
You gotta love Bungie. Today, in rememberence of the launch of Halo: Combat Evolved five years ago, Bungie announced a whole slew of information. First and foremost, Microsoft will, after the initial internal closed beta testing, conduct open public beta testing in the spring of 2007. In addition, during Monday Night Football on December 4th, a brand new trailer for Halo 3 will air. However, the trailer will NOT be real time footage, but instead will be CG footage done by a third party that does represent what the final product will look like.
The final announcement, and probably the most suprising one of all, is the fact that Bungie is hard at work on new maps for Halo 2! These maps are most likely only going to be released on Xbox 360, not Xbox, so those who want them are finally going to have to pony up.
Oh, and the above screenshot is brand spanking new, straight out of the singleplayer campaign.