14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft still doesn't want to confirm that Halo 2 Anniversary is coming this year but one of its executives, Phil Spencer, did say that, in a world where such a title is coming, it would need to have a fantastic multiplayer in order to live up to the legacy.
Microsoft's Halo franchise celebrated 10 years since the original game came out with a special HD remaster called Halo Anniversary for the Xbox 360. This year, when Halo 2 turns 10, lots of fans are awaiting a Halo 2 Anniversary edition, possibly for the Xbox One, especially according to recent reports.
Microsoft, on the other hand, is playing coy and has yet to confirm anything about the future of the Halo series.
However, while talking with IGN, Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft Game Studios, has revealed that a solid multiplayer would certainly need to be a major feature for a possible Halo 2 Anniversary.
According to Spencer, the multiplayer in Halo 2 was such an iconic experience that a remake would need to give special care to it.
"In this fictitious world where that game existed," he began, "it’s an easy answer: it has to be just the multiplayer experience that we all found in that first Halo 2 game. If you think about what happened in the franchise and what were the hallmark moments – when did duel wielding come in, when did another playable character that wasn’t Master Chief come in?"
Spencer also mentioned that a much better effort than Halo 1 Anniversary would be needed, so players should expect something big if a Halo 2 remake ever happened.
"All the things that you and I know about the evolution of the franchise, if you’re going to say one thing about Halo 2, you’re going to talk about real multiplayer. I think you just have to nail that in just such a fundamentally core way," he added.
"Frankly [if we'd have to do it] probably better than we did with Halo 1 Anniversary. I thought the multiplayer in Halo 1 Anniversary was good, but Halo 1 never had multiplayer in the truest sense, so it always was going to be something different. If there were something called Halo 2 Anniversary, I think the multiplayer would have to be fantastic."
While this is once again not a confirmation of Halo 2 Anniversary, you can bet that Microsoft is hinting at massive multiplayer improvements for the upcoming shooter remake.