Microsoft is hinting at big plans for the future of Halo with a job listing for a software engineer that involves “blending consoles, web and mobile to create an immersive Halo world.”
“Do you love Halo? Do online social communities and console video games excite you? Do you love building scalable online infrastructure & websites for large and passionate audiences?” the ad reads. “We have an ambitious task ahead, taking the current Halo community and online gaming support system and bringing it to the next level.”
There’s no real indication as to what that “next level” is, unfortunately, but the ad says the successful applicant will be responsible for creating “a great out-of-game interactive experience that takes the next step beyond the systems found in Halo 3.” Among the duties will be designing an infrastructure to support “millions of concurrent users” on the service, support for community applications and game titles and building “forums, tournament ladders, media libraries and integrated mini-games.”
So what is the Redmond gang up to these days? It was revealed in September 2008 that a Halo-based MMOG in the early stages of development was killed in mid-2007 before it was even announced and of course Bungie, the original Halo team, is stepping away from the franchise while Halo Wars developer Ensemble Studios no longer exists. But Microsoft obviously isn’t ready to let its premiere game franchise drift away into nothingness. Could we soon be playing web-based Halo on our PCs, similar to Quake Live? Monitoring tournaments and rankings on our mobiles? Whatever happens, it’s clear the Halo franchise has a lot of life left in it.
via: Joystiq
