Year: 2006

There’s an embarassment of riches in Halo-related news out of X06: Kotaku: Jackson Working On New Halo Game Kotaku: Halo RTS Announced Joystiq: X06 Live Blog Major Nelson: X06 Live Blog Gamasutra: New Halo Releases, Partnerships GameSpot: Wingnut Unscrewing New Halo Franchise GamesAreFun: Bungie and Ensemble team up for Halo Wars (360) RTS Xbox.com: Microsoft…

Xbox.com has put up an item on the Halo Wars announcement; there’s one particularly interesting tidbit there that places the game at the beginning of the human-Covenant conflict: “Halo Wars” places the player in command of human UNSC armies as they deploy for mankind’s first deadly encounter with the enemy Covenant forces. Given that the…

Since real Bungie fans don’t trust a word that is said about the Halo franchise, or indeed any Bungie game, unless it comes straight from Bungie, KP has now posted at Bungie.net to give the official imprimatur to the heretofore scurrilous rumors spread in Spain by Peter Moore and Peter Jackson. To wit: Ensemble Studios…

Major Nelson did a backstage interview with Peter Moore before the press event. Despite the latter’s predilection for annoying golf claps punctuating his presentation, he does redeem himself with his good taste in beer, mentioning that Bass ale is one of his green room requirements. A link to the video interview can be found here:…

The press event saved the best for last, in an almost Steve Jobsian “just one more thing” sort of way, with a trailer for Ensemble Studios’ upcoming Xbox 360 title, Halo Wars. It features a battle between Human and Covenant forces, as well as Spartans other than the Master Chief. The latter, of course, has…

Peter Jackson has just been on stage with Peter Moore to announce the formation of Wingnut Interactive. I really believe that there is a new form of entertainment that is not a film and is not a game. I am not a game designer. But what I am really interested in is in the idea…

Halo still hasn’t gotten more than a token mention in the press event so far, except for Moore’s statement that fans should expect something new related to Halo 3 “before the end of the year”.

Those of you who thought that behind the closure of the Halogen project, a three-year-long attempt to make an unofficial mod for Command & Conquer Generals, lay a more sinister purpose, your suspicions have been confirmed. Ensemble Studios, creators of Microsoft’s real-time strategy series Age of Empires, has announced Halo Wars, a real-time strategy game…

1Up is reporting that Peter Jackson and Microsoft are forming a new games studio, Wingnut Interactive. The announcement cites Jackson’s involvement in Halo 3 and a future Microsoft title. UPDATE: 1Up has added some details to this item, fleshing out Jackson’s involvement. It no longer mentions Halo 3 specifically, but does say: But perhaps more…

Getting at the live video stream provided by the UK Xbox site seems to be a bit problematic, so here is an akamai cache link: mms://a1369.l2074835666.c20748.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/1369/20748/v0001/reflector:48948?wmcache=0 Nothing Bungie or Halo related so far. As Louis Wu pointed out at HBO there is also a live blog of the event at 1UP: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3154042