Halo: Reach is the last planned Halo title from Bungie for now, but the studio won’t rule out a return to the franchise someday in the future.
With this year’s Halo: Reach, Bungie will be – in its own words – finished making Halo games for the Xbox 360. There are no more games planned in the series, and given that Bungie expects the 360 to be only halfway through its life cycle, that means that the series will be dormant for five more years at the very least. But as the developers ramp up for the game’s May beta, Bungie community manager Brian Jarrard told CVG that thinking about Reach as the series’ ultimate swan song might be a mistake: never say never.
“You know, it might be premature to say we’ll never ever, ever make a Halo game again. We sort of have a little special place for Halo in our hearts. But for the foreseeable future, [Halo: Reach] is it.”
For the moment, though, Jarrard added that the studio was approaching Reach as if it were the series’ final send-off. “There is a degree of pressure there but I also think that inspires our team. If we don’t ever come back to Halo again, we better damn well make sure that our last game is the best one ever. Let’s set that bar really high and at least leave our fans something really special.”
It’s not hard to see where the man is coming from. Bungie may well and truly intend to leave Halo behind and lay the series to rest for the moment, but any time a developer ever says “We will never do X” or “We will always do Y,” it just sets up a nasty contradiction waiting to happen.
At any rate, if Bungie does make more Halo games, they won’t be for a while. So let’s enjoy them as they come.
