Bungie actively creating a new game franchise (outside of future Halo content of course)

Halo 3 for Xbox 360Bungie have revealed they are actively working on a new non-Halo game. While there will be more Halo content, they’ve got new ideas in development. To quote Bungie’s studio manager Harold Ryan:

“Obviously Microsoft wanted us to make more Halo games. Both I and some of the more senior guys from the original Halo game have deep piles of game designs for the Halo universe that we are excited to build at some point. If the stars align and motivations are good and the platforms are right we’ll do them.

But, on the other hand, a lot of the staff here are fans of the original game or fans of the studio. We shipped Halo with 45 people and now we’re 115, so two thirds of the studio have only shipped one or two games in the Halo series. For the most part they came here because they were really excited to work at Bungie and in the Halo universe. So from that point of view we don’t have a shortage of people happy to make Halo games.

But obviously there are guys that have shipped Halo games for ten years, and they are definitely ready to work on new IPs or create new things. We’re actively engaged with the senior staff here on a couple of new IPs right now, but the team that can generate cool Halo games is still running full-speed as well.

Halo 2 for Xbox (360)Previously Bungie had tried to create new spin-off projects, but the crunch around Halo 2 meant those were cancelled. He explained: “During the development of Halo and Halo 2, we had other, non-Halo IPs in development and we killed those projects both times. Both teams were swallowed whole by the Halo team. With Halo 3, that was the first time we know that we couldn’t let that happen – it’s not an acceptable way out to add 20 people to the project by killing that prototype.

We kept that prototype running throughout the development of Halo 3 and now we have a creative team which feels like they own that. We also have Halo DLC on the way, and a new IP prototype that we are very excited about. Then we have other Halo games [Halo Wars and Peter Jackson’s episodic Halo game] that are cranking along also. So the end result so far has been exactly as it should have been – we’re happy, excited, and doing our best work on a path that lets us grow.”

Full interview at Developmag, via CVG