We've all had time to digest the news since then, of course - and realise what a great deal both parties seem to have done.
Activision gets to publish what will surely be one of the biggest franchises of the next decade. It also smartly associates itself with a truly respected, secure creative organisation - at a time when the jewel in its own crown is getting a little wobbly.
Bungie, meanwhile, gets a publishing partner with a proven track record of delivering a cross-console smash - and the security of owning its own franchise at the same time. We'd wager it's also earned itself a nice chunk o' mulla.
But what exactly is this new franchise - over and above an 'action universe'? And what does it all mean for the long-term future of Bungie?
We caught up with the studio's community boss Brian Jarrard to ask about the whispers behind the 'alliance'...
What's the reaction been from the Halo community to the news? The reaction has been exactly what we expected it to be. It's just unfortunate that we had to make this announcement when it had to compete with all the other noise that's taking place right now. There's a lot of noise right now about Activision.
We fully expected people's knee-jerk reaction to be what it is right now and based on what they've been reading about [the Infinity Ward] situation, people have kind of formed their own perceptions of Activision as a publisher and we have anticipated that.
It is good to see that as the news starts to sink in - as people start to really look into the fine print - they see the deal we have puts Bungie in a pretty radically different situation.
To what's going on with Infinity Ward? Exactly. Obviously everyone's asked us about it and from our perspective, the only concern we have in that regard is that we knew making this announcement in the midst of all this [IW chatter] would not be received very well by our fan community.
It's unfortunate that's the case, but if you look at what we have, the two situations are so fundamentally different. Bungie is going to remain a fully independent company without being purchased or becoming part of Activision.
We are going to own our own IP and we have creative control to create these games. We can really realise our vision in this new universe, so we feel incredibly excited and happy that we were able to get the exact deal the way we wanted it.
We feel like we're in the situation to really move Bungie forward in this next decade and create an interesting universe in which we can tell great stories and make great games.
You've chosen to be in an 'alliance' with Activision on this one IP - but if there was the opportunity to work on other Activision franchises would you consider it? Does the prospect excite you at all? No, actually. That's not something we are or would ever be excited about or would even discuss. This partnership is very specifically around allowing Bungie the resources and support to bring our next big universe and IP to life.
After spending the last ten years working on somebody else's IP, when the studio became independent back in 2007, one of our core charters in our constitution was that from now on, we would own what we create. Working on somebody else's intellectual property is just not interesting or compelling to us at all.
This partnership is solely based on the Bungie team creating our next big universe and being able to tell new stories within that. For almost two years now, we've been working ion the framework and planting the seeds, building the pillars of what will define our next universe, so we've already made a lot of headway in fleshing out the big broad brushstrokes [of what the new IP will become].
We're really eager to dive into that once we've completed Halo Reach. That's where our passion lies and that's what we're excited and energised about - and it's what we're focused on for the next decade.
Not even Call Of Duty? No. We have no interest at all in working on anybody else's intellectual property. Realistically, the scale and ambition of what we hope to achieve with our own IP for the next ten years can only really happen if we had the full might of the entire studio working on it. We are committed to fully engage and really work on executing this collective vision as an entire team.
How far down the line are you in terms of creating the new IP? I'll walk you through the timeline a little bit and give you some perspective. Bungie became independent from Microsoft back in 2007. At that time we already had plans in the works to do Halo: ODST as well as Halo: Reach and those projects were in the works almost simultaneously.
But, beyond that we also knew that once Halo: Reach was completed, we'd have the creative freedom and opportunity to embark on our next big universe and to try something new and original. Initial brainstorming and work started honestly even back then. Jason Jones, one of the co-founders of our studio and the sort of core team that worked on the Halo Universe and worked on Combat Evolved have been working pretty steadily on working out and defining what our next universe and IP will actually entail.
I'd say more over the past year there's been more significant headway, because we began talking to publishing partners - and we needed a real plan, some real substance to be able to go out and speak to people on. To try and get a publisher to commit to a ten-year vision obviously requires a little bit more than just a great track record.
We need to have some proof and really be able to show that this universe is going to be awesome - and the types of stories and experiences we can deliver within it.
So where we are at this point? It's safe to say that we're now formally in a pre-production role. The vast majority of our studio is definitely 100 per cent focused on Halo Reach. We've obviously launched the beta and then we've got a lot of work to go between now and the Fall - we don't want to lose sight of that.
We very much want to ensure we live up to our promise of Reach being Bungie's best game yet and our defining Halo title. But once Reach is complete, we'd like to have our next universe and projects in a state where the bulk of our team can move into production on our next game in a very efficient manner. It's a very exciting time. Month after month there more and more momentum being picked up.
Have you got something internally that's playable? We've been doing all sorts of different explorations on technology and different types of experiences. We have a lot of representative work we have already done. It's a tremendous undertaking to try and figure out what it will take to build a universe that we think will really exist and be compelling for ten years - and how to extend that to different platforms and devices.
There's been a lot of technology discussions, a lot of engineering work, a lot of incredible artwork, a lot of story work. We obviously had enough of a compelling representation of our vision to entice and excite Activision so much that they were willing to take this big leap and make this kind of a commitment as well.
Why did you go for Activision over other publishers that came in for you - and did EA Partners approach you? I definitely can't give you a list of all the people that we spoke to, but honestly we explored serious discussions with every eligible partner. Ultimately, for us, Activision emerged as the publishing partner that aligned with what was important to our studio.
Again, making sure that retained ownership of our IP and remain an independent studio - that's extremely important to us. Activision was willing to agree to that and in addition bring to the table their worldwide marketing and distribution presence and expertise with multiplatform development and release. All those things combined ultimately led to us choosing Activision.
How many publishers did you speak to? There's only a handful of publishers out there that could have a realistic discussion about a ten-year partnership - and the type of magnitude and scale for our project and universe that we envisioned.
We spoke to all of those major publishers and over the course of time, we ended up going with Activision, who met all of the criteria that was most important to us and best aligned us to success in the future.
Obviously you've already invested a lot into this IP. Over the last ten years, you've only really worked on one franchise. Do you expect to make other IP in the next ten years? You know, right now it's not our intent to do that - certainly it's possible down the road. I think one of the things that Bungie's learnt over the years we worked on Halo was that there were a variety of different projects we explored on the side and ultimately I think we've learned that in order to do our best work it really requires the collective vision of all of our team working together - all of our best and brightest people.
I can definitely say that in order to accomplish what we'd like to do with our next universe, it's going to take our entire team focused on working together on it. That's all we're focused on right now.
This is your first step into developing on PS3. Do you think you'll continue to lead development on 360 as it's the format you know the best? We've obviously have a very intimate relationship with the 360 - we've had a great partnership with Microsoft for ten years now and we continue to as we work on Reach, launch Reach and continue to support Reach together.
So I don't think that relationship is going to go away at all, but we're certainly excited about the prospect of being able to share our new stories and universe with an even bigger audience and bring it to different devices and platforms and create new and interesting ways for our fans to engage.
We're definitely right now spending a lot of time thinking about how our universe might expand into different platforms and devices. It will be more than one - and that was a huge important goal for us when we set out to find the right publishing partner. Clearly Activision has a lot of experience with multiple devices and we'll be working closely with them to make sure that we're making the right decisions as we move forward with our projects.
Do you expect to lead development on 360? It's a little bit too early for us to make that kind of comment. We're going to exactly figure out what's the right way to lead into our new universe and what's the right way to extend it. It's too early for me to say which console is going to be the first out of the gate.
Do you think you'll stick with the FPS genre - or could the first release in this franchise take you to new areas? You know, I don't want to pigeon hole it into a genre either, except to say it's going to be our next big action game universe. I think we're going to obviously build on the pillars that have come to define Bungie games - and obviously we've spent a decade now creating action games, so we can safely say that our next property will still be action-orientated.
Above that, I think it's safe to say that online has been something that's very important to our studio and our success and culture - just as community interactions and social engagements as well. We're going to be carrying forward all the elements of this common thread that you'll find in all Bungie games and we'll continue to deliver on those - and push forward and innovate as well.
Do you think this new IP could become even bigger than Halo? Yeah - absolutely. We're tremendously proud of what we've accomplished with Halo. If you look at Bungie's history, each new universe we've built has gotten a little big bigger and a little bit broader - with Halo obviously being the crown jewel these days.
As a studio, we wouldn't want to embark down a future path where we didn't think we'd continue to improve and eclipse our previous efforts. I mean, every project we embark on, our goal is obviously than we've done before. I'm really excited about what we have right now and what Jason and the team have been working on. The sheer fact that we'll now be able to bring that universe to a larger audience on various devices is very interesting and exciting for us. We didn't have that opportunity in the last decade with Halo. We definitely have our sights on something that will take gamers to a new exciting place.
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