VG247

Microsoft Game Studios head Phil Spencer has said, in a frank admission, that the company “lost our way” over recent releases in the Halo IP, such as ODST and Reach.

“The key question for me in managing the studio and the creatives is ‘what is Halo?’, making sure Halo lives up to what I think gamers fell in love with [playing Combat Evolved],” Spencer told OXM UK at E3, referring to Halo 4 and the next trilogy in the series from 343 Industries, as well as the upcoming HD reboot of Halo 1.

“What does that mean? Playing Master Chief. We kind of lost our way a little bit, I’ll say. And that’s why I wanted to make sure that at the unveiling of Halo 4, you knew you were playing Master Chief, that John was back. Because Master Chief is the John Wayne character of that universe, and that’s who you want to play.”

Spencer continued: “If you were a Halo fan for Halo 1, 2 and 3, Reach made sense to you, but fundamentally there are a ton of players on our box right now that didn’t start with Halo 1.

“What we said was: ‘let’s get back to what Halo is about’.

“I loved Reach as a game – as a fan of the fiction, I totally love the story in Reach, Reach is one of the best stories in the Halo universe. But it made more sense to you if you were a Halo fan.

“If you were new to Xbox 360, 360′s where you started playing on Xbox, you understood what Halo 3 was. ODST and Reach, maybe you weren’t as centred.”

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition will launch this November. Halo 4 will release in holiday 2012.

I don't think so.

Master Chief was a bland character in a series of good games (I'll admit that I didn't read any Halo novels, comics, wiki's, fan fiction, poetry, etc.). Plus, in H2, we played as the Arbiter (sic?) for half the game and that was okay. Master Chief isn't Solid Snake, Mario, or even Duke Nukem. He's just a generic guy with a gun. M$ doesn't need to convince us he's some deep, beloved character. Just give us another great FPS with great multi-player and we'll buy it.

Soooooo agreed.  Never thought he had much character and the voice performance is usually the worst in the each of the games.

To be honest, I may take a lot of flack for this but I had an absolute BLAST with the characters in ODST.  Granted, as a HUGE fan of Firefly I may be a tad biased, but the camaraderie and banter, along with the line delivery, was spot on fantastic and really deliver better than ANY OTHER HALO GAME by far (Reach let me down there a bit).

So getting to play with the Chief is not as attractive for me with Halo 4 as Spencer thinks.  I'm more interested in seeing them move beyond the Halo/Covenant War/Flood pattern we know all too well by this point.

Hmm, I like MC, but I like ODST more than Halo 3!

I think it just needs to go back to that mystery Halo CE had.

when halo 3 came out it was best halo ever

when halo odst came out it had better campain than halo 3

when hao reach came out it was best halo ever

.

.

.

.

every halo comes out its the best ever............why do people look back and say otherwise i think its one of the best series ever although im not a fan its clearly is one hell off a juggernaught

I hated ODST and it was a pain for me to finish. Reach is one of my favorite Halo games because I was oh so tired of fighting the Flood. The thing is Reach showed that the MC isn't really needed for a successful Halo game. I liked the fact that I controlled Noble 6 down to his appearance and that made it more personal than the Chief ever could be. After having that type of customization in Reach it will be hard to go back to the same old spartan as everyone else.

I have yet to see a serious misstep in Halo series so I think this is nonsence.

But to be honest, that dude in Halo Wars and guys from ODST were probably my favorite characters so far. I like playing as humans...not invincible super soldiers.

ODST did not have a better campagin then 3. Reach did have a great campaign however. And 2 had a better campaign than 3, ODST, and Reach IMO

I personally couldn't care less about Master Chief, in fact i'd rather play as someone else..... preferably someone with a soul. Having read through his comments i have no idea what he was talking about, i just hope that in the next Halo game their ambitions reach beyond the simple premise of "more halo".