Yes, only two days have passed since our previous coverage on Halo 3 and it’s already time for another update. Kotaku has had the chance to sit down with Frank O’Connor and Lars Bakken, and talk all things Halo, including the Forge mode, single-player campaign, and microtransactions. Plus, a number of Halo 3 manual scans have sneaked their way onto the internet.

First of all, according to Frankie, Forge is an in-game mission editor that should be treated as a separate mode from the game’s single-player and multiplayer portions. In this all-new mode, players in charge, called “monitors”, will be able to edit objects, weapons, maps, vehicles, placements, and multiplayer game settings; think of it like Crackdown’s “Keys to the City” mode.

When asked how long it would take to complete the single-player campaign, Frankie answered:

It’s tough to put a hard figure on it. Well, we don’t really know if it’s physically longer than the last one, but if you’re an average Halo player, it should take you around the same time as it took to finish the previous two games, since they were about the same.

For any fan who was disappointed at Halo 2’s poor ending, breathe a sigh of relief as Halo 3 should improve upon that aspect:

You know, sometimes there are sets of cliches in games you can use, and use well, but…there will be huge encounters, like the battle with the Scarab, and there will be large enemies with weak-points, but no, we’re not going to have any stereotypical boss encounters.

While the Bungie guys weren’t allowed to talk about the downloadable content they have in store for the game, they did reveal that they were planning microtransactions for players willing to have additional storage and display spaces for the file-sharing features. Apparently, six storage slots, maximum size of 10-15MB per file, and 50MB of total storage allocation will be the standard. Anything more than that will have to be purchased.

Update: We have just received some concrete details on the game’s file sharing system. As first indicated, there are going to be two options to choose from:

In case you’d like to learn more about the two alternatives and how the file sharing system will tie in with your PC, jump over here.

Before moving on to the manual scans, it might be of an interest to Halo fans to know that some part of the Bungie team is already working on two other projects: Peter Jackson’s Halo game and an unnamed title which is “in the prototype and planning stage”. It is not yet known whether or not the mystery game has anything to do with the Halo universe.

Last, but not least, 7th Columnist has received a good deal of scans from the Halo 3 instruction manual, the authenticity of which is questionable. The shots show off the game’s default controls, story summary, characters and more. Drool over the scans below.

Check back with Xboxic soon for more information on Halo 3.

Many thanks to Jamzy No 2 and Feenix for submitting.