Members of our forum populace have cited a couple of disturbing items in Gamespot's Hands-On: Halo report. Here's the troubling passage from the article:

Howard also said that Bungie currently has two people working full time on Halo's multiplayer component, although the company still hasn't decided exactly how or if it's going to support multiplayer for the game. Players will recall that when Halo was originally a PC game, it was supposed to be largely multiplayer, much like Sierra's Tribes 2 will be. And speaking of the PC version, Bungie is committed to releasing Halo for the PC and Mac platforms after it ships the game for the Xbox, and the designers do plan on significantly differentiating all three versions from each other.

Bloodbeard draws attention to the latter part about significant differentiation between Xbox, PC and Macintosh versions, as if the Mac and PC versions may be significantly unlike one another; we've already known that the Xbox version would be somewhat different, and may not even be able to play against users on Macs and PCs.

Even more unsettling, however, disDain bemoans the possibility that Halo's multiplayer element may be somewhat deemphasized from previous development on the PC. Hopefully, Gamespot just got their wires crossed. Pray for Bungie to clarify matters and kill the FUD as soon as possible.

• Forum: Text of ZDNet Halo report