This is the theme from the announcement trailer for Halo 3: ODST. It's my first arrangement so I'm sorry for any mistakes/inaccuracies which there probably will be. I transcribed it using Finale notepad 2005 which doesn't allow me to change key or time signatures in the middle of a piece so that's why the entire thing is in 6/8 and F-minor. The sax part can be played on piano if you want, but just remember to transpose it down (the notes are A flat, G, and C in concert pitch). Feel free to fix it and change whatever you want to make it better.

This is my transcription of 'Foreboding Dream', which can be heard on the playbar at http://thewaytheirworldended.com/.

Short intro: The Way Their World Ended (also known as 'Intimation' at http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/index.php?f=252) is a fan-made Alternate Reality Game (ARG), based heavily off the I Love Bees ARG which was used to promote Halo 2. It has been running for almost a year now, and is most likely drawing to a close (I think) as of time of writing.

Here is a transcription of Earth City from Halo 2 for the piano (Now with E3 part). It's pretty difficult, so just keep practicing. :)

Many thanks to Spencer "Poop Scoop" Anunsen for his transcription of Earth City for the orchestra; I got most of the notes from there.

Some parts of the MIDI might sound a bit wierd, I was messing around a bit with the dynamics and stuff but generally it sounds ok.

Pedaling, dynamics and articulation are left to the pianist's discretion. Enjoy!

22 Aug: Slight updates.

Difficulty: Quite Hard

This is a modified version of Jonathan's excellent transcription of One Final Effort for the piano (also available on this site).

As the title states, this is a harder version, and is meant for peope who want more of a challenge. Do enjoy!

Much credit goes to Jonathan for the original transcription, as parts of this score are still the original. Pedaling is left to the pianist's discretion.

UPDATED VERSION: Added some more parts mostly, and a bit of fingering added as well.

Okay, I admit it. After the announcement of Halo: Reach, set to come out in 2010, only twelve months or so after this year's Halo 3: ODST, I was set to bash Bungie for being unoriginal and Microsoft for upping the production quota on the goose that laid the golden egg(s).

I had a piece all written, with a pleasantly unpleasant pun in the title, about how this was only to be expected; that Microsoft almost certainly extorted... I mean, exacted from Bungie a promise to continue on with at least X more Halo titles after receiving their independence. This would appear to be true for all situations where X is two or larger. Originally I had thought perhaps ODST would be it; that was probably naive of me.

Of course there's always every chance that there are people in Bungie who want to continue with Halo. Just like Id software nearly split in half over the decision of whether or not to revisit Doom with Doom 3, one might imagine that some old-time Bungie devs want to go back to doing a game and a sequel and let the spinoff studios handle the third game, a la Marathon and Myth. It also seems possible, though, that there are Bungie devs who have not worked on anything but Halo, and perhaps some of those want to keep doing it because they like it, and others want to do something else because they're tired of it.

ODST, I figured, would be an expansion pack: some new campaign and multiplayer levels to tide us over while Bungie works on the Next Big Thing. In some ways, perhaps that's true. However it also looks like we're getting a lot more out of ODST than just that, and the design team have made some intriguing choices, many of which were on display at E3.