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Gamers Treated to 'Halo 3 Epsilon!'

So, should we expect Bungie to show off the game's Zeta, Eta and Theta phases by September 25th?

Aug 11, 2007 12:39 GMT  ·  By
A screenshot of the game's main guy, Master Cihef. Behind him - other playable characters within the game
   A screenshot of the game's main guy, Master Cihef. Behind him - other playable characters within the game

The title isn't wrong dear reader: Xbox 360 gamers are currently playing the Epsilon development phase of Halo 3. Games go through all sorts of stages during development and Epsilon is one of them. Why developers decide to jump from Beta to Epsilon or other letters in the Greek alphabet, is indeed a mystery. Are those stages in between not worth mentioning? Are they skipped? The news comes via TeamXbox.com which thoughtfully report the following:

"Today, several Xbox Live users have seen people on their Friends List playing "Halo 3 Epsilon." For those who don't know, Epsilon is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, and just like alpha and beta are used to designate applications that are early in development, Epsilon is used for code that is close to its final build."

Between Alpha and Epsilon, there are the Greek letters Beta, Gamma and Delta. It's not uncommon hearing that a bunch of lucky gamers were allowed to see a certain game's Alpha status, and especially a game's Beta stage. But from there on, things tend to sound a little overstretched. We get that developers had to use some term to define a game's development phases, but Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta... Epsilon...?

The reporting site also mentions that they've "noticed some Xbox Live users were playing 'Campaign on Normal,' while most of those playing 'Halo 3 Epsilon' were playing multiplayer or watching a Saved Film."

So I guess if Halo 3 gets delayed for... I don't know, refinement reasons, does that mean that Bungie will be taking it to its Zeta, Eta and Theta phases? Kind of ridiculous don't you think? It's only a video game for Christ's sake, a good one at that, but just a video game. Of course, Bungie could also decide to just use the letters that sound nice, such as Kappa, Sigma and the last letter in the Greek alphabet, Omega.

Eh, who cares, Halo 3 is getting closer and closer to completion by the passing of each day. Whatever Greek letters the game's development phases are being assigned, one thing is for sure: Bungie is delivering the world's most anticipated single player and online first-person shooter on the 25th of September, this year, for the Xbox 360 console from Microsoft.