- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
From the depths of bungie:
Founded by Alexander Seropian ("in lieu of getting a real job") in May 1991, Bungie Software published a carefully crafted tank combat game, Operation Desert Storm.
Bungie Softwares next project was Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete, released in February 1992. Minotaur marked Jason Jones first involvement with the company and built the foundation for Bungie's pattern of creative and technological innovation (despite the fact that the game boxes were originally assembled in Alexander's apartment).
Bungie's first major success was their next game, Pathways into Darkness, in August 1993. Again, the software was technologically innovative (the first exaample of real life texture mapping on the Macintosh OS, which achieved a realistic, highly detailed 3D effect during play). The game won several awards (including being named to MacWorld's Game Hall of Fame) and expanded Bungie's burgeoning fan following.
The next titile, Marathon, was released in December 1994. Marathon was tremendously successful, and thanks to a legion of fans and players, the story line (which also featured a cybernetic supersoldier battling a bewildering array of alien foes) became increasingly intriguing.
In November 1995, Marathon 2: Durandal was released and topped it's predecessor's sales, as well as deepened the story mythos of the Marathon universe. Bungies reputation for intense game play and detailed, rich stories was cemented.
Growing by leaps and bounds, Bungie developed several other titles, including Marathon Infinity (the capstone to the Marathon story line), Abuse, Weekend Warrior (which in 1997 was released in a bundle with the first generation of Mac OS 3-D video cards), Myth, The Fallen Lords, Myth 2: Soulblighter, and Oni.
In early 1998, Jason Jones and his team began work on Halo-Though in it's early days it was known by a number of working titles. Robt McLees, a Bungie artist, was one of the first people involved with the game: "We always assign working titles to our games, and a lot of times those names just stick. There's always the thought and development process that we'll come back with a different, better name. But Minotaur, Myth, and Marathon all shipped with their working titles.
"So, when we assigned a code name to what would become Halo, we orriginally called it 'Monkey Nuts.' There was no chance that we'd ship a game with that title. Later on, we code-named it 'Blam!' because Jason couldn't bring himself to tell his mother he wass working on something called 'Monkey Nuts.'"
(The name "Blam!" stemmed from folks yelling the word in Bungie offices when they were in Chicago. Located near a busy street, the Bungie team could hear numerous near-collisions between cars outside. "You'd hear the screetch of tires, and then nothing," explained Robt McLeess, "so I'd yell 'Blam!' just so there was some sense of completion.")
The title Halo was announced in 1999 during Steve Job's keynote address at the MacWorld Expo in New York. A brief display of an early versionof the game was enthusiastically recieved.
In 2000, Bungie joined the ranks of Microsoft games development studios, and Halo- originally slated for a Macintoshand PC release-became one of the flagship titles for the Xbox videogame console.
Unfortunately, the transition from Mac to PC to the then unknown Xbox all had to occur under tight production deadlines...and while Bungie moved artists, designers, programmers, and community support teams from Chicago to Redmond, Washington. The fact that Bungie produced a game that won so many "Game of the Year" accolades- and sold millions of copies- is all the more remarkable.