Microsoft "Hated" The Name Halo And Multiplayer Was Almost Cut, Designers Say
Waypoint has posted a huge new feature on Halo. Titled "The Complete, Untold History Of Halo," it's a wonderful read that gives fans incredible insight into the creation of the now-huge series, told from the people who were there when it started and still shepherd the series today.
https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/the-complete-untold-history-of-halo-an-oral-history
Those featured in the oral history report include Bungie founder Alex Seropian, FPS control designer (among other things) Jaime Griesemer, composer Marty O'Donnell, writer Joe Staten, Halo prototype designer Marcus Lehto, and a number of other senior developers.
There are loads of fascinating takeaways, and you should read the full story to get all the details. Among them is the notion that Microsoft apparently "hated" the name Halo.
"They said that it doesn't mean anything, and to people it does mean something to, it's not on-brand, because what we're selling is the super soldier, not this weird space junk," Griesemer said. "In every foreign language it sounds stupid, it's feminine--they had so many reasons why the name should be changed. They went for months and months, and they came back with a bunch of names. It was another border dispute."
That's how the Combat Evolved subtitle came to be.
We also learn in the feature that Bungie almost removed multiplayer from the first Halo, which seems almost unthinkable now.
"Multiplayer was also kind of bad until very shortly before the game shipped," Griesemer said. "You would just shoot at a guy forever, and they wouldn't die."
Former Bungie designer Paul Bertone added, "Multiplayer is actually something that was on the chopping block until very close to the end of the project, which would've been an obvious tragedy."
Max Hoberman added that Bungie originally wanted Halo's multiplayer to be more "arena-based," but they ran out of time and the more head-to-head multiplayer was added. "It was never really by design, the way it worked. It was just a scramble to get something done," he said.
