Halo 3

Did You Know?

• An alternate reality game called Iris, beginning in June 2007, involved players in slowly revealing background information for the game.
• A remake of the Halo: Combat Evolved map 'Chill Out', titled 'Cold Storage', was released as a free download on Bungie Day, July 7, 2008.

Synopsis

Halo 3 is set in a science fiction setting during the years 2552 and 2553. Humanity is at war with the Covenant, a genocidal alliance of alien races. Halos are massive ringworlds constructed by the Forerunners as weapons against the parasitic Flood; when activated, they destroy all sentient life. In Halo: Combat Evolved, the supersoldier Master Chief destroyed Installation 04 to stop the Flood.

In Halo 2, the Covenant attempted to fire Installation 05, but the Elites learned the truth and joined humanity to stop it; the shutdown primed all rings for firing from the Ark. The Covenant High Prophet of Truth and loyalists head to Earth, believing the Ark is buried there. The protagonist is Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, an enhanced supersoldier known as a Spartan. He fights alongside the Arbiter, a disgraced Covenant Elite commander.

Two other Elite characters, N'tho 'Sraom and Usze 'Taham, appear as third and fourth players in cooperative play. Supporting characters include human soldiers Avery Johnson and Miranda Keyes. The Flood leader known as the Gravemind, who escaped confinement in Halo 2, invaded the Covenant capital High Charity and captured the human AI Cortana.

Development

Halo 2 was a critical and commercial success, but its development was fraught and rushed, resulting in the final act of its campaign being cut. Bungie viewed a third Halo game as a chance to address Halo 2's shortcomings and as the final Halo game the studio would make before moving on. Lingering dissatisfaction with Bungie's acquisition by Microsoft and a desire for better profit-sharing led to an agreement for Bungie to become independent after shipping a set number of new Halo games.

After Halo 2 shipped, cofounder Jason Jones went on sabbatical, leaving the Halo 3 team with little direction; different staff wrestled over creative positions, and no clear direction was decided. Story writer Joseph Staten took a vacation after conflict with other staff, leaving no clear person responsible for the story for a portion of development. The story was drafted by a committee and presented to senior members; composer Martin O'Donnell felt it would not work as it left out previous characters and plot threads.

After seeing the film Serenity, he insisted characters should die to increase stakes. Staten returned to do edits after the plot was established. Designer Max Hoberman spent a year fixing broken features to reach parity with Halo 2's online features. Compared to Halo 2's harried pace, Halo 3's development was smoother, with more time to add features like Forge.

The multiplayer map design team had plenty of time to prototype and playtest, leading to iconic maps. The game was officially announced with a real-time cinematic trailer at E3 2006.

Reception

When Halo 3 launched, it pulled in $170 million in the U.S. on its first day, breaking the previous 24-hour record of $125 million set by Halo 2. Over a million people in North America had preordered the game. Within its first week worldwide, sales topped $300 million, and that surge more than doubled the weekly average of Xbox 360 sales compared to the period just before the game came out. By 2010, Microsoft said total revenue had hit $600 million.

In the U.S., 3.3 million copies were sold in the first 12 days, and that number rose to 3.7 million by November 15, 2007. Reuters UK guessed that global sales might have reached 5.2 million copies in the first two weeks. Halo 3 ended up as the top-selling video game in the U.S. for 2007 and the 14th best-selling of the entire 2000s. More than a million Xbox Live members jumped online to play within the first 20 hours, making it the biggest single day for Xbox Live gaming at the time.

Microsoft reported 8.1 million copies sold by January 2008 and 14.5 million by 2012. According to Advertising Age, movie studio executives thought the game’s release hurt box office numbers—that week’s ticket sales were 27% lower than the same week the year before. Some blamed poor film reception, but others pointed to Halo 3 pulling in the 18-to-34 crowd. Later research, however, found that players still watched just as much TV and movies regardless of how much time they spent in the game.