14 DAY TRIAL // Halo: Reach, the SPARTAN powered videogames which is set to be one of the biggest launched of the fall, is a prequel, showing fans of the series how the universe of the franchise was shaped by the titanic struggle between the United Nations Space Command and the alien Covenant over the planet of Reach. But the people working on the title at Bungie at one time though about exploring the future rather than the past, exploring the idea of a Halo 4.
Talking to MTV Multiplayer, Brian Jarrard, who is the community manager for developer Bungie, said, “Even before the idea to build a game based around Reach came about, a lot of other concepts were explored, up to and including a proper 'Halo 4,' where Master Chief was going to wake up from cryo-sleep and we were going to tell that story.” The Halo 3 ending was pretty ambiguous, with the main character floating in space after his frigate was destroyed, choosing to go into a cryostasis in order to survive for as long as possible.
Halo: Reach is Bungie's last game on the universe of Master Chief and the developers are saying that they aim to answer quite a lot of questions that the fans have been asking. Jarrard stated, “We don't want to open up a whole bunch of doors that we're not going to close.”
Bungie has already announced that it has signed an exclusive deal for the next ten years with publisher Activision linked to a new intellectual property. The developers are not saying whether they are again working on a shooter or whether they plan to change genres for the new game universe that is being created.
Halo: Reach is set to be launched exclusively on the Xbox 360 home console from Microsoft on September 14. A second beta stage for the game might be offered in late August, for those who own the key included in Halo 3: ODST.