I figured that the news announced by Frankie at the Halo ComicCon Panel would be all we would get this week. Unfortunately this was not the case.

Someone from IGN UK apparently spiked Lars Bakken’s kool-aid, because he gave up the answer to the question fans have been wondering ever since Halo: Reach was announced, namely: is this Bungie’s last Halo game? According to Thug Lars, this is the case. Joystiq contacted Bungie about it though and they were told “we’re not ready to talk about any plans or games beyond Halo 3: ODST or Halo: Reach.” The Bungie quote does re-iterate that they are working on a new IP but Mr. Bakken told Eurogamer that the publisher will likely not be Microsoft. (none of this is mentioned in this week’s Bungie Update) Discuss here…

The next piece of news is not at all surprising but it is awfully final. Both Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp have stated that the Halo movie is dead. Blomkamp says he would not take part even if he was asked to again. Jackson revealed (or did we know this?) that the movie died due to internal politics between the two studios involved, not the high budget. Jackson and Blomkamp have taken the momentum from preparing for the Halo movie and put it toward District 9 which comes to theaters very soon. Halo Chronicles, a video game Jackson was to also work on, “collapsed” when the movie did. Discuss here…

As a long time Bungie fan and Halo fan, I look forward to both the new Halo content and whatever this new Bungie IP is. (Note: Marathon, Myth, ONI and Abuse aren’t “new” so it’s doubtful we will see sequels to those games anytime soon.)

UPDATE: Turns out Lars wasn’t done making big admissions to the European gaming press. No DLC has been planned for ODST though “anything’s possible”. The obvious choice would be future Firefight maps and I really hope they change their minds. Since ODST has been done for a while, they should be working on DLC right now. Perhaps another studio can make some DLC?