Update: a trailer for the game has been released, and is included below the break.
Halo is making a surprise return to PC after a very long gap – unless you include the top-down shooter – in the form of Halo Online, 343 Industries announced today. It’s a free-to-play multiplayer-only variant, based on the Halo 3 engine. All very exciting, but only if you’re in Russia.
Unfortunately, Halo Online will launch only in Russia, this spring.
Halo Online will be a multiplayer-only “Halo experience”, set on Anvil, a space station where Spartans train to be all badass and heroic. 343 Industries are calling it a “learning experience” so there’s no launch date, but a Russian closed beta is launching.
It will be a PC exclusive, built for the ground up for the platform for an experience tailored for Russian gamers.
Halo Online might end up leaving Russia, but that’s not the focus of the developers at the moment, and any expansion outside of Russia would need to be changed to “address player expectations” in different regions.