Pro-G talks to Bungie about the game of the century

With Halo 3 now in the shops, millions of gamers across the world are finishing the fight with Master Chief and each other on Xbox Live. Pro-G sat down with Bungie head honchos Lee Wilson, cinematic designer and Joe Tung, multiplayer producer at the launch of the game in London’s IMAX cinema to talk graphics, the end of an era and Halo 4.

Pro-G: Why are more gamers interested in Halo 3 than any other game at the moment?

Lee Wilson: That is a phenomenon that has just grown. It’s difficult to judge why the fans embrace this game. It’s a game that’s made by a studio that makes it for themselves, and we’re hardcore gamers. I guess that has something to do with it.

Joe Tung: Halo 3 is the end of an epic story. People are dying to see what happens in that story. As far as the game itself I think it’s a really, really fun game. It’s the Halo game that Bungie always wanted to make. Hopefully it lives up to the hype as much as it can and people enjoy it. We definitely think that people are going to enjoy it. It lives up to our bar internally at Bungie which is really high. We’re all really happy with it.

Lee Wilson: We spent the last three years getting to play the game every day and I’m still looking forward to getting home, putting my disc down and playing the game – playing with the general public as well and being able to talk about it.

Pro-G: Why is the game so popular?

Joe Tung: There’s a billion different ways to answer that question. One way of answering that question which is not necessarily the definitive way of answering that question is that at Bungie the bottom line is always fun. We always put the emphasis on fun. That means, for example, do we want to put a bunch of detail in that environment? Well, we could, but that might make it harder to see the enemies that you’re shooting at or in multiplayer that might make it confusing visually. There’s a bunch of different examples of decisions we might have made one way but really when it comes down to it, the question is, is it fun, is it simple, can a person pick it up and figure it out and does it have depth for the guy who’s going to play it for a thousand hours?

Lee Wilson: That’s one thing we’ve really nailed – the balance of the game.

Joe Tung: Yeah I play well and you play terribly.

Lee Wilson: I’m really good at playing terribly. I’ve turned it into an art form.

Joe Tung: Just in case you don’t know, he’s the only Bungie employee with an achievement named after him. The Lee R Wilson Memorial (Score 5 grenade sticks in any ranked free for all playlist.

Lee Wilson: It’s for sticking people with plasma grenades.

Pro-G: Why is it named after you?

Joe Tung: Because he can’t shoot a weapon.

Lee Wilson: Because that’s pretty much all I do. But I got pretty decent at it.

Joe Tung: No, you’re s***.

Lee Wilson: No, I got good at it.

Joe Tung: No, you’re s***.

Lee Wilson: For me it’s the comedy of seeing somebody crawling into a tunnel somewhere after I’ve stuck them with a grenade.

Pro-G: Almost all of the reviews for Halo 3 have been massively positive, but there has been some criticism of the graphics. What’s your response to that as makers of the game?

Joe Tung: We think it’s a beautiful game at Bungie. Folks who have complained about the graphics in the large part have said ‘I don’t like the way it looks’ then they pick it up and they play it for half-an-hour and then four hours later they’re still playing and that’s the last time you hear them saying anything about the game.

Lee Wilson: It’s completely immersive. The art direction is immaculate. It’s not trying to be incredibly photorealistic or painting this grimy world. It’s vibrant, it’s fun and it’s accessible.

Joe Tung: We’re extremely happy with the graphics in Halo 3. Stuff like the water, stuff like our HDR model; I think that stuff is so beautiful and so subtle and over time I hope people will appreciate that stuff as much as we do right now. Something like the HDR is really beautiful but it creeps up on you over time while you’re playing the game, the way the light behaves. Like I said we’re really happy.

Pro-G: You’ve described Halo 3 as bringing to an end this particular story arc. Could you clarify exactly what that means?

Lee Wilson: Well this is the end of the trilogy.

Joe Tung: The end of the story arc that we started with Halo one.

Pro-G: If there was another Halo FPS, and given how popular the game is it seem inevitable, and given that Master Chief would have to be the hero, that would be continuing the story arc wouldn’t it?

Lee Wilson: I think that’s what Bungie is thinking about right now. There’s a lot of people who have been working on Halo much longer than us two have and they’re really interested in exploring new games, new stories, and whatever comes out of those conversations is what we’re going to pursue. We’re still going to make games for us.

Joe Tung: We’re figuring out right now what we’re working on next. We really don’t know what that is yet but as soon as we know, everyone else will know.

Pro-G: So Halo 4 is not in development then?

Joe Tung: Halo 4 is not in development.

Pro-G: Thanks very much for your time.

Halo 3 is out now for Xbox 360. Check out our review here.