Bungie’s putting its final mark on the Halo franchise tomorrow with Halo: Reach, and that means the developer’s focus is quickly turning to its next game. Other than the company’s announcement of a 10-year publishing deal with Activision, however, there hasn’t been a ton of talk about Bungie’s post-Reach plans. But now we know something about the studio’s upcoming project: Whatever it is, Bungie’s next game will utilize a brand new, internally-developed engine.
In an interview with Develop, Bungie communications manager Brian Jarrard made it clear that the company is against the idea of licensing technology for its future games. “I think it goes hand-in-hand with our independent spirit,” Jarrard explained. “Just like we don’t want to develop a game off someone else’s IP, we want to push our own technology in the same way. That’s going to be our position for the foreseeable future.”
When asked if work was already underway on the tech, Jarrard responded, “Yeah, [the new engine is] actually in development, so I would say it’s in a stage where, technically we’re still at the end of a pre-production mode.”
