Who Killed Rare?

[gekko]

Originally Posted by KillerGremlin

There was a lot of talk about Microsoft screwing Bungie over. That hit much closer to home. Halo 2 when originally announced had all sorts of cool shit that never made it into the final game. There was talks of destructible environments, more use of dark spaces and flashlights, different vehicles for different terrain...I mean tons of cool stuff that looked like it was in the beta stage. And then the game was delayed for a year, a bunch of shit disappeared, the single player was kind of "meh" and the big thing was online gaming which was fun but kind of dumbed down as well.

So who knows what extent Microsoft gets involved with their projects.

Bungie put out an anniversary video recently which tells the whole story. Things like Bungie was out of money and approached Microsoft looking to be purchased, and all what happened during Halo 2 which caused them to be cut. If anything, Bungie was lucky they were able to be sheltered from the corporate Microsoft culture. Rare being so far away, I assume is the same way.

But either way, cutting things is part of game development, you just usually don't hear about it because it's bad marketing. Just be happy the game actually shipped.