14 DAY TRIAL // A Bungie executive has suggested that fans of the Halo series might at some point get to play a MMO or another kind of persistent world based around the game universe, just as the development team itself is preparing to create a new world for its next game project..
Answering a question about game worlds at the GDC Online 2010 conference in Texas, Jon Staten, who is the creative director at Bungie, has said, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could make a world that was always there for you? Wow. That would be great.”
The remark seemed to be aimed at the past that Bungie has with the Halo franchise rather than at their future plans, which for the next ten years will be linked to a new intellectual property and to publisher Activision Blizzard.
Comments made by representatives of the publisher when the collaboration was announced suggest that multiplayer, though not a MMO, would be one of the main elements of the new Bungie made video game.
Staten also said, “Writing enduring original IP, creating a universe of stories is one of the most challenging things you'll ever do as a writer, but it's also the most rewarding,” adding, “Halo wasn't perfect by any stretch, but laser-like focus on this one game... like it'd be the only game we'd ever make.”
In the last few years the boundaries between a complex and well developed multiplayer mode have been muddled.
Players who are interested in the competitive multiplayer of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 spend the roughly the same amount of time playing as those who are interested in the World of Warcraft MMO.
And, more importantly, developers like Infinity Ward and Bungie have created game mechanics that allow players to feel like they are evolving and developing new abilities, even if the complexity is nowhere near that of a full fledged MMO.