SK: You're the executive producer of one of the most talked about games I can remember. You must be pretty proud of what you and the team have achieved?
DA: I'm pretty proud and thrilled of the work we've been doing, especially the reception it's got. This was a labour of love for us - this is something that the entire team is very passionate about. From day one this has been about a gift to the fans - something they've been asking for for a long time - help relive that experience of what it was like to play 10 years ago and at the same time we wanted to shatter the expectation of what a remake is.
I did not just want to do a remake, I didn't want to do this thing in HD and call it a day because Halo deserves better than that, and we're all very happy about the features that we were able to come out with.
SK: Obviously, I've played the game and know you've made a great job of it but there are some pretty hardcore Halo fans out there waiting to see what you've done with their baby. Did you have any reservations about taking the project on?
DA: It's pretty intimidating, right, this is the game that has launched a generation of shooters, it's influenced every shooter that's come since and is very near and dear to many people's hearts. When we finally said we'll do this, we had that moment when we sat down and we're like "Guys, we cannot [mess] this up! People are going to notice if we do anything wrong!" This led to our mantra: this game needs to play exactly as it did 10 years ago, warts and all, to the point that we even shipped original bugs, the bugs that are in the original code we kept in the game, because for many people that's a big part of it
SK: As I remember, the pistol in the original Halo was way overpowered. Have you kept things like that in?
DA: It is just as crazy overpowered as you remember it being! And that was definitely intentional to the point that we did a title update so you could take it into multiplayer. You never know what people are going to get excited about, but that's one of the things!
SK: Were there any other quirks that you didn't change?
DA: The game play is identical to the original; if there were glitches in that then they are in classic mode.
That's what's great about the classic mode - if you want a different way to play it, you hit the button and in the remastered version we've done some things with lighting and things like that to make it a little easier to get round, without changing the gameplay.
SK: How do you go about taking such a successful game and modernising it while still keeping the original Halo spirit?
DA: By using the original code from Halo 1 we were able to make sure it played and reacted the same, but as soon as you go in and start touching graphics you risk changing stuff. What we did was for each level we tried to establish what was the soul of the level, what is the point of it, and in the new version we need to make sure the soul stays intact.
SK: You mentioned that this was something the fans have asked for. How much have everyday Halo fans been involved in the development?
DA: We've been able to engage the community to a large degree.
Because we've been so public with showing work in progress, we've had some tremendous feedback from the fans. One example is the audio - everyone loved the idea we re-recorded the score with Skywalker sound and the full orchestra, but some people were, like, we'd love to have heard the original music, too, even though it doesn't sound as good.
So many people said that we're like, OK, let's make that happen. Even though we were in the middle of development we crunched to do that. Another great example is when we showed our intro video at E3 we were still very much work in progress and people called us on the Master Chief's helmet. That was a great one for us, because even though it wasn't done, we get this wrong and wow, our fans are not shy to call us out if they think something's wrong.
SK: Online is obviously a huge part of gaming now, much more so than when the original game came out. Can you tell us a bit about Halo: Anniversary's multi-player side?
DA: Yeah, the biggest difference for this is that we used the Reach engine; the reason for that is we get a lot of benefits. We get access to a bigger population but the other main thing is the armour abilities. The armour abilities from Reach completely change some of the classic maps. If you're running through Beaver Creek, which everyone remembers, it's familiar to you but you're not used to people flying over you in jetpacks.
SK: Another feature is the use of Kinect. Can you tell us a bit about that?
DA: We had a very specific philosophy around Kinect. It was similar in our philosophy around 3D. Any feature we added had to stick to our core principle which was "we're not going to change the gameplay". We had a lot of ideas for Kinect that we ended up leaving on the cutting room floor, as it were, because they were cool, but would have changed the gameplay. So what we ended up doing was adding features that enhanced rather than changed - the voice commands, for example, and Analyse mode which lets you learn more about the universe and collect some things.
SK: Finally. What's next in the future for Halo?
DA: Obviously, we made a little announcement at E3 about Halo 4, which I think is something that people are pretty excited about. As for the franchise, I always say that this franchise is all about the fans.
The fans are the reason that this franchise is still going strong 10 years after it was born, and they are the reason we'll hopefully be here in another 10 years. I think Anniversary is a great example of how love for a franchise can shape the product - the only reason Anniversary is coming out is because of the fans. It's going to be an interesting journey, Halo is a huge universe and there are limitless possibilities and I'm really eager to see where that journey takes us.
