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Hey guys,

Let me be really clear about this: there is no intentional political message in Halo2, anti-Bush or otherwise.

While I tried to be mindful of folks' sensitivities as I wrote its story, I knew that the game was going to scrutinized by a large, diverse audience, and would, therefore, be interpreted (or mis-interpreted, as the case may be) any number of different ways.

The EW journalist chose to include one of my examples of possible misinterpretation in the article, but not all of them. Most importantly, the journalist left out my closing statement: "Look, you can read anything into the story that you like - call a damning condemnation of the Bush Admnistration's adventure in the Middle-East, for example. But you'd be wrong."

In retrospect, It would have been best to give no example at all, but hindsight is 20-20.

Long story short: while we didn't water-down Halo2's story in an impossible effort to make it inoffensive to everyone, we were nonetheless careful not to do anything that would be patently offensive regardless of someone's perspective (e.g. reward people for injuring or killing the game's female characters, something most folks would agree is offensive, full-stop).

Halo2's story is non-partisan. Any meaning you ascribe to it is yours alone.

And remember, at the end of the day, whatever some journalist says I said really doesn't matter. The proof is in the pudding. Play the game, and I think you'll see it's just that: a fun game with a good story.

Thanks,
Joseph Staten

Director of Cinematics
Bungie Studios

Thanks, Joseph Staten Director of Cinematics Bungie Studios --- The devs have spoken. Sorry fellow freepers, but I am in a bit of awe. I am a BIG Bungie fan and have followed them from PiD (we will see how many of you can figure what PiD is). This is incredible for them to visit here and answer this straight up. Gotta wonder how they caught wind of this article and I am _VERY_ glad that they decided to come here and answer the question. Thank you!

If "bungiefella" truly is Joe Staten, this is an incredible turn of events and a testament to the power of FreeRepublic to generate discourse.

Bungiefella/Staten is saying that:

Geoff Keighley, interviewer for the article in Entertainment Weekly, tried to shape the story to fit his own political agenda
The editors at Entertainment Weekly, ignorant of the storyline of the original game, painted a contradictory picture of the floating ring-like planet Halos as "utopias, safe havens in a universe filled with terror" and helped create the impression of Halo 2 as digital agitprop by saying "Clearly, there are political and religious dimensions to Halo 2 that were absent from the first game"

Conspiratorial types will view the pronouncements of "bungiefella" at the 11th hour as an attempt to keep controversy from hurting a nascent product's bottom line. Anti-Microsoft types (of which there are many on FreeRepublic) will claim that Micro$oft is trying to force yet another failed ideology upon consumers.

I'd like find out what Mr. Keighley's side of the story is and if both men would be willing to talk about this subject and take calls from FReepers on an upcoming episode of Republican Radio.

Messrs. Staten and Keighley can in touch with our producers by clicking on the "Contact Us" in the upper-left hand corner of the Republican Radio website. The show broadcasts every Saturday from Seattle, WA and we'd like to have Mr. Staten in-studio if possible.