Bungie is asking the community to pitch in and help the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, Bungie-style; the Bungie Store has a new $19.99 t-shirt for sale, and of that price $15 will go to the American Red Cross for hurricane relief efforts.
Having recently returned to the Rampancy cave after a short stretch on the steppe, I've collected a few news nibblets of note:
As noted by Major Nelson and many, many others, the five maps in Bungie's second, or "maptacular" pack of new maps for Halo 2, comprising Gemini, Relic, Elongation, Terminal, and Backwash, are now available for free to all Xbox Live subscribers. At this point all nine maps released via Xbox Live since Halo 2's launch in late 2004 are now freely available to anyone that has an Xbox Live subscription; only those without XBL still need to buy them on disc (also handy for multiple installations).
Stosh at Bungie.net pointed out an article by Pat Miller in the latest issue of The Escapist. (If you're not familiar with the format, like I wasn't, the magazine issue itself is the downloadable PDF file linked at the bottom of the page--Ed.) The article is about Bungie's pre-Halo heritage, the Marathon Trilogy, and even includes a sidebar on the Haunted Apiary (ilovebees) alternate reality game. (Although I must strongly warn readers against believing them when they say that Rampancy exists in the Halo universe; ilovebees is the only place that link exists, and I've it on pretty good authority that Bungie doesn't see it that way--Ed.)
Following closely on the heels of yesterday's prognostications in Variety about the Halo motion picture project, none other than Bungie's own scriptwriter extraordinaire, Joe Staten, penned part of a piece to try and calm the nerves of Halo fans everywhere, and give them every possible assurance that Bungie is engaged and enthusiastic about this project-- about Alex Garland's script and about the attitude of producer Peter Schlessel.
Bungie's Community Team, along with Microsoft, has produced for the project an expanded version of the Halo Bible (of which the page on Grunts can be seen in Joe's story).
I'll mark the words of HBO's Louis Wu on this one: don't give up being skeptical, but if it is at all possible to make fans cautiously optimistic about the film's prospects, this article will do it.
Spotted by HBO, an article by Variety says Halo is hitting the big screen in 2007, and while Microsoft (and thus, we assume, Bungie) will be "guaranteed extensive consultation on the project" it will not have final approval on anything. (If rumors about the Doom movie pan out, get ready for a film version of Halo that doesn't take place on a Ringworld, where the Covenant aren't religious fanatics, and where you get to see the Master Chief's face. Here's hoping not--Ed.)
This week's What's Update by Frankie says that matchmaking playlists will get updated in "September-ish" to include all the new maps where appropriate (since at the end of this month, they'll all be free) as well as some interesting new variations, such as games with more than two teams and oddball games with more than one ball.
Bungie Sightings has a new post up today on their observed progress of Wideload's upcoming Halo engine game, Stubbs the Zombie, as well as an offer of $5 to the person who can guess their answer to this question:
"Stubbs the Zombie is based on a previous Bungie engine. In the history of Bungie (and now Wideload) technical sequels, what sets this game apart from past attempts?"
The answer they are looking for is apparently sarcastic and smarmy.
SketchFactor has posted at Bungie.net a writeup of Bungie's trip to the GPhoria videogame awards, which he attended with Marty O'Donnell, Jay Weinland, and Frankie. Frankie's written his own writeup on that page, titled "an Insider's Guide to Schmoozing with the Stars" and Sketch has also put up a photo gallery.
Halo 2 was nominated for seven GPhoria awards... and won all seven, including Game of the Year.
Eric Trautmann wanted to thank all the Halo fans who purchased The Art of Halo, which has sold quite well and earned him his first-ever (and apparently "big fat") royalty check.
M0N3y 5H07 posted in the Bungie.net forum that he found the "Hi Ben" easter egg on Regret referred to by Frankie in the abandoned tower. Other users captured videos: RapidShare, Putfile. Frankie was expected to give the solution in this week's What's Update.
This week's What's Update at Bungie.net isn't much to shake a stick at, but that's because Frankie and the gang at Bungie are busting their you-know-whats on the next game which may or may not be Halo 3. Nobody's seen or heard from Ben yet, but the answer is forthcoming next week.
This week's... ahem.. blogcast by Major Nelson features an interview with Bungie's own Brian "SketchFactor" Jarrard. It's the second interview, the first being with a Boeing engineer about the Connexion in-flight Internet service.