September 27, 2006 - Microsoft just couldn't help itself at X06 this year, announcing three new Halo properties to the already massive juggernaut Halo 3 and trumping all its other titles. The Xbox 360 manufacturer announced Ensemble Studios, known for its many excellent strategy and RTS series, is working on a real-time strategy dubbed "Halo Wars." Halo was originally designed as an RTS on the Macintosh and transformed through several genre iterations before it hit, and stuck, with the first-person shooter everyone now knows and loves.

The video was impressive in concept, though like most other footage at the show, it too was created in CG. It started out showing two Marines racing across a rough barren landscape in a Warthog. The camera pans into show the passenger marine, who speaks with another marine in a situation in which she (yes, she) appeared to think the situation was clear. It was hard to tell, but it looked like she had just killed off a bunch of Covenant soldiers and she was scanning the area for more. Just when it looked like the lone marine was clear, she then alerts the warthog marines, explaining that there is activity nearby and then the phone goes dead. You watch as the lone marine is stealth killed by an Elite Covenant Guard, which used a stealth shield to cloak itself, surprised the marine, and killed her with an energy sword in one swift stroke. The guard then picks up the marine and holds it close to its face. The camera zooms in to show the insect-like mandibles of the Guard, as it breathes heavily into the face of the dead marine, a look of pure disgust and hatred toward her.

The camera switches to another angle, at ground level about 20 feet away, and focuses in on a handful of Elite Covenant Guards, all of whom appear from under cloak. Interestingly, they appear in a familiar RTS formation. The camera quickly pans back to the soldiers in the warthog, shocked and in anguish.

You then see a human dropship spearing the air and cruising near the ground, and the camera switches from a strict focus on the flying vehicle outward to a bigger more exciting scenario. You then see a fleet of warthogs, and, as the camera rapidly zooms out, you can see a fleet of banshees, and then hundreds of other human and Covenant ships descending into a massive aerial battle. To everyone's surprise, a squadron of SPARTANS appears shining in their Mjolnir amour, and you hear what sounds like Master Chief's voice, "If they want a war, we'll give them a war." The SPARTANs are assembled in perfect RTS formation. The camera once again shifts. It zooms out from the convergence of imminent battle onto a cliffside and behind a proud looking SPARTAN soldier. It then ends with a Halo Wars logo and the end of the video.

At X06, the video left a stunned crowd of journalists, geeks, nerds, morons, gamers, fools, and dorks in surprised glee. People cheered but the wave of cries didn't sound like it did when people cheered for Halo 2 or Halo 3. The crowd was more like, "Cool! Wait, was that a Halo RTS? Whoa…Wow."

Halo Wars gives players an unprecedented way to experience the Halo universe; this time, as it was originally meant to be, it's an RTS. From the looks of it, players can take on the roles of a variety of human and Covenant forces, including marines and SPARTANS, an array of Covenant types, including Elites, in addition to giving gamers the ability to use independent controlling land and air vehicles. Since there is actually more than one SPARTAN, one must speculate the game takes place before the first Halo game, when the early SPARTAN program was in full gear, approximately around the same time as the first book, The Fall of Reach.

In a first major step for Microsoft, Halo Wars will not be developed by its creator, Bungie. Instead, as aforementioned, Halo Wars is in development by Ensemble Studios. This new move signifies Microsoft's full dedication to expanding its most popular franchise both creatively and financially, but it also means that Bungie is giving up an unspecified amount of creative control to another developer. Nobody doubts Ensemble's skills as an RTS developer, but Bungie has been extremely protective of its property in the past, and to let another developer (or to submit to Microsoft's demands to make more Halo games come hell or highwater), is a significant step. Futhermore, it sees Bungie not only as the developer of Halo 3, but as an overseer of the Halo property in multiple ways: as a keeper of the license and essence for the movie, as an overseer of the Halo universe in its RTS form, and finally, as a guide for Peter Jackson and Wingnut Interactive as they forge new waters between games, interactivity and story-telling.