Halo 2 PC Exclusive Maps, No Halo MMO, Halo Movie Later

There's been plenty of Halo news flowing in ever since E3, and these last few days were no different. In fact, we got three separate Halo topics for you today, though none of which is about Halo 3. Instead, the first in line is the upcoming PC version of Halo 2, which Bungie's latest weekly update tells quite a lot about. For one thing, it's now pretty safe to assume that there will be no cross-platform matches between players on Xbox / Xbox 360, and players of the PC version. Makes sense, really, when you consider all the controll and aiming issues, and then throw this juicy bit of info on top of it all:

"Add to that the fact that we will have new maps built specifically for the Vista version and a map editor, and cross-platform matchmaking becomes even more complex and less realistic."

Yummy! And just in case you were wondering if your DirectX 9 compatible graphics card will still be any good, rest assured that, although you will require Windows Vista to play Halo 2 on a PC, you won't necessarily need to upgrade your graphics card to do it. Halo 2, like some other Vista titles, will work just fine on a wide range of graphics cards, including DX9 cards. So says Bungie.

Next up, remember that Halo MMO game that's been rumoured some time ago? Well, it's not happening. Not right now anyway. Responding to a mail asking about their plans for more games in the Halo universe after Halo 3, and an MMO, Bungie had this to say: "we'd never say never to anything. I can tell you we're not working on those things today though".

Finally, a quick visit on IMDB reveals that the Halo movie - which was supposed to come out next year - may have slipped to 2008. Bummer.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)