So we all know now that H3 will come out next year:

Bungie H3 Announcement

Cool. While it was arguably inevitable that Bungie was going to resolve the cliffhanger ending of H2, I'm glad to see that Halo 3 is fact instead of fiction.

I think I'm a bigger fan of the Halo story and universe than the game itself. There's a ridiculous amount of detail and "mystery" in the plot and environment of the games, not to mention the Halo novels. I'm eager to see how the story plays out in H3.

It's barely a secret that the Halo rings in the story need to be activated from an "ark", and if you've played H2 and read the "Conversations from the Universe" booklet in the H2 limited edition case you've probably concluded that the ark is buried deep in the Earth somewhere. This is somewhat confirmed in the H3 trailer (available at the link above) where a structure or opening in the Earth gets the main focus for a segment of the trailer. I suppose Master Chief and the Covenant will fight it out and battle for control of the ark. I'm speculating that the rings do get activated and the universe is destroyed except for whoever is located safely within the ark. Who will be left in the ark? I don't know... but I don't think it will be only the Covenant. Maybe a combination of Covenant and humans.

As for the sub-plot of the Covenant civil-war, I'm not sure how that will play out. My only guess is that the humans and Elites (and Grunts) might form an alliance out of it all.

I also might also be more interested in the progression of the game's development than the game itself. When H2 was being developed I loved checking in at Bungie.com to read game updates and learn about their progress. I remember seeing H2 multiplayer screenshots of real game footage and imagining how cool it was going to be.

I think that the Halo story has suffered a bit because of the popularity of its online multiplayer feature. I really enjoyed H2 online multiplayer, but it got old in about a year [1] because it was so easy to play as often as you wanted. With Halo CE multiplayer, you had to play through LAN/System Link, and those games happened less often because you actually had to organize getting people together to play. That made the enjoyment of Halo CE multiplayer last longer, I think. I think I'll really enjoy H3 multiplayer for a little while, but I bet that within 6 months I'll grow a little tired of it unless they come up with some really cool features. The new maps will be cool, but if its the same game types, weapons, and strategies then it'll get old quick. I doubt that any cool XBox live features are really going to capture my interest. I'm just not that plugged in to gaming on a regular basis for me to care. But that could all change.... we'll see what Bungie comes up with.

So now I have incentive to buy an XBox 360. I'll start saving up now...

[1] Hrm, I guess a year might be considered a long time in this day and age of gaming.