The fight may have been finished for Master Chief but we all quite rightly know it isn’t done for Halo, the Halo license is way too good for Microsoft to let go of. So now it’s back, but in strategy form.
Halo Wars was originally meant to be released about 7 years ago instead of the hugely successful Halo, yes that’s right, Halo was meant to be a strategy game, a strategy game for the PC and Mac. I think the words from Bungie were “it's like Myth but in a Sci-fi universe”. This then changed when Microsoft partnered with Bungie, Bungie then re-wrote the game into a first person shooter called Halo. After five years of discussing how ‘cool’ it would be if Bungie released a Halo strategy game, here we are waiting for its release.
What’s different about this game is that it’s being designed from the ground up for the Xbox 360 ; this is interesting for many reasons, mainly because strategy games are primarily for the PC, it’s a PC genre and it generally works best with that system. Now, making this even stranger, it’s difficult to say that this game is being designed for the Xbox 360 and it not even coming to the PC.
This really is quite a task for Ensemble Studios, because designing a game from the ground up for the console means it has to work fluently on an Xbox 360 controller and be understood by a wider audience. Previous strategy games put on the Xbox 360 (e.g. Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth II) were attempted, but nothing really compared to the mouse & keyboard version of that game. Not only that, but casual gamers need to be able to play this game too, so you’re going to have hardcore PC gamers who love Halo on one side criticizing the controls, and the casual console gamers who love Halo on the other; brave stake.
There were many questions shooting through our heads after X06, all wanting to be asked after that exclusive Halo Wars trailer in 2006; like ‘huh?’, after finding out it’s Halo Wars not Halo 3, will it include Master Chief himself? What races can you play as and will it come to the PC? Even now I’m sure there are many questions wanting to be asked, it does seem that Ensemble Studios and Microsoft are keeping things fairly wrapped up. We did though have that rather impressive Halo Wars gameplay demonstration video, whether it will end up looking and playing like that though I suppose we won’t know until it’s on the shelves.
What we do know however, is that this game will concentrate on the battles that take place, rather than the economic building/resource gathering process which Ensemble Studios had worked with quite commonly in the past. I suppose the best way we can relate this is to Dawn of War in modern terms. Although this would make more sense on a console (as a game like Company of Heroes where it’s based on quick setup wouldn’t fit) even here there are questions, I’m intrigued to see how Ensemble Studios will go about the economics. Whether you’ll have to build a base at all and just acquire it, or like the original Battle for Middle Earth you build on hot spots placed on the ground, both seem like feasible ideas, whether Ensemble Studios use a similar process to these, again, we’re unsure.
Earlier interviews have confirmed that Halo Wars will be taking place before the first Halo; this would assume that Ensemble Studios are taking the game from another perspective and expanding the universe of Halo, it would also assume that this is the start of attempting to turn it into a Star Wars popular franchise. Previous projects such as the interactive story creation Peter Jackson had mentioned at an early presentation, the Halo Movie which keeps being speculated (also being co-produced by Peter Jackson) & of course several novel books which have already been released. Microsoft are really wanting to make the most of this franchise, but with the lack of information being passed on for every supposed piece of work, I can’t really see this getting as far as it potentially could.
Although Halo Wars has so many unknown expectations as a game, it also has fan expectations of being part of a popular franchise and living up to the previous FPS series, because if this falls through then later creations can be unlikely, and that can be said about all of the upcoming projects. This is a critical time for Microsoft, Bungie & the Xbox 360, as the Halo franchise is now stepping into unknown territory, this is a risk for huge success or an ending of a franchise. The first project to be released is a strategy game for the Xbox 360, doesn’t sound like a good start does it? Yet still, with all this uncertainty, we’ve been waiting ages for this game.
For more details about Halo Wars click here.
Preview By: Lee Burton
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