14 DAY TRIAL // 343 Industries confirms that it's added quite a lot of references to Halo 5 in the new bookend cinematics and terminal videos for Halo 2, which is a part of the upcoming Halo: The Master Chief Collection for the Xbox One.
The Halo franchise has been around for quite some time, and ever since Halo 4 on the Xbox 360, the series has been led by 343 Industries, which took over from Bungie, all under the Microsoft corporate umbrella.
Before rolling out its all-new Halo 5: Guardians next year, 343 has worked hard and come up with Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which includes Halo 1, 2, 3, and 4, all remastered in high-definition for the Xbox One platform.
Besides just being updated to run on the new console, Halo 2 has also received the so-called Anniversary treatment, as 343 has completely overhauled the visuals, the gameplay, and allows players to jump from the old-school graphics to the new ones with the press of a button.
New story elements are present in Halo 2
What's more, besides these changes, 343 has also added fresh cinematics that tackle subjects relevant to Halo 5: Guardians. According to the studio's Dan Ayoub, who has talked with Kotaku, these will focus on new Halo 5 character Locke, as well as the Arbiter and others.
"We've added bookend cinematics that start to introduce some characters you're going to see in Halo 5 and kind of set up the story that way," he says. "The characters you're going to see in the cinematics won't appear in the gameplay of Halo 2."
"They're just setting up some guys you're gonna see in Halo 5. We're going to show the Arbiter. We're going to show [new Halo 5 character] Locke. Characters like that. You're going to see some old characters and some new ones."
New terminals also offer more info
What's more, just like in the old Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition that appeared on the Xbox 360, there will be hidden Terminals scattered across the game's level which also provide more insight into the game's storyline and what's going to happen in Halo 5.
Ayoub quickly points out that 343 has taken great care not to introduce holes into the plot of the franchise and not to disturb anything done by Bungie with Halo 2 ten years ago.
"We work closely with our teams to make sure we're not breaking any history or introducing any plot holes," he said. "In the case of the terminal videos, this time, we're going to be focusing on the history of the Arbiter. It's going to be him narrating, telling a bit of his story as it leads up to Halo 5."
Halo: The Master Chief Collection debuts in November on the Xbox One platform.
