Core Halo experiences will be kept "close to home," says 343

343 Industries head Frankie O'Connor has said that main Halo "experiences" will kept internal, apparently killing off any rumour of Saber Interactive developing Combat Evolved HD.

Saber, developer of Timeshift and upcoming Namco sci-fi title Inversion, was reported to be behind the development of the title.

But O'Connor insisted that while any "mini-collaborations" could include outside influences, major projects will stay internal.

"343 as a publishing entity and Bungie before it is always open to collaboration. We've done weird things in the past like we put a Spartan in Dead or Alive 3... We met with Itagaki and his team to make sure the Spartan was fighting correctly, using a style that was appropriate, was the right height and moving like a Spartan," he told CVG at Microsoft's San Francisco showcase last week.

"We've always been open to those sort of mini-collaborations, but as far as the core game experiences are concerned we have to keep that close to home."

343 and fellow dev Certain Affinity are developing the Defiant Map Pack for Reach, which is out on March 15, the first-ever DLC not to be developed by Bungie, which is currently creating a new IP in partnership with Activision.