Die-hard fans will notice that the core gameplay in Halo 2 remains largely unchanged. The most impressive new feature is the ability to wield two weapons at once. But the biggest step forward is that Staten's story about an invasion of Earth is now told from the perspective of both the humans and the Covenant aliens. Since Master Chief was already well established, Staten and his father, a professor of theology, developed a set of religious beliefs that could explain the Covenant's actions in the sequel. They zeroed in on the idea of the Halos — 10,000-kilometer-wide ring worlds — as utopias, safe havens in a universe filled with terror.
Clearly, there are political and religious dimensions to Halo 2 that were absent from the first game. (''You could look at [the story] as a damning condemnation of the Bush administration's adventure in the Middle East,'' admits Staten.) Such provocative themes were bound to come under the scrutiny of Microsoft's legal team. Even as the game was getting its final polish, lawyers forced Staten to change the name of an alien antagonist, arguing that it carried Muslim overtones. Staten objected. Nonetheless, some of the voice actors (who include Michelle Rodriguez, Ron Perlman, and Miguel Ferrer) were called back to rerecord dialogue only weeks before the final version was delivered.
That bump now behind him, Staten and his team are focused on the game's huge rollout. Despite a leaked version of Halo 2 that hit the Internet in mid-October, Toys ''R'' Us is expecting Harry Potter-esque lines when it opens its Times Square store at 12 a.m. to start selling the game on Nov. 9; 6,500 other stores across the country are joining in the midnight madness. Gates hopes a big opening day is just the start of a juggernaut. A new online-play feature will ''make Halo 2 a much bigger phenomenon than Halo, because it's more of a social experience,'' he predicts. Microsoft also expects the game to have a halo effect on sales of the Xbox system, which remains a distant second to Sony's market-leading PlayStation 2.
The only thing left is the Halo movie. Producers call, but Bungie is playing hard to get. ''We delete voice-mails without even listening to them,'' says Bungie manager Pete Parsons. Staten says their anti-Hollywood stance is about staying focused on making great games. To that end, he's busy at work on several projects, including the possible resurrection of Phoenix, a non-sci-fi project that Bungie spent two years on before putting it aside to finish Halo 2. But right now he's more concerned about getting back into the regular rhythms of life — like sleeping in his own bed.
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