Halo is one of the most celebrated series in video game history, partly because it stuck to the same thing for so long, but all of the best games up to this point have drawn well on both single and multiplayer modes to create their overall offerings.
The sci-fi shooter may have been through a lot more ups and downs in recent years than the developer would like, but it remains popular with fans, who only want to see new, quality Halo games release as regularly as possible.
It's an interesting idea, then, that there was another Halo game on the way at one point, that eschewed the single-player part of the experience in favour of turning it into an MMO, a project that was several years into development before it was eventually cancelled.
Now, new revelations from a developer who worked on the game places the blame for its cancellation squarely at the feet of one man - Don Mattrick.
Advert
Halo Game Cancelled In Favour of Bonuses
As first reported by ComicBook.com, over on Twitter, Sandy Petersen, a game designer who worked for the company producing the game, Ensemble Studios, gave us some additional detail about what the game was going to be like, as well as why we never got to see it.
Codenamed Titan, the game was supposed to take place thousands of years before the mainline Halo series, with fans able to play as either the Forerunners or the Covenant (with the Flood also a non-playable faction).
Advert
The release was even supposed to bring in over $1.1 billion, which would have been an incomprehensible amount of money back then, before all of that potential was erased in an instant.
Startling revelations from Petersen claim that former Xbox head scrapped the game because of the detrimental effect it had on his personal bonus.
Fans discovering this information for the first time were particularly gutted, with many understandably taking aim at Mattrick.
"Don Mattrick is everything that is wrong with the gaming industry. This game actually sounds like a WoW killer," one said.
Advert
"People will call this corporate greed, but it is highly individual and personal greed. I've been hit personally by a lot of "corporate" decisions, but I've always been able to trace it to 5 or fewer individuals who were punching above their weight and I was caught in it," another added.
A third said, "This really f***ing pisses me off. You guys deserved so much better. More diversity in Halo's lineup of games is desperately needed. That was thrown away for one person's greed. Disgusting."
Regardless of how the decision came to be made, it's a huge shame as a fan of the series that we'll never get to see the MMO. Hopefully Halo's halcyon days return before long.