343: Halo finished with side stories, but no new game to announce "right now"

Aw man, no "Master Chief is Missing/Frozen" edutainment spin-offs starring Arbiter? Well, there goes our smile.

Speaking with OXM, 343 Industries development director Frank O’Connor outlined the Halo franchise's future now that Bungie's (mostly) out of the picture. The gist? ODST and Reach were nice and all, but it's time to get back to business.

"I can tell you we're not working on any side stories as games at the moment. There'll certainly be more Halo fiction entering the universe, but we've no new games to announce right now," he said.

Granted, that certainly doesn't mean the guys and gals at 343 are sitting around playing Black Ops all day. The studio's been growing its ranks for months with the expressed intent of cooking up a “new high profile Halo experience.”

For now, though, O'Connor can only drop vague hints, lest he wishes to detonate his official Windows 7 exploding collar with Silverlight support.

"I think that there are a lot of questions that fans of the series want answered, and we'll certainly be in the business of answering those questions. But we would be lazy and very lacking in imagination if we didn't inject lots of brand new questions into the universe, and enigma, mystery, and awe are at the heart of what drives the fiction," he pseudo-explained.

So then, back to waiting. Us, we'll be spending the time perfecting our homemade (and topical) Master Chief popsicles. And, you know, playing Halo: Reach, which - despite Impatient Gamer Time saying otherwise - has only been out for a few months.