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E3 2018 – Halo 6 announcements up ahead?
It’s a heads-up time for the gamers as E3 2018 is just around the corner officially, to begin in association with EA Play on Saturday. In the line of announcements, conferences, and interviews that are to follow from various game developers and publishers, details about Halo 6 being unveiled to the fans might just squeeze in too.
The highly anticipated Halo 6 game has been kept under the wraps for quite some time now, though due to Xbox exclusives being a rarity this year, some details about Halo 6 is just what the diehard fans have been wanting badly this year, so much that even only a title card and ‘2019’ would be it to cheer up the fans as against no updates at all.
In any case, Microsoft’s Xbox Press Conference on the evening of the upcoming Sunday which is to kickstart at 9 pm BST in the UK is where we hope to get some details. Till then, the fans are advised to keep their eyes and ears open for some early retailer leaks or an official update, etc.
Overview of details
Release Date: TBC (estimated late 2019)
Developer: 343 Industries
Publisher: Microsoft
Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox One X Enhanced (presumed)
Genre: First-Person Shooter
What we know so far about Halo 6
The First-Person Shooter game, developed by 343 Industries’ Halo 6 will mark the next main game in the Halo franchise, thereby many gamers have found it surprising for Microsoft to have kept such a low profile on information outlay about the next title of the game.
But with the release of the Xbox One X, Microsoft can take that big leap to the next big Xbox FPS project.
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Halo 6 is to be flagged as the third mainline Halo game from 343 Industries – that took over from the original series developer Bungie.
Halo 6 – powered by Xbox One X
Getting on to the specifics, as per a report from Gamerant, Halo 6 will be played on Xbox One X at a high resolution of 4K with a framerate of 60 FPS. This information has been inferred from a job posting of 343 Studios, which developed the game. 343 Studios has reportedly listed a position for a Lead Graphics Engineer who can come up with”stunning 60 Hz 4K graphics”, and asks for a staffer that “will drive graphical innovation and produce amazing systems and visuals for our entire future FPS Halo experiences.”
Although no official word has been put forth on this either by Microsoft or 343 to affirm the game’s existence, it doesn’t seem that 343 has any other projects on the block currently, needing a staffer of this calibre as mentioned above.
Anticipated release date and development update
Going by the track record, most Halo games have had 3-year development cycles, and it is being logically assumed that Halo 6’s 3-year development cycle that ends this year, would set it for a tentative release date of Q3/4 2018 – following suit of the previous releases.
But at this quarter of the year, this seems quite unlikely, inching towards a realistic date of early 2019. But to put things into more realistic perspective, the release date may stretch further to the second half of 2019.
“This team is completely separate from the broader 343 team working on the next Halo FPS title. There’s zero overlap or shared resources to ensure that the larger game team can remain laser-focused on the future. I’ve read some posts from fans who are concerned that we’re cracking open MCC at the expense of the next Halo FPS title – rest assured that while MCC is incredibly important to the studio, in no way is this work interfering or taking away from the next big thing. We are committing the necessary resources to do both projects right.”
From the extract from this blog post, it seems evident that 343 Industries is all hands-on into the development of Halo 6.
HALO 6 – Coming to Xbox Game Pass
None other than Xbox Boss Phil Spencer gave the big news on the next Halo game back in January, fanning up the excitement of the fans. In an interview with The Verge, he stated that the Xbox Game Pass subscription can expect new releases while also adding that they will be simultaneously made available on the Microsoft Store or at retail.
This is a happy news as NEW titles such Sea of Thieves, Crackdown 3 (slated for release in 2018) can be played at a lesser cost for a month, elevating Xbox Game Pass to a sort of ‘Netflix for gaming’ on Microsoft’s Xbox One’s feature of the family of consoles.
Spencer stated to The Verge, “The number one request from our customers… was to get new blockbuster games into Game Pass. Not just those games, but our future Halos, our future Gears of War, future Forzas, and other games. Our plan is to launch those to our Game Pass subscribers at the same time they go to retail.”
However, the true-blue Halo fans would still probably prefer buying the game rather than playing it on rent, that too part by part, and it stands justified as nothing feels like owning a game and binge-playing it.
Halo 6 – Rumored VR update
Despite Microsoft’s determined silence on Halo 6 and the future of the franchise, changes can be counted on in the coming years. For now, the staff that 343 Industries is hiring provides enough hints about the way things are to roll out for the franchise in future.
343 Industries hiring a Creative Director to help the studio in creating a virtual reality experience set in the Halo universe is an ambiguous sign at it could equally mean that this could be some other standalone product, or it could be a part of the Halo 6 project. Despite not giving away much information, the job listing certainly does affirm that the gamers will get to enjoy the Halo world through VR gameplay, hinting at the larger Microsoft announcement about VR at E3 this year, which is happy news to look out for.
All the Halo 6 fans out there, stay tuned!