Is Halo Reach a chance to bring new fans to the Halo Franchise?

So is Halo Reach really a chance to bring new fans to the Halo Franchise?

It certainly is - but how is this going to happen, doesn't everyone who's anyone already play Halo?

Halo is all encompassing these days, with books, and graphic novels, encyclopaedia's, Halo Wars - Real Time Strategy game and the recent ODST and its cute Engineers etc filling the seemingly endless demand for Halo product.

There is however a new breed of gamer who has not yet been exposed to the Halo franchise, this would be the 12 - 15 year age group of new xboxers that are coming through. Let's get real here, the first Combat Evolved game was 8 years ago, many newbies to the system will still have no partaken in the glory that is Halo FPS. Many of them are dining out the newer versions of Call of Duty and Gears of War, oblivious to the Halo series.

Some Xbox players prefer spiders to The Flood for some reason.

Halo: Reach will thus be their first chance to get into the Halo Universe, should they look up from World at War. It's probable the might look up as the marketing campaign will not doubt be bigger than it was for Halo 3. The new player will also be able to start their story at the start of the story as well - how many people bought Halo 3 having never played Combat Evolved? Answer: A covenant load. How many of those players were a little confused as to the story? Half a covenant load at least.

The newbies and those who have never fired a Spartan Laser will be able to get in on the action without any fear about not understanding the story as what happened before now actually happens after Halo Reach - it's a prequel baby! Hence the tag line for the game: from the beginning, you know the end...

Is this the end, my friend?

There is thus the potential for those who've been a little shy of dropping their toes in the Halo universe, because they've heard it has a complicated story, to no longer need be shy. Hey, they might love Reach and go on to play the other games in the Halo series. And no doubt buy the multiplayer maps that will be trickle fed through the Xbox Live Dashboard.

In summary, it's really a clever ploy for Microsoft to allow Bungie's final Halo game to be the prequel because fans will buy it regardless and, as noted above, it also gives new, interested players a chance to jump in.

At the same time Bungie is coding Reach, Microsoft's 343 Industry Studios are beavering away at an as yet announced annouced Halo title (and probably more than one) so once fans are sated with Reach, everybody can move on to the new Microsoft product.

What will this new Microsoft game be about? If you played Halo 3 on legendary mode and watched the end credits you will recall the scene where the Chief's ship strays into the view of a planet. This scene has driven the fan boys nuts with wild and loose speculation but the general consensus is that it appears to be a planet associated with the Forerunners - it would seem natural for Microsoft and 343 to continue the Halo series at this point.... thus again beginning the chance to bring even more xbox players into the Halo realm.


What do you think? How many new fans will Halo: Reach drawn in?