Halo: Reach Was Almost Halo 4

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As many of you probably know, famed Halo designer Bungie has taken their leave from Microsoft’s ownership and they’ve declared that this year’s Halo: Reach video game will be the final game they produce for the Halo franchise (which Microsoft owns). Halo: Reach will be a prequel game taking place before the events of the first game – but here’s what you didn’t know – Halo: Reach was almost Halo 4.

Bungie community director Brian Jarrard chatted with the folks at the MTV Multiplayer blog. Mr. Jarrard admitted that before they settled on going back to the Reach setting (an important battle in the Halo lore), they had discussed doing a proper Halo 4 – a full sequel to 2007′s Halo 3.

Jarrard said:

“Even before the idea to build a game based around Reach came about, a lot of other concepts were explored, up to and including a proper ‘Halo 4,’ where Master Chief was going to wake up from cryo-sleep and we were going to tell that story.”

But, Jarrard said that Halo 4 never made it out of pre-production. He said that the team wasn’t interested in the “baggage” that would come with a Halo 4. Like their previous Halo game, Halo: ODST, Jarrard says that the designers like how it’s a self-contained small story they can tell. Jarrard again:

And ‘ODST’ was also kinda nice ’cause they could do something different, something separate, and it’s totally self-contained. I definitely think that, for ‘Reach,’ a lot of the same attitude carried over. We don’t want to open up a whole bunch of doors that we’re not going to close.

And on a sad note for Halo fans – Master Chief, the iconic main character of Halo 1 through 3 won’t be showing up for a cameo in this year’s Halo: Reach – despite the large role he played in the story’s Battle of Reach (the battle to be portrayed in the game).

Halo: Reach is set for a September 14th, 2010 release day and will be Bungie’s last Halo game before they move on to other things.