completed its first original Halo game. Halo franchise director Frank O'Connor said today during a press event in London (attended by Videogamer) that development on Halo 4 has been completed ahead of the game's launch exclusively on Xbox 360 November 6.
"We had a big piece of news yesterday back in the office, which is that the game is literally finished at this point," he said. "They are handing it off through the various certification processes and that, and we're done. It's been three years of incredibly hard work by about 300 people."
At a North America press event two weeks ago, O'Connor said Halo 4 was 99 percent complete, adding that the team was cleaning out the game's remaining bugs.
Halo 4 is the first numbered entry in the series developed outside of Bungie Studios, which officially handed the franchise reigns to 343 Industries on March 31, 2012. It is a direct sequel to 2007's Halo 3, picking up four years after the events of that game.
At least two more core installments--Halo 5 and Halo 6--will follow as part of the new Reclaimer Trilogy. It is rumored that the next Halo game will arrive on a future Microsoft platform, as the company is openly hiring staffers to create next-generation visuals and infrastructure to "drive the future of Halo."
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
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@CivilizedPsycho Well probably get that one answered later on. But my first guess would probably be that "343 guilty spark" calls master chief "reclaimer".
Im trying to say that theres probably a reason for it.
I hope theres a good reason for it, or its going to bug me untill they give us some answers
Yeah, what's the issue about launching it earlier when it's already done? Why making us wait? Give it to us in two weeks.
@Trickymaster Its the stupid microsoft certification. Its a requirement since microsoft is involved. The same happens with all other games on xbox. (notably minecraft where the devs tweet when it goes into microsoft cert and it stays there for some weeks)
3 Like @Fetus_Crusher I would argue with you about how it isn't, but your username is too amazing.
1 Like I really hope that Mountain Dew will come out with a new flavor for Halo 4, Because I want me some game fuel for when I pull an all nighter of playing Halo 4. :)
2 Like @-KyoKi- Certification takes a long time, people don't understand how long post production takes. Certification is one of the reasons we get first day DLC from some companies, they finish the game then have 2 months of nothing to do so they work on DLC. Not that I am defending the practice, just giving it the reason (well, money, too).
@The_Dragon_Born Well, the first one was good, 2nd ok, 3rd good. I'm going to leave Reach out of this coming analogy. Star Trek Movies were even numbers good, odd numbers bad. Hopefully Halo doesn't reverse that and have all even number editions not be good.
2 Like I had so intended to not even give 343 a chance. Once Bungie was gone, I was one of those people that was like, "See ya" to the franchise.
... but, now... damnit... I'm excited.
@Hey_Jay Based on the story. And the cinematics we have seen so far it looks like they did a better job than bungie
So what the hell was the point in the article 2 or 3 days ago telling us the game is 99% complete? Waste your space with meaningful things.
"It's been three years of incredibly hard work by about 300 people." but bungie sold the rights to 343 in 2012...
@shadow_Metroid Bungie knew Reach was to be their last game. Maybe the ink wasn't on paper, but 343 was already tasked to take the helm of the franchise. Basically, everyone knew what was up -- it just wasn't official, yet.
@Hey_Jay Yeah, but they said it was already being made 3 years before bungie sold the rights. Idk I just never heard anything like that before.
1 Like Halo 4 has been in production ever since Halo 3 ODST was finished. Also, Mircosoft is the one that ownes the rights to Halo's IP ever since they bought Bungie. Now that Bungie broke off, Microsoft still retained the IP and handed it over the 343 Industry
1 Like Time to return as Master Chief fight off a new alien race and weapons. Heck no to future Xbox!!!! XO
3 Like The chief is back to dominate the FPS market once again GREAT job 343 ill be there on the 6th:)
Wow they finished developing the game more than a month before launch? It better be perfect then.
Go over the game with a fine tooth comb now that it is finished to find any bugs that made it through Quality Control. Nothing worse than having a bad bug on launch day.
1 Like That's good, maybe they'll have time to make servers that won't crash the first couple of days it's out.
4 Like I think its because they know how big the halo fan base is. They don't want to screw this up because it is their first full halo game that they have created. They have some pretty big shoes to fill after bungie handed them the torch.
@InFI_Chronos oh indubitably! 343 studios has it's work cut out for it. we'll soon see whether bungie was right to hand off halo to 343.
Of course it is. Bungie created the "Halo Engine" and carried most of the load this gen for 343's first solo game, Halo 4. It will be good, but it may be forgettable after a few months or not depending on 343.
2 Like @SolidTy You talk as if Bungie never created a failed Halo game. I bet Halo 4 will be more popular and for longer than Reach.
Reach was more than forgettable after a few months. It took a year for a title update, and the map packs were garbage.
@ChiefReaver Maybe that's so, but Bungie was a tried and tested developer we can look back on. 343 is completely new and this is their first solo effort. I can't assume their first solo game out of the gate is going to be amazing...we can only hope.
I look at other franchises that got new devs from Silent Hill to Castlevania to COD...it's hard to predict what can happen. I'm just saying it's possible this game will be merely good, and the followup, Halo 4 ODST or Halo 5 will end up being THE REAL 343 experience.
We'll also probably see headlines like :
"Halo 4 was our first game, we were still learning"
"Halo 5 is the definitive 343 experience, watch out"
"Everything we learned in Halo 4, we solved in Halo 5"
I've seen it too many times for too many franchises over the years.
Treyarch sucked with COD3 but now they are doing fine by COD9 : BO2. Sometimes devs just need time. Othertimes they step up right out of the gate. We'll see.
@x_hunter00 M$ already recently trademarked Halo 7, Halo 8, and Halo 9. It's not going anywhere, it's too profitable.
It's up to the new devs 343 to make it good though.
It's all good bro, it's for effect. I learned it a long time ago in college. In comments, sometimes people with short attention spans need a marker to read to, helps get to the next point. When people scroll, they also notice the words.
I think you already may know this, but if not there you go. This is completely off the subject and there is more to my answer I won't go into here though.
Usually people ask me things like this if they don't like my points. Still, better to talk about this than see ad hominems w/vitriol flying around.
@SolidTy Why is it that your comments always have certain words or phrases in all caps in ways that don't make sense
@x_hunter00 @COLDFIRE25 I'm not worried that Halo is going to stop. It's not.
I'm worried that this Halo may merely be good instead of great as this is a new developer making a game. COD3 was horrible, but Treyarch made COD5 : W@W, and while not wonderful it was better...gradually they got better. I am just impressing upon people not to get too HYPED up because the other HALO games were made by Bungie.
People see HALO 4 in giant letters, they think back to their HALO memories provided by Bungie, they run in and plunge $60+ or more and expect AAA rated universally at metacritic to be an amazing experience. I'm just saying, it may be good, but let's not get worked up into a frenzy without at least considering this is a new team.
@SolidTy @COLDFIRE25 "it's up to the new devs 343 to make it good though."
Well that's my point. People say that CoD was done back at CoD4 and its still going.
@COLDFIRE25 @x_hunter00 Actually, I'm well aware of the current plan to do a new trilogy...but you aren't up to date on the news :
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/09/14/halo-7-8-9-websites-purchased-by-microsoft
Halo 7, 8, 9 Websites Purchased by Microsoft It looks like Master Chief will be around for a while.
There's plans far beyond the current trilogy starting with Halo 4....of course, this all rides on 343s back, and they are as of yet untested.
Hey, at least you learned about the Halo 7,8,9 possible plans.
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