It seems Halo 5‘s skipping its presumptive E3 unveiling and going for a gala May party instead.
We all knew Halo 5 existed (just as we presume Halos 6, 7 and beyond do), but Microsoft chose this Friday spring morning, of all mornings, to de-cloak its second installment in 343 Industries’ new trilogy starring the be-helmeted Master Chief, and a bunch of exceptionally hard-to-kill new aliens (if you played Halo 4‘s campaign on “legendary” difficulty, anyway).
“How do we begin and where to we go with ‘Halo’ on Xbox One?” asks Microsoft in the press release. Toward even grander gameplay scales, running at 60 frames per second, it answers, calling that task “non-trivial.” So yes, Halo 5 Guardians, as it’s officially titled in full, will be an Xbox One exclusive, despite the trilogy’s Xbox 360 beginnings. And 343 Industries says we can expect it not this year, alas, but sometime fall 2015.
Handing the mic to the studio:
343 adds that it’s approaching Halo as a “journey,” not a “destination,” implying the may be Halo-related content in the offing that we’ll see before 2015. Something like Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (serves as a standalone game as well as prologue to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain)? We’ll see. Microsoft says it’ll give us “much more information about [its] plans for this year” at its upcoming Xbox E3 2014 Media Briefing, which happens (and I’ll be attending) on June 9.
More Must-Reads From TIME
- The 100 Most Influential People of 2024
- The Revolution of Yulia Navalnaya
- 6 Compliments That Land Every Time
- Stop Looking for Your Forever Home
- If You're Dating Right Now , You're Brave: Column
- The AI That Could Heal a Divided Internet
- Fallout Is a Brilliant Model for the Future of Video Game Adaptations
- Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time
Write to Matt Peckham at matt.peckham@time.com