This week, Microsoft announced that it would pare down Halo Studios and move the Halo series under the stewardship of Activision. Whatever the future holds for Master Chief, this news clearly signals the end of an era for the venerated Halo franchise just months after it celebrated its 25th anniversary. For two people in particular, this era and this game came to symbolize something larger than simply gaming or friendship, and its sudden conclusion finds them sad and more than a bit contemplative.

Clay Purdom and Eric Sams are lifelong friends and sworn enemies who have played every Halo game together, sometimes hundreds of times, with the obsessive rigor of underachieving roommates in the pre-forever-game era. In fact, the idea that they have been playing Halo together forever was the angle of a collaborative Halo 5 review that they once wrote. Now, over a decade later, they’ve decided to play and write about what looks like Halo Studios’ swan song, and an inflection point for the franchise as a whole.

Let us observe as these two geriatric uncs dust off their headsets and lubricate their arthritic joints in order to play Halo Studios’ new remaster, Halo: Campaign Evolved.

Clayton: I have played every Halo game with my friend Eric since the first one came out in November 2001. We played it on futons listening to Saves The Day and on dorm-room floors listening to OutKast and in the basement of our first truly disgusting off-campus house listening to our roommates throw kegs at each other upstairs.

Source link