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Bungie Considered Halo 4 Before Halo: Reach

Halo: Reach will give fans of the series a look at its universe -- and a lot more Spartans -- before the events of the original Halo: Combat Evolved took place, but according to Bungie community director Brian Jarrard, they planned at one point to make Halo 4 instead.
"Even before the idea to build a game based around Reach came about, a lot of other concepts were explored, up to and including a proper ’Halo 4,’ where Master Chief was going to wake up from cryo-sleep and we were going to tell that story," Jarrard said to MTV multiplayer. Spoiler warning if you never beat Halo 3, but for those whose memories are only a little hazy, the game ended with Master Chief encasing himself into cryo-sleep as he drifted aimlessly with Cortana in space on half of a destroyed frigate.

As for why they decided against another direct sequel, Jarrard said that "it just wasn’t as interesting to the team to just pick up where that left off and all the baggage that came with it." Still, considering this will be Bungie’s last Halo (as they’re moving on to a mysterious new franchise in a publishing partnership with Activision), Jarrard also says Reach will tie into the trilogy nicely. "We don’t want to open up a whole bunch of doors that we’re not going to close," he said. "By the end of this, it’s all going to come to a nice, neat finish, and if people want to then go play the Halo trilogy, I think they’ll have a better understanding of what’s going on, but it’s not required at all."

Halo: Reach is set for release on September 14.