Bungie: "Past experiences allowed us to make Reach the best possible game"

Bungie community director Brian Jarrard and campaign designer Niles Sankey believe the studio's past experiences developing the Halo franchise helped it create it's best possible game.

Speaking with NowGamer, the Bungie fellas chatted a bit about Reach and how the developmental nightmare that was Halo 2 made it stronger.

"Ten years ago we had a very small team. I think Halo shipped with about 40 people on the team and it very much still had that ‘guys in a basement’ feel, just trying to wheel out a game and make it the best we could," said Jarrard. "The great part is that most of the same people are still with us today at the top and we still maintain that core philosophy of making great universes and the kind of games we want to play. That philosophy still drives our studio today.

"More than anything I think we’ve learned how to grow, as well as efficiencies and production, as well as learning how to plan better. You know, everyone’s heard the horror story of Halo 2’s development and how we had to go right through, starting from scratch and basically not having a plan in action.

"Going into our next decade we can look back and use Halo as a great road map and use that as an awesome framework, a real plan that actually maps out our new universe, our new experiences and the types of stories we plan to share with our fans for ten more solid years."

Designer Niles Sankey made known Reach ended up with a lot more than was originally planned, and on top of it, the developmental process was "the smoothest" ever for the firm.

"I think contradictory to Halo 2, Halo: Reach was probably the smoothest game we’ve ever developed," he said. "Not only did we not really cut a whole lot from the original plan, we ended up doing a lot more than we set out to do.

"So our past experiences allowed us to make Reach the best possible game and beyond that, the future’s very bright."

Halo: Reach releases on September 14 worldwide for Xbox 360 in three different options, and you can catch the latest campaign trailer for it here.