Halo 4 In development by Gearbox? olololol-WAIT REALLY?!

[ultama121]

http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2008/08/26/oxm-halo-4-in-development-by-gearbox/

Discuss and wtf this barely possible rumor.

They may have ported Halo 1, but they definitely did not make it, I hope that this isn't true.

If it is true, at least it'll give the GBX forum some more juice. :-3

[DEElekgolo]

Possible. Bungie does have a lot of projects on there desk. And gearbox is the same company that was nice enough to give us Halo CE. Who knows what they can do with halo 4. But then again. Halo 3 PC may be in development by gearbox instead of halo 4.

[Zeph]

Just a rumor. A rumor that's been around ever since Randy made that announcement about needing a new art director. If he made the announcement next spring, I might have actually applied.

The only thing that concerns me about this rumor is what engine they're going to use. I despise Unreal and most other additive or subtractive engines. If it is a Halo themed game, I'd hope Bungie would have passed on the generation of the engine for GBX to use. Maybe then there would be a huge flood on interest in mapping, and perhaps even modding, for the engine.

To be honest, knowing Randy/GBX, they could have made that position's announcement for something like their Aliens game. It's probably just an MMO.

[Xetsuei]

Like they said at GBX forums, it could possibly be a squad based shooter.

[jngrow]

Also, wouldn't be called Halo 4. Well, it might, but yeah.

[t3h m00kz]

To me it seems it's too early for any announcements like this to be made public, but who knows man anything can happen

[Pooky]

Why would you be upset that Gearbox is doing this... Gearbox is an awesome FPS developer <_<

[Pyong Kawaguchi]

Halo Blue Please.

[t3h m00kz]

The only thing that concerns me about this rumor is what engine they're going to use. I despise Unreal and most other additive or subtractive engines.

I don't know what you're talking about... but I think Halo on the Unreal Engine would be pretty... EPIC (http://www.epicgames.com/)?

[Kornman00]

You can't do Halo on any other engine http://kornnersoftware.com/trillian/rec0.gif. But if its a squad based shooter, you could, just it still wouldn't be Halo. Might as well add support to the engine for squad based simulation.


The next Xbox console? Are you kiddi-owait, launch title. Ugh.

I'd much rather a Halo 3 port be in the works by GBX if they are indeed doing anything halo related. I'm not going to put Halo PC against them. They did a good job taking a engine that was put together by a small team in less than a year while riding in a burning ambulance going 120mph in a school zone, let alone designed for the Xbox (since there really wasn't much time for them to spend adding PC-related support during development).

However since GBX requested a new art-director for their project, it would have to be a new game if you ask me. Unless they want to make sure the editing kit and any custom maps are done right this time.

[Pope]

Halo 4 just seems too unlikely for Gearbox at this time. Gearbox has: Aliens, BiA, Samba and Borderlands as future releases and at least BiA and Borderlands are big budget games.

Adding an unannounced Halo 4 Squad shooter I think is just out of the question. Everything I think is being over speculated by the general masses.

E: Holy shit Kornman00 killed me.

[jngrow]

Halo Blue Please.
This wasn't anything. It was a new action figure at Wal-Mart; a blue spartan.

[Limited]

Halo isnt Halo without Bungie. End of.

[Rob Oplawar]

wait, what? Oh come on. I'm extremely skeptical. I've heard rumors like this before.
I, er, well, I think I've said all I can.

[Terry]

I can't see them doing an actual "Halo 4". It just doesn't seem very plausible. If anything, they are probably making some spin-off, but I doubt they'd be working on anything Halo related.

[TeeKup]

Halo: Reloaded.

[Rob Oplawar]

Every great science fiction series eventually gets ruined in some way by the people looking for more money. Star Wars, the Matrix, Firefly (being prematurely canceled could be quite ruinous, considering the series' long-term potential); it's going to happen to Halo sooner or later.

e: I guess that's not strictly on-topic, but the "Halo: Reloaded" comment sent me off on that tangent.

[Zeph]

I don't know what you're talking about... but I think Halo on the Unreal Engine would be pretty... EPIC (http://www.epicgames.com/)?
I'm sorry, are you confusing art direction with the way an engine works and creates things? Halo and UT3 go off in completely different directions when it comes to artistic style.

You must be, because I was talking about how much of a bitch it is to get things set up in the Unreal editor.

[Zeph]

Halo: Reloaded.

I could go for a graphical update of Halo 1, two years down the road from that Halo 2, and possibly even Halo 3 two years after that if there's enough of a need/demand.

[NullZero]

Havok engine mb?

Halo 4 just doesn't seem likely

[Ki11a_FTW]

if this is true, im really glad its in development by gearbox, they brought us Halo PC and Halo CE, which were very great games at the time(Also unlocked hek plox, well for the most part)

[Zeph]

Havok engine mb?

Halo 4 just doesn't seem likely

*twitch*
Do you know what havok is?

[Malloy]

Halo 4 : Start the fight

*MC walks into a pub and takes a swig out of another geesers pint*

[NullZero]

*twitch*
Do you know what havok is?


Havok Physics, better known as simply Havok, is a physics engine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_engine) developed by Irish company Havok (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havok_%28company%29). It is designed for computer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_game) and video games (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game) by allowing interaction between objects or other characters in real-time. By using dynamical simulation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamical_simulation), Havok allows for more lifelike worlds and animation, such as ragdoll physics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragdoll_physics) or intelligence in massive falling things. The company has also released a Havok Animation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animation). Havok was purchased by Intel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Corporation) in 2007.lol

[Phopojijo]

Havok was in Halo 2.

If it's Gearbox, I'd say they'd be doing Halo on UnrealEngine.

Which would be amusing to say the least.

[flibitijibibo]

Havok was in Halo 2.

If it's Gearbox, I'd say they'd be doing Halo on UnrealEngine.

Which would be amusing to say the least.
Well, at least that way it would run on the average PC. *cough*

[Kornman00]

I would disown and not buy a Halo (FPS) if it didn't use the engine the franchise was built on.

[klange]

Blam! or gtfo.

[Rob Oplawar]

I feel a certain attachment to good old Blam!- it's been good to me. But from my perspective it's not all that great an engine. Come to think of it, tho, I don't think I would change it- the thing with Blam! (as far as I see it anyway) is that instead of going for the very latest and greatest technology has to offer, trying to push the edge in optimization and physics and graphics, they went with something that produces a very stable and very fun gaming experience. Even in Halo 3 the engine barely qualifies as next gen, yet the features it does support have been tested into the ground. Instead of spending their time trying to deal with all these crazy new features, they stuck with the basics, and got them down.
So at the start of this post I was about to say how Blam! isn't a good engine, but there you have my thought process for my flip-flop. Go Blam!

Although one thing that has always sucked in Halo is the faces, imo. They've never looked good, and in Halo 3 I was appalled at how ugly the face shaders were. This is the next gen, people, get with the game.


[/another ot post]

[343guiltymc]

Halo for cryengine 2?

[jngrow]

Yeah, Bungie really fails at faces.

[Zeph]

I'm attached to Blam! as it truly allows you to put whatever the hell you want ingame thanks to the way they have their cache files set up into tags. The only limitation when creating content for that game is hard coded functions. With Crysis, you might have amazing graphics, but if you hop into Sandbox 2 to play around and make something new, you're extremely limited. For example, the sky is hard coded and there is no way to get around it. You cant have a real space level, you cant have different skies without compromising that functionality, and you cant even get animations going on with textures in the sky. In my opinion, what good is having parallax on objects if you cant even get your sky done the way you want.


Havok was in Halo 2.
Beat me to it.


I would disown and not buy a Halo (FPS) if it didn't use the engine the franchise was built on.
Same.

[Ki11a_FTW]

I would disown and not buy a Halo (FPS) if it didn't use the engine the franchise was built on.
^

[Heathen]

I'd buy it.

[ultama121]

You can't do Halo on any other engine http://kornnersoftware.com/trillian/rec0.gif. But if its a squad based shooter, you could, just it still wouldn't be Halo. Might as well add support to the engine for squad based simulation.
This.

[Daishi]

I actually prefer halo PC over the original halo for xbox. It runs smoother, is easier to play, and lets you have that all important UI; the mouse. I would absolutely love it if they were doing halo 3 pc. I think they did a great job on the original.

[t3h m00kz]

I'm sorry, are you confusing art direction with the way an engine works and creates things? Halo and UT3 go off in completely different directions when it comes to artistic style.

You must be, because I was talking about how much of a bitch it is to get things set up in the Unreal editor.

Note the link in my comment.

[Phopojijo]

JThe only thing that concerns me about this rumor is what engine they're going to use. I despise Unreal and most other additive or subtractive engines. If it is a Halo themed game, I'd hope Bungie would have passed on the generation of the engine for GBX to use. Maybe then there would be a huge flood on interest in mapping, and perhaps even modding, for the engine.You have obviously never used Unreal Engine 3... BSP is an option, not a mandate.

Skyhook is fully Static Mesh (except for a couple of effects I did that I was too lazy to do in Maya...). You literally can just model your entire map in Maya/Max... chop it up into peices... then stick it in to UnrealED and walk on it.

You even have the option to generate multiple levels of physics detail... add any material you wish to it... even lightmap the mesh based on static lights placed throughout your map.

Using experience with Unreal Engine 2 as a basis for complaints on Unreal Engine 3 doesn't make sense.

[Pooky]

I would disown and not buy a Halo (FPS) if it didn't use the engine the franchise was built on.

Any particular reason why?

[Phopojijo]

Because he hacks the Halo Engine and that's probably his main reason for liking Halo at this point.

[t3h m00kz]

I'm attached to Blam! as it truly allows you to put whatever the hell you want ingame thanks to the way they have their cache files set up into tags. The only limitation when creating content for that game is hard coded functions. With Crysis, you might have amazing graphics, but if you hop into Sandbox 2 to play around and make something new, you're extremely limited. For example, the sky is hard coded and there is no way to get around it. You cant have a real space level, you cant have different skies without compromising that functionality, and you cant even get animations going on with textures in the sky. In my opinion, what good is having parallax on objects if you cant even get your sky done the way you want.


That's not the case with Unreal Engine however. With the kit that COMES with Unreal Tournament 3, and Gears of War I believe, you can do literally anything.

Let me give you an example.

This is a screen shot I've taken in game.

This includes a custom character.
A custom map.
A custom weapon modeled and encoded from scratch, nothing used from Unreal.

baeleted imagery

Also, I took this screen shot with a mutator called Action Cam, which was built specifically in the engine to be fully compatible with UT3, all versions. It wasn't an unsupported hack of any kind like BitterBanna's Third Person View, it was made in the engine. IE, in Halo CE terms, if Version 1.08 comes out, all the 1.07 shit would be compatible.

Oh, and also, there are quite a few TCs that were made in Unreal Engine 2. There's custom gametypes, custom announcer sounds, clan logos that pop up when you join servers, etc.

So the way I see it, saying that the Halo's editing kit is superior to most is a huge overstatement. The Unreal Engine (at least UE2 I know for sure) has nothing hard coded (Except for the base game data for pure servers, which can still be entirely copied and modified to the gamer's desire).

I was half-joking when I said Halo on the Unreal Engine would be epic. If the next Halo were made on Unreal Engine 3, people would be able to do things like port weapons and models from other Unreal Engine 3 games. Unreal Engine has ALWAYS been made to be extremely customizable. The possibilities would be literally limitless.

Compared to Halo PC, which supports modding yet has hardcoded things like fixed gametypes, all with similar objectives (CTF, Slayer), a limit of four grenades, X ammount of vehicles on the map, and X ammount of objects in one area at one time (Looking at you, Overdose), I'd say Unreal Engine has the upper hand.

Some of the programs we're using to mod Halo at the moment, model/animation extractors and whatnot, were made from people doing some serious ass hacking, whereas Unreal Engine has everything built into the editor. So honestly, I'd say Gearbox didn't want people modding their engine as heavily as Epic did.

Also, snowreal ftw.

iM8g2-9XXXY

Oh and btw all this is open source, there's no protection on Unreal mods.

[Kornman00]

ur forgetting to consider the fact that the unreal engine is designed for being licensed out to other developers while blam is for one developer and one game....

[t3h m00kz]

Yes, but eh I think I misread the last few posts. I thought this conversation was about the user friendly capabilities IE modding of the engine. I mean, everyone was pissed when Halo 2's engine was so tightly locked that they could barely do anything with the editing kit without hacking/backwards engineering it.

The Unreal Engine wasn't designed only for other developers, it was also designed to be user friendly and heavily modable for the members of the game's community to pick up and be creative with. The official Unreal forums even have designated areas for people do discuss ideas and release user-created mods.

I mean, this place IS named Modacity, and to me, it just seems a bit ironic that the focus is an engine with a bunch of hard coded features, and a bunch of users protecting their content like it's gold, when in reality, anything made in the Blam engine, especially content based off of Bungie's original design, belongs to Bungie.

Whatever reasons you all have for wanting the next Halo to be on Blam are yours, and that's fine. You're entitled to your opinion, and I respect that. However, personally, I think it's cool and respectable when game developers allow the community to openly mess around and have fun with their stuff. Seems to me like, fun's what games are all about, right?

[p0lar_bear]

As Kornman said, Blam was designed to do one thing: Halo. Whereas Unreal, Source, and CryEngine were created with 3rd party support in mind, Bungie did not do that.

So we get a stable engine with a quick-loading (from XBox HDD cache and PC HDD) cache file system, with the tradeoff of on-the-fly modding; any modifications to game content requires creation or modification of an existing cache file.

All the engine really needs is the ability to differentiate games like in Source (filter servers by HL2DM servers, CSS servers, DoD servers, etc). I've always thought, if it came to releasing a full-custom mod, single or multiplayer. of resource hacking strings.dll and halo.exe, replacing the bitmaps and strings from the Halo stuff to whatever the mod is for, and the redistributing the DLL and EXE. Unfortunately, the server browser would still pick up Halo servers.

[Kornman00]

with the tradeoff of on-the-fly modding; any modifications to game content requires creation or modification of an existing cache file.
not so, they added on-the-fly updates of changes to the assets to be sync'd to the xbox starting with Halo 2. just they'd have to build a tag release build of the game and not a cache release build in order to run that