Sam DeHority and Matt Tuthill co-wrote this article. Depending on how you look at it, Frank O'Connor either has the best job in gaming or the worst. The head of 343 Industries is the man most directly responsible for launching a brand new Halo trilogy — and not a prequel or offshoot this time, but a new story arc set after the events of Halo 3. Hallowed gaming ground is beset with all sorts of pitfalls, as O'Connor is well aware having began work on the franchise during the development of Halo 2. He recently showed off the first few minutes of Halo 4 at E3 2012 — a sequence that sees a frightened Cortana wake the Master Chief out of hyper sleep so he can defend the frigate Forward Unto Dawn from what appears to be a rogue band of Covenant. It's clear the campaign mode will waste no time with exposition and thrust players right into the heart of the action, though O'Connor remains somewhat guarded on what role the Covenant will ultimately play and who the real antagonists are. In a recent interview, we picked his brain on campaign, multiplayer and bringing Halo into a new era.

The Halo movie might be canned for good due to what is essentially greed, but that doesn't mean the live-action Halo dream is dead. Microsoft's planning a huge Web series around its FPS franchise to coincide with the launch of Halo 4 this November.

UPDATE: Sorry Halo fans, looks like the entire thing was a mistake. The publisher that published the magazine blurb stepped up to say that the movie release was a mistake. So no Steven Spielberg-backed Halo live-action movie for 2012. Major sad faces all around.

Six months ago, Benny Caulkin earned Internet fame with his wearable Lego Halo Master Chief Helmet. Six months later, he's built himself the rest of the space marine's body armor entirely out of Lego bricks as well. We've got two words for Caulkin: lookin' good!