14 DAY TRIAL // Halo: Reach has been out now for more than one week and initial reports show impressive sales for the Bungie made and Microsoft published shooter that arrived exclusively on the Xbox 360. The big question now is where Halo goes once the love for Reach goes away.
I believe that Spartans, the Covenant, the dreaded Elites and Master Chief all need a long break after Reach, at least one full year where video games are not the main focus for new content linked to the franchise.
There are two reasons for giving Halo some time off, both linked to who will create video games based on the universe from now on.
Bungie is leaving the deal they had with Microsoft to create a whole new series, for the next ten years, working with the rivals at Activision Blizzard.
Microsoft has prepared for this by putting together a new entity, called 343 Industries, that headed by a former Bungie executive and has so far created the Xbox Live based Halo Waypoint.
And a Microsoft executive recently talked about how Halo coming out every three years, the schedule Bungie worked on, was too far apart for the company and for fans.
It seems that Microsoft is thinking about more persistent Halo products and about a tighter launch schedule for its yet unannounced projects.
It's unlikely that 343 Industries has the resources, mostly on the human side, to actually deliver Halo linked game on a yearly schedule and the Halo: ODST experiment shows that, to some degree, fans of the franchise are interested only in projects that feature Spartans and/or have a huge impact on the mythology of the series.
This basically means that Microsoft will have to get third party developers working on Halo, creating the yearly shooter installments that then someone like 343 Industries can then link into a more persistent project.
But the best way to begin the yearly launch schedule era of Halo would be to let it rest for a few years.
Allow the players to complete Reach and play multiplayer a bit, allow improved versions of the first two games to come to the Xbox 360 and then for fans to replay the whole trilogy again.