Microsoft has announced a live-action Halo TV series in conjunction with film great Steven Spielberg that will air exclusively on Xbox Live. Spielberg will work with developer 343 Industries on the series.
At one point, Halo looked on the fast-track for a big-budget Hollywood adaptation. Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium) was attached to direct, but the project was ultimately scuttled due to profit disputes. Blomkamp is still interested in the world, though, and says he would do if it he could have creative control.
Read more: 'My own interpretation versus 150 other people involved' »
Microsoft and 343 Industries have christened this "Halo Week: Drop Shock," bringing a steady stream of new content and special deals for Halo 4. It all started with the Castle Map Pack that launched yesterday, but the companies have special challenges and discounts in store too.
Halo 4 could have had a stasis gun. Or a "grapple harpoon." But these weapons were taken out in an effort to make the game more accessible and less sci-fi.
Franchise creative director Josh Holmes told GDC audiences that "when we started out, I was really pushing the team to go in a very sci-fi direction. I wanted to embrace the sci-fi nature of the enemies and explore concepts that were outside the box for Halo, things that you'd never seen before in the Halo sandbox."
At a PAX East panel, 343 Industries announced that Halo 4 is getting a "Forge Island" map. The name itself is a nod to the "Forge World" in Reach. The map will be available on April 11 for free, letting Forgers tinker with a series of large open spaces.
Read more: Skill ranking system, new title update on the way »
Halo 4's next set of maps is coming in just under a month, on April 8. The maps were developed by Certain Affinity, makers of the game's Forge Mode, and include three maps with a focus on team objectives and vehicular combat.
Good grief, you got a whole new Halo only three months ago, not to mention a DLC map pack a month later, yet you already want more? Luckily Microsoft and 343 Industries have anticipated your shameless greed and today announced the second Halo 4 DLC pack, named Majestic, will hit on February 25 with more maps and a new mode.
Halo 4's Spartan Ops season is heading towards a climax, with only three episodes left. A newly released trailer promoting next week's episode 8 shows just how dire the situation is getting as we approach the finale.
"Wake up, Chief!"
Halo 4 marks Master Chief's triumphant return, bringing him out of a long slumber in a post-Bungie world. Not only does 343 succeed in taking over such a beloved franchise, they add depth to the series. Case in point: the story transforms Chief from the emotionless soldier we first met back in Combat Evolved, without compromising any of the qualities that make him such a badass character to begin with.
343 Industries has treated Halo 4's "Spartan Ops" like a television show, right down to a mid-season hiatus. They've been rerunning episodes in the off-time to give new players a chance to catch up. That break ends next week, though, which will begin a new set of five episodes to finish out the first season. Episode 6 will provide you with more co-op action on January 21.
Halo 4 franchise director Frank O'Connor has taken a postmortem-style look back at the game, concluding that 343 Industries first effort in filling the big shoes of departed developer Bungie "wasn't half bad," and helped the studio learn a few things for future iterations of the series.
Halo 4 is the beginning of the franchise's second trilogy, so it's not surprising that developer 343 Industries has already begun work on the sequel.
"Work on the game started actually before we launched Halo 4 and continues apace as we cycle staff through the team's vacation breaks," development director Frank O'Connor said. "A lot of people at 343 are already prototyping ideas and software and art for future Halo products."
"I'm not optimistic. I think it will be a tough sell for Spielberg bring in top talent (directors ..."
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