We first heard about a new Halo game at Microsoft’s E3 2013 press conference. Though, at the time, Microsoft wouldn’t say whether it was Halo 5 – the second chapter to the Reclaimer trilogy that started with 2012’s Halo 4 – or an addition to the franchise like ODST.
The only clue we had was an ambiguous interview, in which corporate vice president Phil Spencer said that it was the “next game we’re working on.” Since then, President of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, Don Mattrick, has referred to the project as Halo 5 in interviews.
FYI: A saga is more than 3
According to GameSpot, an unnamed Microsoft representative now has confirmed this about Halo 5:
“While we originally said trilogy, we’ve actually expanded this to more of a saga, so we don’t want to limit the Reclaimer story within a trilogy.“
Instead of being the second game of three in the Reclaimer story, this will be the second game of four, or more, titles. While this might seem like a cop-out, like Microsoft is tacking on extra games for profit, this shows some great promise. If you pay attention to the movies, you’ll know that Peter Jackson made a similar decision to expand The Hobbit in a full trilogy of films, up from two films. 343 Industries, the creators of Halo 4 and now Halo 5, are essentially doing the same thing.
The trilogy is being expanded into a longer format in order to cram in as much content and story as possible. As a big lore-nut who values story over gameplay – this means good things to me. But, if you dislike what Jackson did expanding the Hobbit, you might dislike 343’s move for expanding the Halo Reclaimer trilogy into the Reclaimer saga.
A “legitimate version of Halo”
Spencer, the corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, also made the following remark about Bonnie Ross’s presence at E3, which is a promising commitment to the integrity of the Halo franchise:
“Having [producer Bonnie Ross] come out and announce the game, making sure people know it’s a legitimate version of Halo coming out, and when it’s coming out, and features that they’re focused on we thought was…important.” – Phil Spencer
We don’t know much about the story, but we have some clues from the trailer. The E3 CGI trailer of Halo 5 showed a robed figure, with gorgeous cloth animation, walking through a desert, getting all sandy. As a giant alien structure/ship/creature comes out of the ground, the robed figure is revealed to be Master Chief. At the conference, this reveal was a big, and very welcome, surprise and really was one hell of a tease.
We know Halo 5 will run at a glorious full 60 frames-per-second, release sometime in 2014, and will (naturally) be an Xbox One exclusive. As for the story? We’ll just have to wait till 2014 to find out how exactly this saga actually plays out.
