'Halo' (Re)Announced For Mac, At Last

O ur friends at MacGamer have announced that Halo will be coming to the Macintosh after all. Halo was developed for Microsoftis Xbox after Big Redmond bought Bungie to boost its Xbox gaming portfolio. The game is being published for the Mac by Destineer, and will be ported by Westlake Interactive. From the story:

Microsoft announced in a press release today that Halo: Combat Evolved, the award-winning first-person shooter from Bungie, will be developed for the Macintosh and PC.

The Macintosh version of Halo will be developed by Westlake Interactive and published by Destineer, who have also published Microsoftis Age Of Empires II and Links Championship Edition. The PC version of Halo will be developed simultaneously by Gearbox software.

As you may recall, Halo was first demonstrated during Steve Jobsi keynote address at MacWorld Expo in 1999. At that time, Bungie planned on developing the game for both Mac and Windows platforms. Things were thrown into uncertainty when it was announced in 2000 that Microsoft would be purchasing Bungie. Mac gamers watched in horror as Halo became an exclusive Xbox release and the prospect of a Mac version continued to slip away. Todayis announcement puts the Mac version back into the realm of certainty.

It is interesting to note, however, that the Mac and PC versions of Halo will not be ported by Bungie in-house as they were originally planned to be. Instead, the Mac version will be ported by Mac game veteran Westlake Interactive, and the PC version by Gearbox Software. In addition, features of the game -- especially multi-player -- have yet to be determined.

Halo is currently estimated to be published for both Mac and PC in the summer of 2003. You can find more information in the MacGameris story. MacCentral also has some excellent background information on Bungieis history in its story.