Tag: Bungie Aerospace »

It was only a few months ago that we announced that Bungie, makers of the Halo franchise, were entering the iOS market. Under the name of Bungie Aerospace, it wasn't all too clear exactly what games to expect of the developer. That is until now.

It turns out that Bungie Aerospace is the label given to a project by Bungie that's set out to help small independent developers launch their mobile and social games. The first title undertaken through this concept is going to be that of Crimson: Steam Pirates.

Developed by HareBrained Schemes, Crimson: Steam Pirates has some great pedigree behind it with some of its team having contributed to the likes of MechWarrior, Shadowrun and Crimson Skies and numerous other titles.

Crimson: Steam Pirates is going to be a turn-based strategy game that promises a mix of strategy and action as players must anticipate and counter their enemies' moves. As an iPad exclusive, Crimson: Steam Pirates offers the first chapter of the game for free and include 8 missions (or voyages, to keep the nautical theme) in all, as well as two 'pass-and-play' multiplayer scenarios.

Plenty of depth should be on offer with over a dozen types of ships, subs and airships promised. There'll also be 20 crew members with unique special abilities, that will hopefully mix things up nicely. Something else to be excited about: there'll be Bungie.net integration offering leaderboards and what we hope will be a plethora of statistics to compare with friends. Those who have played Halo online recently will know what we're talking about. Bungie knows how to do online statistics wonderfully well.

For the lucky souls attending PAX Prime, Crimson: Steam Pirates will be available to play at the event. For everyone else, it's not long to wait with the game set for release on September 1st on the iPad only.

When it comes to companies with a huge amount of influence in the game design space, it is hard to argue that Bungie isn't among the frontrunners.  Having successfully birthed both the Marathon and Halo franchises, they also draw one of the largest fan followings in the entire industry.  After recently breaking ties from the Microsoft fold and signing a ten year contract with Activision to create a groundbreaking new game universe, it was assumed that they would be setting their sights on creating a new console franchise.  While this assumption may still be true, it seems like they may also have more ambitious, and dare we say portable plans.

Using the moniker of Bungie Aerospace, the name of Bungie's business entity post-Microsoft, recently filed a trademark for the name "Crimson."  As bland as the name may seem, this may be pointing towards the company finally making strides into the iOS space.  The official filing description reads as follows:

"Computer game software downloadable from a global computer network; Computer game software for use on mobile and cellular phones; Downloadable computer game software via a global computer network and wireless devices" -- VIA USPTO Filing

Though I would hate to be the one to jump to conclusions too early, the wording above seems pretty definitive in stating Bungie's intentions to at least breach the portable gaming front in some way, shape, or form.  It is hard to say whether this might be in the form of a full game, stat monitoring, or even a pre-release ARG, but one thing is for sure, this should be exciting news to all iOS gamers.  Lets just hope that they can continue their hot streak of amazing game worlds, because I can't wait to see what they have up their sleeves next!

[ via Game Informer ]