Halo E3 announcements

Two Halo titles have been announced already at this year's E3 (well, technically four, but I'll explain that more in a bit). First up is an HD version of the original Halo: Combat Evolved, which, at first, I was simply going to cast off as Microsoft trying to sucker people into buying the title from the Xbox Live marketplace again (since Halo: Combat Evolved has been available for download among a number of other titles from the original Xbox for quite some time now). As it turns out, however, this is a completely redone Halo, with updated graphics and an art style more reflective of Halo: Reach. Online multiplayer will be available, and based on some of the gameplay footage, it appears players may be able to customize their multiplayer SPARTANs much like in Halo 3 and Reach. This HD remake, officially titled Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, has already been slated for a November 15, 2011 release.

Halo 4, as the current working title is, takes place post-Halo 3 as Cortana desperately awakens Master Chief in the drifting wreckage of the Forward Unto Dawn. Chief uploads Cortana into his helmet and races through the ship until standing on its edge in space. The screen then reveals a gigantic ship of some sort, which looks similar in design to Covenant tech, but based on the way Halo 3 wrapped up, that seems more likely that it would belong to some new faction. Though the trailer revealed very little, it was all very cinematic and it makes me wonder if this will ultimately play out to be the Halo: Chronicles project that Peter Jackson was formerly to be involved with. For those unfamiliar with Halo: Chronicles, it was a project first announced around the time Halo 3 was released, and was reported to be a sort of involved cinematic experience (which I understood to be something of a movie that players could determine the outcome of based of various decision made along the way). While Microsoft and 343 Industries did not give any concrete details on the gameplay of Halo 4, they did confirm it would be the first of a new trilogy for the Xbox 360, which leaves me curious if these will be three full-fledged games or perhaps downloadable episodic gaming.