According to a verified NeoGAF industry insider, Microsoft is planning to delay Halo 5 until next year to allow for the development and release of Halo 2: Anniversary this year.
Commenting on Halo 2 user Ntkrnl said:
"What has me excited right now is the revisiting of Halo. So later this year we're gonna get Halo 2 Anniversary edition WITH ALL SORTS OF SHIT. On Xbox One. November 11th!"
This means that Halo 5 has been pushed back to 2015 but those who buy Halo 2: Anniversary will have access to the game's beta, among other goodies.
"Halo 5 beta access Halo real time show… think Forward Unto Dawn (not the Spielberg stuff) Someone told me there was going to be an alternative fucking ending. <– I have zero info as to whether this is legitimate or not."
Microsoft is also planning to bring back the Crackdown series for Xbox One and Ntkrnl said: "You will get Crackdown 3, unlikely announcement at E3 this year, as it is a 2016 release date."
The user referred to a company called Cloudgine, which is a Scottish cloud computing company. The Crackdown series has traditonally been developed in Scotland. Microsoft Game Studios boss Phil Spencer said in June last year that the franchise is one "I'd like to see return."
In August, he commented: "We did a really nice job on the first one. The second one, I wish we'd have given it more time to build out the complete game."
"We want to get the right team," he said. "We want to make sure we have the right creative mastermind behind the title."
Spencer also said that Microsoft was "discussing" the possibility of Halo 2: Anniversary. As the game was originally launched in 2004, the tenth anniversary would seem like a pretty good time for a remake.
