Another Halo? Bungie says "Watch this space"

Sept 26, 2007

At last nights 'glitzy' Halo 3 launch party, which was held at London's IMAX cinema, we cornered the real stars at the event - two of the guys from Bungie that worked on the game. After completing their demo of Halo 3 to the gathered audience of VIPs, press and competition winners, we spoke to Bungie producer Joseph Tung and cinematics designer Lee Wilson about Halo fans, corpse humping and the future of Master Chief. A must read if ever there was one...

GR: Do you think Halo 3 is the biggest videogame of all time?

JT: I think Halo 3 is the videogame that at Bungie Studios we always wanted to make. I think Halo 3 is an extremely fun videogame that we all love playing at Bungie. As far as being the biggest videogame of all time... I don't think any of us can really say.

LW: Yeah, it's what it grows into. What it is, is truly a Bungie game and I think the fans have really supported us and kind of pushed us to better ourselves each time. And I think we've definitely done that with this game.

GR: Do you recognise that you're at the forefront - the vanguard - of what's pushing videogames forward?

JT: Y'now, honestly, at Bungie I think we're all very proud of working at Bungie - we feel very proud of what we've accomplished with Halo 3. But none us really sit around saying to each other "Hey, how does it feel to be at the vanguard of videogames?" So really we try and make games that are fun for us and that we think are going to be fun for our fans. I think we've done that with Halo 3 in spades, so we're super happy with the game.

Above: Bungie's Lee Wilson (left) and Joe Tong are very happy with Halo 3

GR: You say you don't sit around talking about making one of the most important videogames of all time, but do you feel pressure from the Halo fans?

LW: I've never worked at a studio that is so in touch with their fans. I really don't think we ever alienate the fans. In fact, look at something like Red Vs Blue, we embrace that stuff. There's sort of a dialogue there...

JT: There's a certain part of the fan base that we definitely feel heat from. The guys that are never going to be happy with, y'know, the battle rifle - they feel like the carbine is just a little too powerful or we didn't bring back the pistol, so Halo 3's going to suck. Those guys are the vocal minority, but the rest of the community is just... You look at something like the beta and 800,000 players helped us make Halo 3 better through the beta.

LW: But those guys are also the guys that are playing five hours every night as well. So, even though they're our harshest critics, they're our harshest critics because they love the game that much.

GR: Do you feel like some of the Halo fans almost know the game better than some of the guys working at Bungie?

JT: There are some hardcore players at Bungie too. There are definitely the guys at Bungie that know the rocket launcher is going to spawn in 10 seconds. There's definitely some truth to the guys who are so hardcore about the game so... Actually we hire those people from time to time. We say this as much as we can and I think there's a ton of truth to it - we are our own harshest critics. We are really, really hard on each other. If you come up with an idea - anyone can come up with an idea at Bungie - but that idea's got to go through a really brutal gauntlet and the bottom line is, is it fun or not? That's the process.