Halo 2 Anniversary on Xbox One would need "fantastic" multiplayer, says Microsoft

Rumours about the existence of a Halo 2 Anniversary edition refuse to go away. The game is said to be coming out for Xbox One later this year, and now Microsoft exec Phil Spencer has spoken about what he thinks the most important feature of the game--if it exists--would have to be: multiplayer.

"In this fictitious world where that game existed," said Spencer in an interview with IGN, "it’s an easy answer: it has to be just the multiplayer experience that we all found in that first Halo 2 game."

Halo 2 launched in 2004 and, due to its beloved multiplayer mode, became the poster boy for Microsoft's fledgling Xbox Live service. The multiplayer mode featured map playlists, peer-to-peer matchmaking, and a ranking system, which were all seen as pretty revolutionary at the time.

"If you think about what happened in the franchise," continued Spencer, "and what were the hallmark moments--when did duel wielding come in, when did another playable character that wasn’t Master Chief come in?"

"All the things that you and I know about the evolution of the franchise, if you’re going to say one thing about Halo 2, you’re going to talk about real multiplayer. I think you just have to nail that in just such a fundamentally core way. Frankly [we'd have to do it] probably better than we did with Halo 1 Anniversary."

"I thought the multiplayer in Halo 1 Anniversary was good, but Halo 1 never had multiplayer in the truest sense, so it always was going to be something different."

"If there were something called Halo 2 Anniversary," says Spencer, "I think the multiplayer would have to be fantastic."

Microsoft has told GameSpot that it will publish a new Halo game this year. But will it be Halo 2 Anniversary?