In news that may anger many Halo fans, Bungie has revealed that Halo 3: ODST was ready for shipment by May, but has been held back from release with no extra bug fixes or updates.
Brian Jarrard, Community Director at Bungie,
confirmed on this week’s Bonus Round that Halo 3: ODST was complete and ready for shipping in May, before this year’s E3.
Development on the game took only one year and the main reason for this speedy development was because Bungie are continuing to use the 3-4 year old Halo 3 engine for the game. Microsoft decided to hold the game back, in order to shift more copies by selling the game nearer to the end of the year.
Brian also mentioned that the development team moved back to Halo: Reach, which will be using a new game engine, as soon as ODST was complete. This may explain why ODST will also be shipping with a multiplayer beta component for Halo: Reach, which when announced at E3, left us all scratching our heads. Halo 3: ODST is set to release in North America and Europe on September 22nd, be sure to check it out.