At Macworld, interim CEO Steve Jobs introduces Jason Jones. A man with a game made for the Macintosh. That game? Halo.
Wait, did I say Macintosh? You're damn right I did.
Bungie actually made its name, and money, originally off of a game (and sequels) called Marathon:
(Those of you who spent a lot of time getting terminals or achievement hunting in general in Halo games might recognize the name and/or image)
(Hell, ever taken a good look at 343 Guilty Spark?)
(His eye looks reeeeeeally familiar doesn't it? Bungie loves to reference their old games.)
Marathon is not a game about running a 5k for charity. Marathon is a first person shooter, in a Doom-like map, originally made for the Macintosh! It was Mac's equivalent to Doom, actually, since that only ran on DOS-based systems (Windows). You can actually still download this game and it's sequels on PC, Mac, or Linux here, for free!
Ok so, E3 2000 rolls around, and Bungie has quite a bit more to show about Halo. We get a lot more characters, as well as a better look at how some of the vehicles will handle in this new, 3rd person shooter! For the Mac, right?!
Not long after E3 2000, Microsoft announces that it has acquired Bungie (now to be known as Bungie Studios), and that Halo will be a launch title for its flagship gaming console, the XBox. (Mac users, although disappointed, did eventually get a port of Halo: Combat Evolved, but they aren't the point of this article.) Under this arrangement Microsoft will own the Intellectual Property Rights to Halo, now called Halo: Combat Evolved (Halo:CE or just CE for now on in this article, I'm already tired of writing the whole name).
Many have speculated the various reasons why Bungie would agree to a buyout like this, the most prevalent being that one of their other games, Myth 2, had a bug in the Asian versions of the game that caused the user's hard-drive to format. This was going to cost Bungie a billion dollars in recalls, so getting bought out probably helped to cushion that blow. Working for Microsoft, as Bungie themselves have referred to as their "Benevolent Dictators", wasn't all fun and games. Well, it was all games. Game development. Poor choice in phrase, I know.
Work for Microsoft ended up causing Bungie a lot of headaches when it came to deadlines. Shortly after they finished their game, ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence for those of you who played Reach, see the references?), Bungie West was dissolved and brought in to help finish Halo 2. They had to cut several missions from the game, including the planned ending. According to some of the devs, Halo 2 ends somewhere in the first few missions of Halo 3.
On October 1st, 2007, Microsoft and Bungie announced that Bungie would split off into it's own company (An event that, according to Bungie, was set into motion July 7th, or 7/7/07. Bungie likes their 7s. Quick Facts: in the Halo universe, at the start of CE, there are 7 active Halo rings in the array. Meaning there are 7 cartographers in total, and each has a color from the rainbow, the ROY G BIV thing.) In this deal, Microsoft still owned Halo, and was having Bungie publish games for it. Out of this deal we got Halo 3: ODST, and Halo: Reach.
(The latin reads: "Don't make us kick your ass", IIRC)
Around the time Bungie departed from Microsoft, 343 Industries was formed (343i), as an in-house division in Microsoft to oversee the Halo multimedia franchise. After the release of Reach, 343i was given the reigns of Halo by Microsoft, but not without acquiring some of Bungie's dev team, members who were not done working on Halo. Up until Halo 4, 343i had never actually developed a game of their own. Honestly, for having to step into such big shoes, they did an OK job with it.
Bungie is now free to work on it's own projects (they currently have a deal with Activision to make Destiny, and Bungie gets to keep the IP, regardless of what happens with the product), and 343i has been put in charge of Halo. With direction from Microsoft and Employees who worked on Halo during Bungie's days, they have the potential to continue an amazingly expansive universe.
I hope you enjoyed this brief, abbreviated history lesson about Halo and its creators! - Matt
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