"All options are open" says Bungie on multiformat support

Independent development studio Bungie is currently considering "all options" in terms of format support and genre for its next game after Halo: Reach, according to community manager Brian Jarrard.

Speaking in an interview with website Industry Gamers, Jarrard discussed in depth the company's post Halo plans and indicated the studio already has a separate team, led by co-founder Jason Jones, working on pre-production and concepts for a new game.

"It's going to be a whole new universe and a whole new experience," said Jarrad. "I'm not really at liberty to talk about what genre it's going to be in but I would say that the studio has had a lot of success in the first person genre.

"We've also made some third-person games that have been successful, the Myth series as a real-time strategy game was successful, so we have a really broad array of interests, even outside of game development."

When asked whether future games would focus on hardcore gamers or have a broader appeal Jarrad answered: "Hopefully they have something about them that's appealing and interesting to a wide variety of people: people that love great stories, people that love action/adventure... these are the kind of things that, throughout every Bungie game has been a pillar."

In terms of possible formats though Jarrad indicated that a final decision had not yet been made: "We definitely have plans in the works, and I think we're really close to understanding of what is next and who, what, when, where, that's all going to land. But we're not looking at one particular piece of technology right now."

"All options are open right now, so long as we find the best possible fit for our creative vision and what this project is going to be," he said.

Although noncommittal on the new motion controllers from Microsoft and Sony, Jarrad expressed a greater interest in social gaming and networks such as Facebook.

"For us, it's a super exciting time right now because there's more ways than ever to touch and engage players and fans and it's definitely something we're thinking about going forward and how do we leverage different types of technologies and different outlets to create a bigger community and a richer, more sustainable game environment; so these are definitely interesting discussions that we're having right now and all the time."