Bungie fansite denies ‘Forerunner’ rumor
Bungie fansite Bungie.org claims that the previous claim that Bungie’s upcoming game in the Halo universe is going to be called Forerunner is an early April Fool’s joke from Game Informer magazine. Proof is claimed by a post on their forum from a user called Frankie using a Bungie.com mail address.
According to Wikipedia, well known April Fool’s jokes are far fetched things like ‘Alabama changes the value of Pi’ and trees that grow spaghetti. The thing all April Fool’s jokes have in common is that they’re too far fetched too be true, not something somebody would believe after giving it some really good thought. Remember Bungie’s ‘Pimps at Sea’? That was a good example. Not the story that Game Informer supposedly came up with.
Secondly, Game Informer subscribers get their monthly copy on the 14th of March and is available in retail about 2 weeks later. Then it stays on the shelves and in the subscribers hands until the next copy, a month later, comes out. That’s about 30 days, 29 of those are NOT April 1st, and as such people will not expect a story this plausible to be false.
If this is all a big joke then Game Informer is not very good at cracking jokes and we would think twice before believing Game Informer again. We’re curious how this will all end but expect we won’t be knowing more until the E3 kicks off on the 9th of May.
Update: Ok it probably really was Frank O’Conner from Bungie that made that comment on their forums, you need a password to use that username on those forums.
The Frankie that posts at Halo.Bungie.Org is Frank O’Connor of Bungie Studios.
Such a bad april fools joke really diminishes the credibility of the magazine in my opinion.
McGrude ; yeah a user called Frankie with a Bungie email addy ;). It’s an open comment system (just like this one), anyone could’ve done that. And even if it’s Frankie, maybe he’s trying to keep the secret from leaking…
Edit; I’ve checked it, some names require a password, Frankie is one of those names. It probably is him them.
wtf…It would be nice if we could keep April fools in APRIL!!!
I knew it was fake. Why would they dump the Halo name. The name alone sells millions of copies.
Hoffer; you know that it’s fake for sure? Great, enlighten me ’cause I’m not convinced.
Nino, like I said… It’s Frankie O’Connor.
Hoffer: many game projects have different names during their development time than the one they get shipped with. Windows XP was called ‘Whistler’ until a few months before release, and Vista was called ‘Longhorn’ until a few months ago.
There is no reason to believe ‘Forerunner’ would not eventually be released as ‘Halo 3: Forerunner’, it would allow Bungie to deny Halo 3’s existence until the very end without actually lying.
McGrude ; I believe you :). The more I think of it, the less I believe Frank. Why in godsname would you make an April Fool’s joke while clearly stating that it’s not.
Quoting Frankie:
“: Oh yeah, multiple persistent worlds, I remember confirming that when i : confirmed all that truth to their rumor section. ROLLEYES x a trillion.
And in their April issue. ”
I wouldn’t call that a definite denial.
That sucks. Game actually sounds Amazing. They should take that idea.
Well, none of this makes sence to me… Frank has still yet to flat out deny the rumor, all he did was roll his eyes.
Anyways, either way, I dont expect it to come out in time for the PS3, and MS is not going to use Bungi to be a one hit wonder. I doubt that the game they are currently working in is a Halo game at all. Either way, I dont care, and dont want to think to hard about it.
I think they did it for partly April fools, and partly sales. Think about it - If it had any news on Halo 3, at all; every single Xbox owner would of bought it, regardless if they like Halo or not.
they never put anything about the article on the magz cover so its not just for sales.
not on the cover?? FAKE
Seriously, first source to get such great information regarding one of the biggest selling games and they DON’T put it on the first page??? It’s fake for sure.
It’s fake, it’s fake…oh, and it’s fake.
Halo 3 will be out Summer 2007, just in time to kick 360 into hyperdrive and tie in with the movie.
AND…if anyone from Bungie/Microsoft is reading this…I’m NOT buying a 360 until Halo 3 comes out.
Apparently you guys haven’t been paying attention to the kinds of April Fool’s jokes that get put in video game magazines. In the world of video game journalism they often *are* relatively believable, especially some of the ones EGM has done. Also, in a monthly magazine it is naturally the April issue that has the April Fool’s “joke,” regardless of whether or not the issue is available before April 1st.
And especially when it comes to all things Halo, I for one definitely trust halo.bungie.org more than Game Informer. Even if it isn’t more April Fool’s BS I wouldn’t give it much credence anyway.
It’s a shame, I really enjoyed that story premise.
How is Frank’s post proof? I have other news on the issue. It’s amazing what constitutes proof.
Post of the (Proof)
dont take it to personal people. If it is an april fools joke, dont get mad cause well you feel like a fool! Laugh!
I still think it’s true. Frankie hasn’t actually denied it, and it seems to be a credible article. I got it 2 days ago and I knew it was the AF edition, but this part, I believe, isn’t a joke. There’s a whole section for that, and also, they make it quite obvious when it’s an April Fools joke. They, as pointed out above, also wouldn’t blatently state it wasn’t an AF joke if it was, b/c they’re smart enough to know it would hurt them/their reputation.
Just got the issue in the mail. GameInformer has a special april fools section called gameinfarcer, like they do every year. On the fake cover(inside) the cover story is : Halo 3- featuring everything you could ever want… triple wielding, 90 player coop online, an ending, x-wings…….monkey chief….proof of God. there are actually a ton more. just to clarify this joke is a seperate section starting on page 77. the forerunner story is in the news section at the front.
To add onto the topic of code names, Halo: CE was codenamed “Monkey Nuts”, no joke, read the Halo Art Book.
Any Way, I knew it was a prank, cuz my friend’s dad works for Microsoft Gaming Studios, and he told me that MGS and Bungie got pissed when they read it. J Allard was flamed. (My dad works for Microsoft, but he’s IT…)
On another note:
People who do this sort of stuff, like trolling BBS’s and spreading rumors, or posting bogus articles in popular gaming mags, should be shanked.
Oh crap, I forgot to say something in my previous post, so sorry for the double:
Frank O’Connor used top be Editor-In-Chief of Official Xbox Magazine, and is now head of the Bungie PR office. He came up with the layout and spread for the Halo 2 Manuals and Box Art. He is also a major douche bag, as I learned while on a tour with my Programming class last month of MGS. He has a twisted sense of humor, and while I think (hell, I almost know it…) that he didnt spread it himself, he may have put GI up to it.
Has anyone ever stopped to think that the details released were potentially viable details, and in an effort to conceal the information being leaked, they used the convenient timing of April Fool’s to cover it up?
It seems to me that it would take an incredible amount of time and effort to come up with such an elaborate setup, and especially to create all those vivid details; fabricated on the spot, no less.
Hasn’t anyone actually read the article?
Game Informer states “rumor has it” and “from a reliable source”.
This isn’t April Fool’s and it’s not concrete news. It’s just info that could possibly lead to the truth behind the game.
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Horrible joke. And to those that still doubt it was, bear this in mind. Every article in Game Informer has tabbed credit to the autor at the end. this one does not. And why go to the length to say it wasn’t an April Fools joke?
Horrible, horrible joke.
And yes, that really is Frankie.
*author
No damned edit button?
One last thing - wouldn’t something as anticipated as Halo 3 be at the very least mentioned on the front cover?
Sorry for the tri-post.