Halo E3 2011 Bingo Speculation
With nothing officially announced before the show, will this year’s E3 be missing the Xbox flagship franchise Halo? We don’t don’t think. The rumours have been coming in thick and fast over the past few months. Fans have been wondering what the future holds for Halo under the stewardship of 343 Industries. This year marks the tenth anniversary of when the world fell in love with the Halo universe. We’re going to get something. Hopefully something big.
Now the best course of action is to keep expectations under check. Keep things grounded and real. Well, screw that. We’re dreaming big here at Forward Unto Dawn. As the saying goes, aim for the stars. If you miss, you’ll at least hit the moon. We’re going to unleash our inner fanboy and throw caution, reality and grounded expectations to the wind. We’ll see you starside. 😉
B1. Reach Campaign DLC
We’ve never had an expansion to a Halo campaign post release. ODST was first introduced to the world as Halo 3: Recon, a downloadable additional side story DLC title for Halo 3. Â However things behind the velvet curtains changed and we ended up with the much more substantial Halo 3: ODST retail product. We came close. Reach still has stories to tell. Noble Team weren’t the only Spartans fighting on Reach and maybe, just maybe, we’ll get to see the fall of Reach from a different perspective.
I1. Master Chief
The Chief has been missing in action now for many years. Last seen finishing the fight with Halo 3, previous E3 events have seen ODST’s and other Spartans take the limelight. We miss you Master Chief. We know we’ll meet again someday in future, but we want you now.
N1. Halo Wars 2
Halo Wars was the RTS game that actually worked on a console. Designed exclusively for the 360, Halo Wars did better than most people expected. A hard sell to the trigger happy FPS fan base, Halo Wars proved that Halo isn’t just about shooting things. And those amazing cut-scenes. Give us more! Although the game’s story is relatively self-contained, the end game credits strongly hinted at a new emergency. No other Halo game has let you command an entire army and we’d like nothing more than to return to the battlefield.
G1. Halo 3 PC
Why isn’t Halo 3 on PC yet? The first two Halo titles found their way onto the PC platform but here we are years later and Halo 3 is no where to be seen. The PC platform could deliver the definitive version of Halo 3. Â Higher resolutions, better frame-rates, custom maps and mods! Why would you not want this?
O1. Halo 4
The Chief may have finished the fight, but it would safe to assume that the Chief’s real battles are far from over. With a brand new developer and a hungry fan base, we just need confirmation that the game is officially coming and we’ll be happy. Here’s hoping the Dark Planetoid rises sooner rather than later.
B2. Firefight
If we’re going to have a CErtain remake, wouldn’t Firefight be an awesome addition? Heck, just place four players on the beaches of The Silent Cartographer and they’ll fight until the end of time.
I2. New 343i Logo
So where is the official 343i logo? You know the one that haven’t shown anybody yet? The one you’ve stated that you have internally? Don’t think we’ve forgotten about this super secret logo! Do us a favour and stick it on the your first internally-developed Halo game and we’ll be happy. Promise. =)
N2. Certain Affinity
We love the guys at Certain Affinity. If they aren’t making map packs for Halo, they’re making map packs for Call of Duty. Or making their own action game. They’ve worked with 343i in the past to bring us Halo Waypoint and the Defiant Map pack for Halo Reach. There’s a strong, healthy working relationship going there and by all means let it continue. Will we see something made by CA at E3 this year? Let’s hope so.
G2. New Game Mode
The last new Halo game mode was Firefight and that debuted with ODST many years ago now. Time is right for something new and fresh. We want something as fresh as Forge and Firefight were all those years ago now.
O2. Waypoint 2.0
Call of Duty has a new paid and partially free community service, Elite. Heck, they stole a Halo term for their service name! Elite offers to bring a service to Call of Duty fans which Halo fans have enjoyed, for free, for years. Let’s rub it in their faces a little. Give us more stats and features. Go nuts. Just remember free is the key to success. Us Halo fans are cheap but loyal.
B3. Legends 2
I love anime. I love Halo. I freakin’ love Halo anime. Just give me more. Today. Yesterday. Sadly one the most respected anime directors, Satoshi Kon, passed away recently and gone is the chance to view the Halo universe through his unique perspective. That will have to remain a dream. Legends was a fantastic experiment and the rich collection of different visual styles it brought to the table gave fans a chance to look at the Halo universe like never before. If the experiment was a success then we’d like to see it repeated.
I3. Mystery Developer
If 343i are working on the next big Halo title, who is working on the rumoured Halo remake? Time will tell, maybe!
N3. Left Blank
G3. New Avatar Props
Just the other day we got new Elite energy swords for Avatar stabbing enthusiasts. The Halo Avatar marketplace has been slowly swelling with content and I doubt we’ve seen the end of it. Give us a pet Grunt, pretty please?
O3. Halo 2 XBLA
This is never going to happen. Ever. But wwmonkey from HaloGAF has hope. Hope against common sense, facts and reality. He is a true believer. If he believes then so can we.
B4. Kinect
Don’t laugh. Please. Kinect has a few cool features that might just translate into a sweet Halo experience. It’s not all about jumping up and down like a mindless clown. Kinect has some very advanced voice recognition technology. Right now you can live the dream of the future and control video with voice commands from the comfort of your sofa. Now just apply this kind of technology to Halo. Voice commands for video playback of Halo games in the Theatre. Menu navigation. See, Kinect isn’t pointless after all. =P
I4. Spinoff Game
ODST put players in the boots of a squad of human soldiers who weren’t Spartans. It offered a different perspective in the war against the Covenant. It explored a very different story on a very different scale using the Halo universe as a backdrop. How many untold stories are there to be found in the Human-Covenant war? Halo Wars took things in another interesting direction. As did Reach. Halo has become more than the Master Chief. We want to explore it.
N4. Grunt Plushie
Will we finally get to see the official Grunt plushie toy?
G4. New Novels
E3 is traditionally about games. But take a risk. Sneak in a few books. The faces on journalists would be priceless if some Xbox executive got up on stage and announced five new Halo titles and then casually, and very quietly, remarked that they are all new Karen Travis written books. There would be riots and bloodshed. Priceless.
O4. New Reach Maps
We’ve had two maps packs for Halo: Reach since launch. Are we done yet? Don’t bet on it.
B5. Bungie
The transition is almost complete and Bungie will finally sail onto new seas leaving Halo behind. Maybe they’ll leave us a parting gift?
I5. Old Maps Remade
New maps are pretty sweet but our old favourite maps will always be better. I specifically want The Pit and Valhalla from Halo 3. I wanted them to ship with Reach but it’s never too later to make up for their exclusion. =)
N5. Reach Multiplayer Disk
We reckon that a Halo CEmake wouldn’t include traditional multiplayer. Sure it might have co-op and many other wonderful features but a proper online multiplayer would fragment the Reach player base and send a signal to fans that Halo: Reach’s multiplayer won’t be getting the same kind of support that Halo 3 received. So no CEmake multiplayer. Just like ODST, a nice way to make up for the lack of multiplayer would be to bundle all of Reach’s multiplayer maps on one single disk. Throw in a few exclusive maps and bingo, a full traditional multiplayer component that would compliment CEmake.
G5. That Pistol
Bring it back already.
O5. Halo Trilogy HD
Notice the lack of Halo CEmake on this Bingo card? Yeah well, that is thinking small. Think big. How about the entire original Halo trilogy? Halo 1 and 2 remade in sexy HD graphical loveliness.  Not just a Halo 1 remake but Halo 2 remake too in one big super game bundle. Unrealistic? Yeah, but we can dream.
I agree with everything, except for one thing.
Spinoffs. No thank you. My need and hunger for everything Halo got lowered by the ongoing sidestories in Halo Wars, ODST and Reach (Reach isn’t technically a spinoff but it sure as hell isn’t included as part of the Trilogy for me). Sure enough we needed to explore more of the universe, but for me it got too different from the main trilogy.
Halo Wars; a great addition, I even accepted the ‘canonical’ faults, and I somewhat kept my Halo feel.
ODST; it felt like it was the same universe, and as an expansion – great. But nolonger was I playing the last warhero in a losing war, fighting to save our species and the hole friggin galaxy.
On to Reach; I got amazingly disappointed. My beloved Bungie had given the multiplayer an overhaul with the new bloom and armor abilities and so on. I could live with that, but i would still lose the feel of Halo multiplayer as I knew it.
Campaign. Dates, characters, locations – there was so much wrong! I had just read Fall of Reach and Ghosts of Onyx (which I loved) – there were so many things I wanted to see from those books, like Fred, Kelly, Linda, KURT(!), some of the Spartan IIIs (the originial ones) but… There comes Bungie and ruins established history, all for the sake of bringing they’re idea of leading up to Halo CE in a cool way. They just HAD to bring in some special !blam SPARTAN IIIS. And the feel; totally gone. The music and the atmosphere had all gone.
The closest thing to my beloved Halo feel I got in those three spinoffs were in the legendary ending of ODST (FINALLY some HALO music)!
I wanna see the REAL Fall of Reach, leading in to First strike and Ghosts of Onyx.
I agree on EVERYTHING.
1. Reach Campaign DLC – YES!
But make it downloadable on Xbox LIVE AND sold on stores, like how ODST was sold on stores. That way people without Xbox LIVE can join in the fun!
2. Master Chief – YES! 100% YES!
3.Halo Wars 2 – YES!
But this time, make it for PC too. I prefer RTS games on PC.
4. Halo 3 PC – YES!
Mods, user created maps. How could I say no? I’m would get Halo 3 again just for that.
5. Halo 4 – YES! 999% YES!
Perhaps we whould see the Precursors have first time appearance in Halo 4? Make them the next big threat to humanity? Make them be so advanced that they were able to make their own forms of life? Make them be the “creators of the Flood”? Make them create more and more flood, as they want to conquer other worlds?
Perhaps we whould see Insurrectionists for the first time in a Halo game? These would be a NEW group of insurrectionists, who are a lot like terrorists, and they wreak havoc for one reason: to overthrow the UNSC?
Perhaps we could combine my two story ideas? By switching between characters like Halo 2 and Halo 3 ODST? Master Chief would deal with the Precursors and the ODSTs would deal with the Insurrection? And later the Precursosrs would arrive on Earth? With the destruction being shown like how Crysis 2 did it?
6. Firefight – YES!
7. New 343i logo – YES!
8. Certan Affinity Halo-related content – YES!
9. New game mode – YES!
Perhaps a Space Dogfight on Multiplayer? An Underwater Combat game mode? I hope it’s more creative than my two simple ideas 🙂
10. Waypoint 2.0 – YES!
11. Halo Legends 2 – YES!
Halo Legends was entertaining. I would love to see a second one.
12. Mystery developer – YES!
But isn’t the Halo CE Remake still just a rumour? Or is my info out of date and they announced it?
13. New Avatar Props – YES!
Maybe a prop that makes your avatar hold a weapon from the Halo games? Lets say an Assault Rifle?
14. Halo 2 XBLA – YES!
15. Kinect – YES!
16. Spin-off game – YES!
Perhaps we should make a game centered around the Heretics? Perhaps the Covenant already found a Halo installation before Installation 04? Which would explain why they knew how to work would Forerunner tech in Halo CE? And the first group of Heretics were the ones who stopped the Covenant from activating Halo?
17. Grunt Plushie – (I LOL’D but) YES!
18. New Novels – YES!
I laughed at how you said they would react. I agree. Priceless!
19. New Halo Reach Maps – YES
20. Bungie – YES!
21. Old maps remade – YES!
22. Reach Multiplayer Disk
Yep. That way, people who don’t have access to Xbox LIVE can play the maps through LAN or use them in their own Machinimas!
23. That Pistol – (I’m not sure but) YES!
24. Halo CE and Halo 2 HD – YES!
It DOES sound impossible, but we can hope.
Don’t forget a live action Halo TV show Dani.
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