So some Internet treasure hunter unearthed shaky proof that Bungie is working on a game called Halo: Reach.
Right now, it’s purely conjecture. After all, Bungie has said that Halo 3: ODST will be the last Halo game, but if there is anything that George Lucas has taught us it’s that there is no such thing as a dead horse. Case in point: old school Star Wars fans facepalm over this new…thing…masquerading as Star Wars (the Clone Wars animated series), but eight-year-olds the world over are eating it up. The core base of a franchise might get burned out from over-saturation and relentless marketing, but there will always be a new fan base. In other words, Halo 3: ODST is far from the final Halo game.
So if Halo: Reach is to see the light of day, what kind of game could it be? I’m rooting for something similar to ODST, a game in which the Master Chief is not the main character. Don’t get me wrong: I love this character, and find him much more iconic and interesting than Gordon “Determind Silence” Freeman, but his story has been told. True, the original Halo trilogy only told of his involvement in the later stages of the Human-Covenant War, but the novel The Fall of Reach (really good by the way; give it a read) told his entire origin, detailing every major event in his life up until that fateful moment when the Pillar of Autumn exits slipspace right in front of Installation 04.
I would find Halo: Reach a far more interesting game if it told the story of what happened on the ground in the Battle of Reach. This would be a perfect set-up for a squad-based shooter where you play as a UNSC Marine. Imagine Call of Duty 4 set in the Halo universe and you’ve got an idea of what I am speaking.
No matter what Bungie does, I’m sure it will be pretty cool. The Halo trilogy was very well executed, even if the developers did work largely under the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality.
