bungie posts (Subscribe to this feed)

The plasma party may be almost over for those of you still gripping tight to your Xbox 1 and copy of Halo 2, playing game after desperate game before Microsoft shuts the online servers, but Bungie is looking for fans to join staff members in a last hurrah on April 14. Community manager Brian "Sketch" Jarrard proclaims on Bungie.net that, "We're all saddened at the realization that an era is coming to an end," before asking fans to "mark your calendars now - on April 14th let's all rally to go online for one last hoorah." And sure, he might not explicitly mention the emptying of various malt beverages from 40 ounce glass bottles, but that's why we read between the lines. It's right there, people!

Tomorrow, the final installment in Halo Waypoint's ongoing four-part motion comic, "Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian," will be available. The comic -- which is written by Frank O'Connor and animated by ONE -- centers around ODST Baird, last remaining human survivor on the UNSC ship Destroyer. Baird must stop the invading Covenant forces before they discover the location of Earth and all of its Burger Kings.

What? You didn't know the Covenant loves their chicken parmesan sandwiches?

Ever since the supposedly limited run of the Halo 3 Legendary Edition was first released, we've watched its price slowly tumble. Originally sporting a hefty $129.99 price tag, we've seen the price slide ever lower as retailers, desperate for shelf space, slashed the price again and again. Now, 1saleaday.com is selling copies of the Legendary Edition for the absolute rock-bottom price of $30. That's thirty bones for Halo 3, your very own cat helmet and more behind-the-scenes bonus features than you can shake a plasma sword at. The item is listed as "new," although it's hard to imagine the packaging has survived nearly three years without acquiring a few bumps and bruises.

Keep in mind that we have no idea how reliable 1 Sale A Day is, but you're not likely to find a better price than this. There are only a few hours left on the sale, so both of you remaining Legendary fence-sitters had better hop to it.

We hope you wanted to see a bunch of screens from Halo: Reach today. Bungie has uploaded a ton of new images, showing off environments and gameplay, as well as an extensive collection of concept art (all compiled in the gallery below). You'll also find some character bios on Bungie's site, if you plan on getting to know your squad of Spartans a little better.

The images are generally full of the things you'd expect at this point: Spartans; Covenant; and general Halo-y goodness, but one image in particular is very curious to us. Not only is the reticle not in the center of the screen, but there's also a HUD item scrubbed out. Whatever could it be?

We know the internet has had way more experience than us in putting Halo stuff under the microscope, so we leave the guesstimating up to you. Best one wins our undying love and admiration forever!

[Thanks, Omer]

Much like Uncharted 2: Among Thieves demonstrated in 2009, Halo: Reach will be expected to deliver an experience that not only speaks highly of its developer, but also of the technological capabilities and commercial identity of its home platform. Whereas Halo 3: ODST was built upon Bungie's 2007 space hoop outing (has it already been that long?), the developer tells Edge that its next shooter is already "bending the Xbox as far as it'll bend." Surely that voids the warranty?

"We are... taking every advantage of everything on the CPU and GPU, and every bit of memory in order to produce the look of Reach beyond anything of Halo 3, " creative director Marcus Lehto noted, attributing the evolution -- which also benefits the size of environments and complexity of the AI -- to increased understanding of the hardware. "We're pushing it as far as we can go," Lehto said. "With every iteration we understand what more we can exploit with the hardware."

Chalk up another win for longer console life cycles -- and for long-running franchises.

It's got Kate Winslet? It's on a boat? It features just enough Billy Zane involvement? No, no, we can only dream. Bungie makes the analogy between Halo: Reach and James Cameron's disaster film because you know how it ends before it even begins. "Reach is going to fall and 700 million people are going to perish as a result," said Bungie creative director Marcus Lehto in a new interview with Edge. Dude, spoiler alert!

How the developer is handling the seeming contradiction between the reward of "beating" the game and experiencing the fall of Reach is the meat of the Edge interview. It's a fine read if you want to know more about the next Halo game than just how many guns you'll be able to fire at the same time. (Seven, if you must know. Yeah, we were confused too.)

Do you love Halo enough to purchase new multiplayer maps, but not enough to buy new Halo games? If that's the case, you'll be pleased to learn that the Mythic 2 Map Pack, which was previously available with 2009's Halo 3: ODST, will be sold separately as Halo 3 (sans overly descriptive subtitle treatment) content on the Xbox Live Marketplace starting February 2.

For 800 MS Points ($10) you'll gain access to three distinct kill zones, namely Heretic, Citadel and Longshore. And if winning on any of them seems like a long shot, why not practice online today and Thursday in benefit of Haiti relief efforts?

If you haven't got any cash to donate to charitable organizations who're currently lending a hand with recovery efforts in Haiti, don't fret -- Bungie's organizing a free method for you to show your support. All you have to do is change your Halo 3 (or ODST) emblem to the heart seen in the image above, and play any of the games' online modes this coming Wednesday and Thursday. Bungie's donating a dime for every person who does so to the Red Cross (up to a maximum donation of $77,000). Check out Bungie's blog for more information about the event.

If you're wanting to make a slightly larger contribution, you could also purchase a special version of the Superintendent t-shirt from the Bungie store -- all of the proceeds from which will also go directly to the Red Cross.

Flash mobs are all the rage now, but the above image actually comes from the Philadelphia Mummers Parade this year. Kotaku reader Justin managed to snag video of the choreographed event which, if it were real cyborg human heroes and not a bunch of faux-Spartans, would probably end up costing taxpayers about $814 gajillion -- and that's in today's dollars, not even accounting for 500 years of inflation.

To check out video of the dance routine, head on over to Kotaku.

This past Saturday brought us the Spike TV Video Game Awards and – before experiencing the litany of world exclusives that awaited us inside – we spent some time outside cruising the red carpet and talking (briefly!) to many of the game developers and talent. We squeezed them for information as fast as we could while simultaneously wishing them holiday cheer and good tidings. Yes, it was as awkward as it sounds. HHere's what we learned from Bungie's Curtis Creamer about Halo 3: ODST.

Was there a decision made to have no DLC for Halo 3: ODST?

Well, that was something that we didn't really think we could do for ODST because traditionally all of our DLC has been about competitive multiplayer. That's something that we had the systems in place for. But, since Firefight is more based on the co-operative campaign mode, that was a technology that we hadn't built up to a point where we could add DLC to the game. It would have been too much of an investment to make that happen.

As promised, Spike's 2009 Video Game Awards delivered the first footage (in-game, 'natch) of Halo: Reach to the masses. More Spartans? Check! Female Spartans? Check check! A skullfaced Spartan? Wait ... what?! Since the show just aired, we've got a low-res version of the trailer for you after the break and will have a prettied up version as soon as it's available.

From the initial talk of a lower price to a renaming, Bungie's ever-changing plans for Halo 3: ODST left a lot of people confused as to what the final product would be. "I'm no PR expert, but it's pretty obvious the game had a series of stumbles; from the naming, to the initial E3 2008 countdown reveal failure, and finally pricing ... it would definitely be nice to have a do-over for the game introduction," senior designer Lars Bakken told G4TV in a recent interview. "The big takeaway for us is just to never comment on matters that are outside of our control," added community manager Brian Jarrard.

The subject of ODST becoming an "expansion pack," however, was never an arguable point to executive producer Curtis Creamer. "Though ODST was built from the Halo 3 engine, there were enough changes made to the engine that we could not have released it as an expansion in the way that you might equate with a PC game expansion pack ... the ODST executable is not compatible with Halo 3."

The crew of Bungie devs also reconfirmed that "there are currently no plans for any ODST DLC," with all of the studio's resources tied up with Halo: Reach. Hopefully, our thirst for more Firefight maps will be quenched by the inclusion of the mode in future Halo games -- a prospect to which the developers responded, "Only time will tell." Do it for us, Bungie! Please?

To clear up any misconceptions with "the kids on Twitter," Spike Video Game Awards host Geoff Keighley took to Major Nelson's podcast this weekend and explained that the Halo: Reach trailer on next week's show will be "actual gameplay." That's right, folks: none of that live-action or CG mumbo jumbo. "You'll get a first glimpse at the world of Reach," Keighley told the Major during this week's show. "I think it's going to be the biggest game next year by far."

When addressing the contents of the trailer -- something Keighley claimed to have not seen just yet -- he noted that he thinks people will be shocked by the direction than Bungie is taking, calling it a "huge leap forward." So, Mr. Keighley, it could be said that the studio is reaching new ground then?

... Hello? Where are you going?!