Halo 5 year anniversary - Xbox 360, Xbox

Today is the 5th anniversary of one of the most well regarded console shooters ever, Halo. It is 5 years to the day that Master Chief came along, and helped boost the original fledgling Xbox system, which really was itching for a killer franchise. This in many ways could be argued helped pave the way for its continuation into the Xbox 360 today.

Following on from Bungie's original blog post, the big announcement is that a public multiplayer beta will be available for Halo 3 next Spring (around March here) on the Xbox 360, before the final game hits the stores. This will allow you to play several of the maps and features of the new game, well before the final, retail release.

To keep existing Halo fans happy, between now and then, Bungie is releasing a set of new multiplayer maps for Halo 2 over Xbox Live for a small fee. Unfortunately for some, this will only be available to 360 owners. Along with the maps, will be another compatibility update to fix a few Xbox 360 issues.

They also drop some details on an upcoming TV advert during the Football over in the US. The TV ad will be rendered in CGI (non-realtime) by the same company that is working on the movies for the game. Apparently, this is due to the fact that Bungie doesn't want to reveal too much at this point of development. After this, it will be available for download on Xbox Live Marketplace, along with a short "making of" documentary.

Bungie has also released one new ingame screenshot to keep everybody excited.

Full details can be found over at Bungie.net