I’m frankly a little surprised we haven’t started hearing more E3 leaks yet, but everyone seems to be playing everything pretty close to their chest for the show which kicks off in a month. But one little tidbit has purposefully dropped about the Microsoft event, thanks to someone from 343 itself.
Responding to some community excitement on the Halo subreddit, 343 community manager Brian Jarrad had to step in to manage expectations about what might appear in Microsoft’s show at E3. And namely what wouldn’t appear: Halo 6.
“I’ll slip into my Dreamcrusher persona for a minute in the name of realistic expectations,” Jarrad said. “We’ve said this already but we’ll have a little something at E3 but it’s not related to the next major entry in the franchise.”
Some are saying that there could still be a tease for Halo 6, while “the game” itself may not be there, but Jarrad’s wording is pretty clear. Something “not related” to the next major entry in the franchise, which would be Halo 6, or Halo: Whatever Subtitle They Use Instead of 6.
Obviously in a perfect world, Microsoft would have been able to launch this fall’s Xbox Scorpio with some sort of major Halo game, given that it’s still the console’s most beloved exclusive series by a mile, but the timing is just not in the cards for that, clearly. If anything, it seems like Crackdown 3 may end up being the “launch game” for Scorpio, as the dev is teasing a big presence at E3, but Halo? Doubtful.
Still, Jarrad’s comment about some sort of Halo presence at E3 has sparked a number of theories about what that could actually mean. Here are a few I could believe:
– Halo 3 Anniversary Edition
– Halo 5 standalone DLC
– Halo Wars 2 DLC/Expansion
– More info on Microsoft’s alleged collaboration with Steven Spielberg for a Halo show (remember that?)
Obviously the best news of the bunch here would be Halo 3 Anniversary, and if that could somehow arrive in time for Scorpio’s release? That would be pretty fantastic.
Microsoft has had their E3 shows bested by Sony pretty routinely for the most part the past few years, but I think they’re going to have a good run this year as (presumably) the only company show off new hardware. Technically the Scorpio has already “debuted,” but not really. Last year, we just had a spec tease, and so far this year, all we’ve seen from the console is a Digital Foundry examination of just how powerful the thing is. I expect Scorpio to dominate Microsoft’s show this year, with the full unveiling of the box, price and name.
Obviously it would be nice for Halo, their biggest franchise, to also have a major reveal there at the same time, but it doesn’t look like that will be in the cards. I do think it’s wise for 343 to keep their heads down and simply polish Halo 6 to a mirror shine. We have already heard some changes in the works, from a story focused solely on Master Chief after criticisms about Halo 5 (that wasn’t the reason that story didn’t work, but whatever) and a return to local split-screen play, which 343 admitted was a mistake to remove after the fact. The success of local co-op Battlefront probably did much to help with that decision as well.
I’m looking forward to whatever 343 and Microsoft bring to E3, and to picking up a Scorpio this fall, even if I’m skeptical about the overall market for an expensive superconsole in this day and age. But we’ll see how it all plays out in the coming year.
343 Is Teasing A Microsoft E3 ‘Halo’ Announcement That Isn’t ‘Halo 6’