Bungie: New Project To Be 'Even Better And Bigger' Than Halo

Bungie has widely stated its intention to build a "universe" with the new project at the core of its ten-year exclusive Activision deal. Certainly, the team's experienced at this -- Halo became an enormous franchise with multiple installments, a set of novels and even a board game. But not only does Bungie hope to reprise the scale of that performance, it aims to top it. "We're in a really strong position with, I think, a lot of really good plans," design director Joe Staten tells Gamasutra. "This is an opportunity for us to try to do it all again, but even better and bigger this time," he adds. Halo was born as a launch title for the original Xbox, Microsoft's yet-untested first steps into the console market, and yet its world proliferated beyond Bungie's original expectations on the back of that game. So Bungie has high aims for what it can accomplish with a property conceived on a grand scale from the get-go. "We weren't focused on just signing a deal to ship a game," Staten says of the new agreement with Activision. "It's really about signing a deal for a long term partnership, to create any gaming expereience that makes sense in this universe." "If we look back 10 years ago, we only wish we had this kind of foresight," he adds, reflecting on Halo's launch. "At that time, we were terrified about shipping a single title for launch for a new platform on time. To be honest, we weren't thinking too much beyond that." "But we're in a radically different position now. As someone who was part of the team that shipped Halo 1, I'm really excited."