Halo Q&A--Past, Present, Future

By Staff, GameSpotPosted Nov 17, 2006 7:46 pm PT

We talk to various members of Bungie about their experiences working on previous Halo games and the future of the series.

Amid all of the Gears of War, PlayStation 3, and Wii madness this week, a notable date may have missed your notice. November 15 marked the five-year anniversary of the original Halo release. The game hit streets in 2001 alongside the release of the original Xbox and quickly became the system's crown jewel. Developed by Seattle-based Bungie, the first-person shooter left an indelible mark on the FPS genre for consoles with its engaging mix of excellent gameplay and a truly involving story that drew players along.

Five Years of Halo

We celebrate the fifth anniversary of Bungie's futuristic shooter.

Two years later, Halo 2 made an equally significant splash for the franchise with its wicked multiplayer experience that retained the gameplay fans quickly grew to love. It was also beefed up with fantastic player matching and stat tracking. The years that have followed have seen a highly anticipated sequel show itself on the horizon for the Xbox 360, as well as an equally intriguing real-time strategy offering, Halo Wars.

Though Bungie is notoriously mum on both projects, we thought we'd be sneaky and hit the developer up for a look back at the Halo franchise's past, present, and future with the hope that someone from the team might answer the Q&A drunk and spill some information. We pinned our hopes on potential loose cannons, community lead Brian Jarrard, Bungie writer Frank O’Connor, and Sandbox design lead Jaime Griesemer, hoping that at least one of them would slip up.

GameSpot: What can we expect from the expanded Halo universe in the future? How will Halo Wars, the novels, and other properties advance the overall Halo fiction?

Frank O'Connor: It's safe to say that the new additions to the Halo universe will expand it in different directions. The core Halo story, the tale told at the heart of our trilogy, will remain hermetically sealed from the other fiction, with only the occasional cross-reference, but plenty of guest appearances by Halo characters, locations, and hardware. It's a big place to explore, and frankly, players have a lot of questions about the outlying regions of the fiction--hence, the success of the Halo novels and the Marvel graphic novel. We have some pretty cool surprises coming up in those areas, and the reason they're kind of few and far between is that we always endeavor to make sure everything is tightly cohesive and true to the Halo feel.

GS: How much of that exposition are you taking into account for Halo 3?

FO: Halo 3 should be completely understandable by anyone who's played Halo 2. And if they haven't, there's plenty of context and background for the events that take place in it. That said--and without going into too much detail--events from Halo 3 may influence other fictional projects. Who can say?

GS: Can you give us a status update on the production and financing of the Halo movie?

Brian Jarrard: As was previously announced, the Halo movie is on hold at the moment, following the dissolution of our partnership with Universal and Fox. We don't have anything new to report on that front right now.

GS: Part of the Master Chief's mystique is that you never see his face, but we're pretty sure most of Hollywood's leading men wouldn't enjoy spending an entire movie behind a mask. Will the Chief break with tradition in the film and finally take off the helmet?

BJ: Considering that the movie doesn't actually exist at the moment, thus, there's no final script in development, it's hard to say. We agree, though, that the mystery of Master Chief's face is a big part of the Halo experience, and it's something we would want to be very careful with.

GS: With Halo, you've succeeded in creating a unique sci-fi setting and storyline in a rather overcrowded genre. What were the inspirations for the game's mythology?

There's no danger of Hollywood showing us the face behind that visor anytime soon.

Jaime Griesemer: That's tough. Halo was created by a group of people, all with their own personal flavors and influences, so the end product is the result of all of those influences bouncing around and ricocheting off everything else. If I had to pick a handful of the more obvious ones, though, the Culture books by Iain Banks had a lot of influence on the technological and historical parts of the universe. The Vang by Christopher Rowley was a big inspiration for the flood, and Armor by John Steakley and the original Starship Troopersby Heinlein (not the movie version) gave us lots of good ideas for the Mjolnir armor. For movies, obviously there is a big Aliens influence, but the Bungie team has a very wide range of interests, so everything from old-school Westerns to 1950s sci-fi to obscure Japanese cult horror movies and the latest Michael Bay flick is fair game.

One of the most unexpected influences I can cite is Bungie itself. Fully half of the team that worked on Halo were Bungie fans before they became Bungie employees. So this "second generation" would constantly use previous Bungie games, like Marathon and Myth, as inspiration for their contributions to Halo. Cortana's temptation when confronted with the incredible power of Halo's network, for instance, is very similar to what happened to Durandal, the artificial intelligence from Marathon. So I guess, we were our own biggest influence. (laughs)

GS: What did it take to create Halo's superb AI, which made the game's firefights so intense?

JG: One thing I think Bungie does exceptionally well is integrate all the different disciplines that you need to make a game. A great example of that collaboration is how the designers and AI programmers worked together on the Halo AI. We were able to iterate so quickly because we were sitting right next to each other, working on the same things in a very organic way. Chris Butcher (the AI programmer on Halo 1) and I did a talk at the Game Developers Conference that went into a lot of depth about how the AI technically works. I'm sure you can find it on the Internet somewhere, but the secret to why it works so well lies in that collaborative process.

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239 Comments

  • linkyshinks

    Posted Sep 17, 2007 11:05 am PT

    God the ending is unbelievable derivative crap, how many times have we seen this bull plop before, I expected so much more http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_vW6RHy8FM&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecubed3%2Ecom%2Ftopic%2F25375%2F1

  • LasPlagasHope

    Posted Aug 26, 2007 9:54 pm PT

    I like halo 1 the best! I hope Halo 3 makes up for Halo 2's ok campaign!

  • aringarosa101

    Posted Jul 25, 2007 3:29 pm PT

    halo 3 looks absolutely phenomenal.
    please, guys. seriously.
    stop arguing.
    it's a GAME. er, GAME SYSTEM! seriously. it's about taste.
    i personally like the 360 better for it's controllers. i find the ps controllers uncomfortable, and difficult to use, and i view the motion sensing gimmick as just that- a gimmick. but that's taste. the holocaust started because of one's man's taste.
    seriously. coexist.
    i know i try.

  • adriancostin83

    Posted Jul 14, 2007 1:16 pm PT

    yeah!!!! i can't wait for this game!!!!!!!!!!

  • russianlegion3

    Posted Jul 9, 2007 1:36 pm PT

    Halo 3 is gonna kick some ass! bungie wont screw anything up in this

  • Jatt_Warrior

    Posted Jul 9, 2007 11:28 am PT

    halo 3 all da way bah!

  • xtreme_chief

    Posted Jul 9, 2007 12:10 am PT

    I plan to get my XBOX 360 just so I can get this game and Gears of War. I don't doubt HALO3 will be great. What BUNGIE promises BUNGIE delivers.

  • Premier-Zenith

    Posted Jul 6, 2007 7:58 pm PT

    I would have to agree with you people.. the PS3 has a lot of games that seem the same and they feel as though there was not much time put in to them. The game selection with the PS3 is extremely poor and the system sales reflect that [ (1) Nintendo Wii (2) Microsoft Xbox 360 (3) Sony Playstation 3 ]. Many of the Playstation games have weak plots making it hard to connect with the games. The only game series that the PS3 has is Metal Gear Solid which is an excellent game series if you absolutely love tactical/ strategic shooters.

  • dentui

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 1:37 am PT

    spencer62 lets see xbox 360 has xboxlive marketplace the ps3 tried to copy it and trust me its NO WHERE near as good. by the way the PS3 has all that but they lack something thats very important. thats games. and for 2percentmilk. did you know that the beta was a smokescreen. dont know what that means well its a cover up so the fans have something to do while bungie works on the real thing.

  • stofio

    Posted Jun 13, 2007 10:50 am PT

    that's a good question spencer626, lets think, what does the 360 have over PS3? Oh thats right! GAMES. case and point halo, xbox wins playstation loses (p.s. ps3 has lost all but mgs4 in exclusive rights)

  • Spencer626

    Posted Jun 11, 2007 6:36 am PT

    Look at this.....
    4 years of x box live costs $200.
    The PS3 gets it for free.
    The PS3 has a wi-fi connection built in.
    The 360 owners have to spend another $100 there.
    The controllers cost $10 more for the 360.
    The PS3 has a way bigger hard drive, 360 owners need to put at least $100 in to that.
    Plus the better graphics, the fact that the PS3 can play blue-rays, and has a motion-sensitve controller. X-BOX 360- $800......... PS3- $600
    What exactly does the 360 have now?

  • No-Go-Zone

    Posted Jun 9, 2007 3:30 am PT

    im looking at this (ps3 owner) and i think why cant all games say things like We where the number 1 hit seller, we still have 700,000 payers online ATLEAST.... everyday. This is only the beggining to the age of 2nd gen gameing.... imagine 3rd gen

  • Jerak_Darkblade

    Posted May 14, 2007 2:31 pm PT

    It's because they have to work out the gameplay kinks before they put the shiny-ness on it. and also it's Alpha Footage, which is dumbed down from Beta and final cut, so it will look better. Personally, I wouldn't mind having a game that looks like H2 if the gameplay was awesome

  • zedjay

    Posted Apr 26, 2007 12:38 pm PT

    2percent does have a point there. i saw that vid.

  • deroy_elendil

    Posted Apr 19, 2007 3:55 am PT

    I hope they just have to polish up on it, otherwise i would have lost part of the enthusiasm i have been craving for this game. PLEASE bungie dont mess up again

  • 2percentmilk

    Posted Apr 19, 2007 1:30 am PT

    Hey gamespot, did you guys ask why Halo 3 doesn't look as good as it was hyped to be? In the initial H3 video, there was about ten of the bungie guys saying "IT WILL LOOK THIS GOOD". Check out the multi-player video released and it looks no where as good as the obviously CG video.

  • Balboski69

    Posted Apr 15, 2007 4:40 am PT

    you just mad casue you cant afford a 360

  • AvtoC

    Posted Apr 12, 2007 11:14 am PT

    what does HALO stand for?

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