What’s Halo? Most people would probably tell you it’s a sci-fi FPS, which – depending on who’s telling you – might be prefixed with “awesome”, “crap”, or anything else in between. But if you ask Microsoft, they’ll tell you it’s, simply enough, “playing Master Chief”.
“The key question for me in managing the studio and the creatives is ‘what is Halo?’, making sure Halo lives up to what I think gamers fell in love with [playing Combat Evolved],” Microsoft Game Studios chief Phil Spencer tells OXM.
“What does that mean? Playing Master Chief,” he said. “We kind of lost our way a little bit, I’ll say. And that’s why I wanted to make sure that at the unveiling of Halo 4, you knew you were playing Master Chief, that John was back. Because Master Chief is the John Wayne character of that universe, and that’s who you want to play.”
So that’s 343 Industries’ prime directive with Halo 4.
“We really spent time thinking about the story arc that we want to tell, in the world, to get back to Master Chief,” Spencer commented. “Make it simple – it’s not Halo-anything, it’s Halo 4. You’re not going to be confused about what it is. Halo 4, playing as Master Chief, beginning of a new trilogy.
“If you were a Halo fan for Halo 1, 2 and 3, Reach made sense to you, but fundamentally there are a ton of players on our box right now that didn’t start with Halo 1. What we said was: ‘let’s get back to what Halo is about’.”
Halo 4 is expected sometime next year, although no date has been confirmed yet. In the meantime, however, the Halo: Combat Evolved remake is due to drop in September, to get you in the mood.
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