On this day: Halo 3 launched on Xbox 360

On September 25, 2007, Halo 3 launched in North America and Australia, and in Europe a day later. The third Bungie shooter for the Xbox 360 continued the story of Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2.

The plot centres on a 26th-century war: humanity against the Covenant and the parasitic Flood. The player takes the role of Master Chief, a cybernetically enhanced supersoldier, and in co-op is joined by other players as allied Elites.

It is remembered not only for its campaign: the game brought the Forge map editor and saved match recordings with file sharing to the series. For the first time, players could examine and rework someone else's gameplay right inside the game.

In Forge, weapons, vehicles and objects on existing maps could be placed and moved in real time, with the number of objects limited by a budget. The Xbox 360 disc held up to one hundred recorded matches, which could be watched from any angle and at different speeds. Films and screenshots were uploaded to the Bungie website, from where they could be downloaded automatically to the console.

Critics received the game warmly: 94 out of 100 on Metacritic, with Forge and multiplayer praised especially, while the campaign and story drew questions. In the first 24 hours sales reached 170 million dollars, 300 million in the first week, and by 2012 more than 14.5 million copies had been sold.

Later the game was included in The Master Chief Collection: on Xbox One in 2014 and on Windows in 2020. The online services for the Xbox 360 version were shut down in January 2022.

Image: major nelson, as per Commons summary for File:Halo 3 Nasdaq.jpg CC BY-SA 2.0 · License

Translation editor: Ловушкин А.