In an interview with Develop, Bungie studio manager Harold Ryan elaborates on what's in store for the Halo developer after it the left the Microsoft fold. The answer being moar Haloz shouldn't elicit a gasp from anyone, but the studio's return to independence now allows it to find a better balance between the guaranteed moneymaker and new intellectual properties. "During the development of Halo and Halo 2, we had other, non-Halo IPs in development and we killed those projects both times," said Ryan. "Both teams were swallowed whole by the Halo team. With Halo 3, that was the first time we know that we couldn't let that happen – it's not an acceptable way out to add 20 people to the project by killing that prototype."

With the prototype having survived and creativity culling quelled, Bungie is now "actively engaged" in exploring worlds of a different kind and quite possibly, a different shape (look for Cubee in 2009). That isn't to say everybody's sick of Master Chief, of course: "We shipped Halo with 45 people and now we're 115, so two thirds of the studio have only shipped one or two games in the Halo series. For the most part they came here because they were really excited to work at Bungie and in the Halo universe. So from that point of view we don't have a shortage of people happy to make Halo games." It's just as well, since we're fairly sure there's no shortage of people happy to play them either.