September 2010
20 posts
NYC launch - tminus 2hrs!
Getting prepped to head down to the times square launch event! If you’re in New York come down and see us!
On the plane
Joe and I are bound for NY. Hope to see some of you there tomorrow night.
-Marcus
Prepare for launch
After three years of building the biggest game Bungie has ever created, the time to launch is almost here. I can’t wait for all of you to finally get a chance to play and experience what we think is the best Halo game we could muster. We took all the best things from over a decade of making Halo games and stuffed them along with a ton of new features into this final send off to you - our...
PAX
I’ve been away for a while (recuperating after we wrapped up production on the game). But, I’m back and running with the PR teams as we approach launch on the 14th.
We got to hang with thousands of fans today at PAX - wow! What a turn out.
Thanks to Joe and Brian for preparing everything today.
If you ever have any doubt how awesome Bungie fans are, just come to an event like...
August 2010
2 posts
We are Gold
That is all.
July 2010
1 post
RTX
A few days ago we released Halo: Reach to Xbox Certification. Assuming things go well in certification, that means the only things standing between you all and Reach are the manufacturing process and shipping the discs to stores. It’s been a long haul getting the game to this point but the team is incredibly proud of the game and can’t wait to play with everyone on September 14th.
A...
June 2010
7 posts
Final stretch
Another long stretch without any updates. Since E3, we have been crushing bugs and working 24/7. It’s been brutal, but we did get to ZBR last night at midnight.
Now we’re closing in on fixing only the crazy weird bugs that we feel just break the game or make us vomit. :)
This is also a time in the project when most of the team is locked out of the database and “have” to...
20 minutes to our first floor demo!
Campaign unvailing
Hope you got to see the keynote address and our glimpse of Reach’s campaign. This was just one small look at a very large picture.
-Marcus
Just landed in LA. Looking forward to see how the show turns out this year.
-Marcus
ZBR
Yes, I know it’s been way too long since I last posted.
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of madness because we’re bringing this giant game in for a landing. I won’t lie, there’s been some turbulence and some areas of the game are coming in hot, but we’ve got the landing gear down, the runway is visible, and the engines are throttling back.
In the midst of...
May 2010
9 posts
switching gears
This week ends the last week of polish for content in the game. At midnight tonight, the artists are shifting into hard core bug fixing mode from here on out until we hit ZBR (zero bug release). While content artists are bug fixing and engineering is optimizing for performance, the designers will be hard at work finalizing all the encounters throughout the campaign.
There are many tired eyes due...
music
Marty pulled me into his studio today to have me listen to some early rough music themes that he’s developing. WOW! What a treat that was. The music for Reach is really going move you guys when you hear it. Marty usually holds his music tight to the chest until later in a project, but I somehow convinced him that I should be able to listen to early compositions and provide feedback before it...
fixed
Looks like we fixed the server problems. Thanks for your patience. Now, when the next couple hundred thousand folks log in tonight…
Congratulations! You have successfully uncovered a problem with our servers. Rest assured, we are feverishly working to solve the problem.
This is all part of what we anticipate with the Beta and is why we test this sort of thing before we ship. Thanks for your patience while we solve the issues on our end. We hope to get you all up and running asap.
-Marcus
Last 3!
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Joe
MW66F-WX4GP-DTKWM-8GT4C-FCT68 BKR2R-KFF34-H8QQX-HPFFT-9TG7B KQY4J-MY9RJ-3D7FT-BP264-T2493 FYH6G-DWPKX-VK988-Y3FYD-J2H3T KJ6B8-CFVYM-RRGVX-TRVTY-XHDHJ C2DH6-2G3DK-KXXBQ-96FJ3-8TTBB J3CGD-7792Y-BTQC6-RQYKT-CPH33 GKQ9Y-QPWRJ-RB94F-JPR88-XBMQ6 PYGY2-FGVTB-TWJ7Q-GT9H3-Y93HW BX3H6-PCKFM-9K44X-XP7RG-4VPMM FKY3B-C8PGH-QTDX9-2HCGF-G6G73 WG3FW-YFW83-HQ3R8-VT3HY-MDQH6 KWFF7-GH7MK-48T6J-D2C24-7QQH8...
April 2010
11 posts
The Little Things
One of the things that never ceases to amaze me about this game is the near-OCD attention to detail the team displays in crafting the experience. When you run around the maps (in the very near future!), you might consider the fact that every blade of grass, every rock and every bolt was hand-crafted and placed in that specific spot by someone (prolonged consideration of this fact may get you...
water
Just got done building some bodies of water for the second mission of the game. I’ve been jumping in here and there to help out with content wherever I can - much to the chagrin of the producers who would prefer that I stand watch over the project at all times.
Water is one of the more archaic parts of the our engine that is arguably too complex, so there’s only about 3 people in the...
Crunch and closing
OK, I got back from vacation last week and have been non-stop in meetings and working till midnight+. While the whole team has been crunching for months now, with the huge push for the Beta, this is the time when we start closing down and begin the polish phase. It’s a time of intense focus with a smaller subset of our huge team.
We’re days away from content complete, which means...
Air to Air action
There’s almost nothing better than jetpacking up in the air and landing a sweet assassination on another high flyer. It’s so sweet we made a cool little turnaround for you all! Enjoy!
PS - thanks to Brian, Urk and Stosh for throwing this together.
- Joe
This week, we solved some big E3 plans that have been cooking for a while now. It wasn’t easy at all. I had some different ideas as to what I wanted to show, but our marketing folks did a great job of pulling me up off the ground – far enough away from the project that I could see what they thought would be the best thing for us to present. Damn, I can’t wait for you all to tune in for what...
PT4
Today I got to attend a playtest sesssion at the user research labs. Over the last couple of weeks we’ve had about 40 folks come in and play our “Playtest 4” milestone build. We’ve been talking a bit on this site about our progress on the multiplayer side of things, but a lot has been going into campaign in parallel. Although we don’t test campaign at anywhere near the...
Taking a short breather with my wife and kids, during their spring break. I’m relaxing while can, knowing that there will be no rest from here until the end of summer while we wrap up Reach.
Hmmm, the scenery here is beautiful. I wonder if I should pull in some inspiration from the islands.
I spoke with a group of fans while hanging with my wife in the pool. It’s good to know everyone...
Today was a good day to see a bunch of amazing things coming together in the campaign.
The AI took some fantastic strides forward and are now fully utilizing some of their brand new capabilities. They are now looking more believable than ever.
We’ve also been building a bunch of what we’re calling “mega ambient moments” throughout the campaign. Sounds grandiose, I know, but some of them really...