Yes you read that headline right. Seventeen years after the first-person shooter Halo rocked the gaming world on the original Xbox, the popular IP is finally headed to arcades, courtesy of Play Mechanix and Raw Thrills. The surprise announcement was made during the 3rd episode of Inside Xbox, an online TV show that shows off new games for Xbox gamers to enjoy.
Raw Thrills CEO Eugene Jarvis is quoted as saying the following about it: “Halo: Fireteam Raven is without a doubt, the most spectacular arcade experience we’ve ever made. After years of development it is now ready. Experience the intensity and live the world of Fireteam Raven. You will never be the same!”
Here’s the official trailer that is available in 4k 60FPS:
I captured the interview portion of the Inside Xbox video in case you want to see that. Round1USA also mentioned that they will have it “Late Summer 2018”. Between them and Dave & Busters, it shouldn’t be impossible to find one, unless you live a long ways away from a major city. This also is reminding people of the old Galaxian 3 theater – which still exists as Air Raid in some locations I’ve seen.
I know that this has been in development at least since early 2017 as I heard the heads of Play Mechanix and Dave & Busters discuss “an amazing project” that was in the works for 2018 but I did not know it was Halo until very recently. One interesting tidbit is that this is using something that Play Mechanix is calling their “NexaGen” engine…something that will likely be used in other Play Mechanix games of the near future.
As you can see from the trailer, they went all out on making this a big experience – 4 mounted turrets, two 4K displays (for 130″ of display space)
