Man, the people at Bungie really know how to tease us gamers. A few days ago, they launched yet another of their brain bending teaser series which set to culminate later today in an announcement which most of us hope will be related to the next Halo game.

It all started way back on September 19, when the Bungie site posted a transmission from a space ship called “Tokyo Rules” which was trying to contact an AI called Superintendent. The transmission only managed to elicit non-responses from the AI and the captain of the ship decided to send a team to investigate. The Office of Naval Intelligence transmission never mentioned a Halo or Master Chief and everybody just assumed that it was related to the universe of the Halo franchise.

A second transmission posted later details the fact that the strike team sent earlier to investigate the situation related to Superintendent seems trapped and requesting assistance from a cruiser called “Say My Name”, that is also under attack. The situation seems to be pretty grim and a timer has recently been added to the front page of the Bungie site, probably pointing to an announcement which will appear in about five hours from now. In a nice twist, tomorrow is the first year anniversary of the launch of Halo 3.

At the moment, all signs point to the fact that Bungie is at least unveiling the squad based shooter that it was rumored to be developing since earlier in the year, with the main characters being members of a Space Marine shock strike team. The game was apparently due to be announced at this year's E3 during Microsoft's press conference, but at the last moment, the plug was pulled and Bungie was forced to delay its big presentation. Check their site in five hours to see what they plan to do with the Halo universe in the future.