Another Halo game coming from a third party developer

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With Halo 5: Guardians and Halo: The Master Chief Collection, you’d think there’s enough Halo in the pipeline (who am I kidding? there’s never enough Halo), but apparently that’s not the case, as revealed by a new career opportunity ad published by Microsoft for 343 Industries.

The ad seeks a Publishing Senior Producer that will take care of a “new project line” within theHalo universe, meaning that we might actually see more than one game coming from this. It also mentions working with a development partner and and internal and external teams, indicating that the project is probably going to be executed in collaboration with one or more external developers, even if we don’t know if they’ll be first or third party studios.

Of course the producer will be tasked with ensuring that “the game hits the quality expected of a title within the Halo Franchise,” but there’s no precise indication of the scope of the project. Considering that the ad is talking about a new project line, it’s probably something rather relevant, but we’ll have to wait for an official announcement in order to know more.

Maybe a new Halo Spin-off? Halo Wars 2 perhaps? Maybe a Halo horror game? Better yet, just give Master Chief a electric sword and call it Halo: Revenegance. :P

What about God of Halo: Ghost of Cortana? Halo needs more tie ins.

I'd love to see a Halo Wars 2 as I really enjoyed the first one but I'm thinking it'll be something more along the lines of Spartan Assault.

Yes please. Sony and Microsoft should go the DC vs Marvel routine when they go do tie-ins and have one whole character who transports the characters from their own respectively universe to others. I know it won't ever happen, but man, if video games reach that flexible that comics have reached. Video games would be changed forever.

Halo wars 2, easy! they've teased it for ages! and the original halo wars was made by ensemble not bungie! With the recent tease of halo wars in the new Phantom Dust trailer, I'd say we'll be seeing it next year e3! and I cant freaking wait!

Why not milk the franchise more Halo HD this year, Halo 5 next year, we got Spartan Assault last year and Halo 4 in 2012. TV Shows, movies, comic books, etc. Just milk the shit out of it

Halof Duty

Halo of Duty Creed 2016

We might need to start cramming Batman in there as well, the way things are going.

@Black_Knight_00: It's not an annual title

It will be

Not when Rocksteady is gone and there's only one studio left at WB

Halo Creed III; Master Chief Takes Guantanamo Bay.

Wait, isn't Arkham Knight made by Rocksteady?

yeah, but it's their last game in the series, after this game they're done with Batman

As this thread testifies, that hasn't stopped Halo (or Gears). If there's one thing this industry has in abundance are small broke studios waiting for a chance.

But WB only has one studio... and Rocksteady is done after this. Perhaps in the future but not now

Sure, as I said, it will be yearly if it keeps selling. In the future.

That i can agree with, but i think they will move on or even reboot it. They only have one studio after this. So i doubt it

RockSteady said that Arkham Knight will be their last Batman game and the last Arkham game. So the next batman game made will be a whole new series.

@behardy24: Last Arkham game from them, not in the series. That's up to WB

Not necessarily. If the series keeps selling the way it is, WB will buy the source code from Rocksteady (assuming they don't own the rights to it already) and outsource development to a third party. Again, look at what happened with Gears of War and Halo. The "they only have one developer" objection that has been moved is not really a thing, as it only takes a couple months to outfit a minor studio to work on a game.

@Black_Knight_00: But Gears won't be yearly

My point is that it's easy for a big publisher to fish out a third rate studio and outfit them to produce a sequel with existing assets.

True, but there aren't anyone as big as Epic out there free on the market atm

You do realize, other than Rocksteady that WB has 6 other studios?

Yeah but you don't need to be. Once the assets are there, making a new Gears is like making a DLC.

@Black_Knight_00:Nor if you're creating new enviroment new gameplay features, graphics, etc. It's easier to make an iteration, but it's not as easy as you make it sound. Believe me, i know how it is to code

@dotWithShoes: I think i got confused by the wrong topic :P. I meant Epic. But none of them are as big as Rocksteady though

Big how? Monolith Productions isn't exactly a 'minor' studio, neither is TT Games, nor is NetherRealm. How big exactly do you think Rocksteady is?

@dotWithShoes: No they're not, but isn't Rocksteady the biggest studio there?

They have 149 employees, which isn't small. Can't find info on the others, I would think NetherRealm would be just as big in size. I dunno though, way off topic this thread has gotten. On the original topic, I would LOVE to see a new Halo Wars for the Xbox One.

@dotWithShoes: alrighty

I still think Halo is getting milked as hell

I'm not saying it's a "Poof, done" sort of deal, but it's a very simplified process, hence why they can resort to cheaper, inexperienced studios to do it. They have to model the levels, a couple new monsters with their scripts (generally derived from existing ones) program some pathfinding and cutscenes with the voice acting and mo-cap data coming from the performance studios, bugfix and they're pretty much done. The rest of the assets (player models, most of the monsters, AI routines, weapons, optimized engine, netcode) are already there from the previous game. They don't scrap it and start over.

The business logic behind this is capitalizing on existing assets (investments) by using them as much as possible and hiring an inexpensive developer to put the pieces together and make more of the same, which is fine. I have no problem with studios trying to reuse their engine multiple times to recoup the development costs. The problem is when the creative teams can't come up with something original on the gameplay side.

Indeed it is, however I feel as long as they are quality games then milking is fine. Mario is a milk machine, but a majority of his games are quality. Halo, well, 1-3 were good. ODST was okay, Reach and 4, I'm indifferent towards. Halo Wars, I loved that game... except Arcadia City on Legendary.. makes me wanna punch small dogs. Though I did finish that level 4 times on legendary, with a promise to NEVER go back.

@dotWithShoes: I've tried getting into Halo, i just don't like it tbh.

@Black_Knight_00: But it's not always that easy, first they need to get the code, then re-iterate it. And lord knows people don't know copy paste games. It's not always that easy. I could have taken someones program that is simulating a dice and setting rules for it. When i take over i know what the program does by reading it. Then i get tasked that i am going to add another dice and set a whole new set of rules for probability and the game they are playing. You have to completely erase the previous ones with the bare minimum still appliying to both but also a set for both. It's not that hard as making something from scratch, but it's not that easy either.

Yeah but that's not what the guys who made Gears of War Judgment or Arkham Origins, or Assassin's Creed Brotherhood had to do, come on.

Those games are 85% recycled assets. Your dice example is fitting, but it represents adding a new 30% to a game, which is not what these studios are tasked to do.

Well since you had AC as an example. AC III was a big leap, they did a whole new engine and had to implement whole new code. That stuff is part of the development aswell

@Black_Knight_00: @The_Last_Ride: Batman: Arkham Knight is the end of the Arkham Trilogy. Refer to the video below:

Of course, the next Batman series will use the code and systems that Arkham did.

Well I don't know about Arkham Origins and it's been awhile since I've played AC Brotherhood, I'm pretty sure Gears of War Judgment isn't anywhere close to being 85% recycled assets.

Yes it was, and that's because it wasn't based on recycled assets: it was a new engine (hence the many bugs btw) and with a huge budget, unlike Brotherhood and Revelations which were in fact made of recycled assets.

The code was the same, the engine was different. So it wasn't that big of a leap. They still used the same code in that game