Halo is no longer just a game franchise backed by a mighty array of tie-ins and spin-offs - it's "an entire universe of experiences", according to Halo: Spartan Assault lead designer Mike Ellis.
"343's looking to have Halo experiences in as many formats as possible," he remarked in an interview with Venture Beat. "You can look through our portfolio now. We have games. We have books on the New York Times bestseller list. We have toys and things like Mega Blocks and McFarlane figures. Halo is bigger than any one game. We see it as an entire universe of experiences."
Halo is also bigger than any one type of game. Spartan Assault, for instance, is a top-down shooter that was originally built for tablets - it'll release for Xbox One on 24th December, and for Xbox 360 at some point next year.
"The games have a lot of the same values," Ellis observed. "A lot of the building blocks of the core gameplay are the same. It was just a matter making sure that this version of the game was appropriately native to the console. We went in and looked at it as if it was a console game from the ground up, and evaluated what changes needed to be made to make it a successful console shooter."
The console version of Spartan Assault includes a notably more frenetic co-op survival mode, in which two Spartans defend an area against the Flood. As I discovered during a recent hands-on, Halo's FPS controls map quite comfortably to a top-down shooter. "I'd say each version of the game is tuned to the platform it's created for," Ellis went on. "We try to have a level playing field across all of them. It just depends on where you're used to playing as a gamer and what you particularly like.
"If you're a casual gamer who's never experienced playing on a console, you might be happier with the phone or tablet versions. A PC gamer would be more comfortable with a keyboard and mouse. Our console fans should be very happy with the controller."
Asked whether he thinks the game is as "hardcore" as a numbered Halo, Ellis played the relativity card. "I guess it depends on how you want to define hardcore. This kind of shooter was hardcore at one point. In the early '90s, these frenetic shooters were the most hardcore games out there. It's just a different experience, compared to the Halo FPS games.
"We think we've created a game that looks like Halo, sounds like Halo, and plays like Halo. We see it as another part of the Halo universe."
http://www.oxm.co.uk/68216/343-wants-halo-experiences-in-as-many-formats-as-possible/
