Bungie Co-Founder Announces New iOS First-Person Shooter, 'Morning Star'

Wednesday December 12, 2012 9:05 AM PST by Husain Sumra
Bungie co-founder Alex Seropian earned his pedigree when he helped found the company that created Microsoft's hit game series Halo. He left Bungie to found a new studio called Industrial Toys, and earlier this week the firm revealed its latest project: a sci-fi first-person shooter called Morning Star for iOS.


In a blog post on is website, the company says the game is a "complete re-imagining of the sci-fi shooter for touch."
If you get the newsletter, you know we’ve been banging away on R&D with nailing down a satisfying control scheme, developing really cool and interesting gameplay systems and weaving an outrageous story with awesome characters. [...]

Our totally unreasonable goal is to completely change the expectations core gamers have for their mobile games, and with that comes a bunch of dialogue about what we’re doing and whether it’s gonna work or not.

The game is slated for release in Spring 2013.

30 comments


Top Rated Comments

(View all)
Avatar
50548
83 months ago


Bungie co-founder Alex Seropian earned his pedigree when he helped found the company that created Microsoft's hit game series Halo. [/url]


WRONG. He "earned his pedigree" because of the Marathon series, the best ever game trilogy for the Mac.
Rating: 7 Votes
Avatar
Earendil
83 months ago
If Alex can instill any of what made games like Marathon and Myth unique into this game, I won't care that the graphics aren't top notch. Gaming, especially first person shooters, has lost a lot of depth over the years with this focus on graphics instead of gameplay. Graphics are a part of gameplay, but the "great games", the ones that people played for years and years after it was released, and their graphics were relegated to second rate, or third rate, those are the games that were (and are) awesome.

Bungie knew how to create those kinds of games once upon a time, and while they tried with the Halo series, I think Microsoft sucked a bit of the soul out of them, and gave them constraints that didn't allow for their style. I'm interested to see what influence and talent Alex has at his disposal.
Rating: 6 Votes
Avatar
pgiguere1
83 months ago
I don't know how much of a "complete re-imagining" the gameplay will be, but the theme, storyline and visual style certainly don't feel like one.
Rating: 5 Votes
Avatar
MeFromHere
83 months ago
"They're everywhere!"
Rating: 3 Votes
Avatar
joeracke
83 months ago

"They're everywhere!"


Bring back the bobs!
Rating: 2 Votes
Avatar
CindyRed
83 months ago
The "re-imagining" will be millions of iOS users like us re-imagining how much better this game could have been without touch controls... sigh.
Rating: 1 Votes
Avatar
Earendil
83 months ago

So they wanted to break free of Halo and do their own thing, and then release a trailer that until 90% of the way through it could have been a trailer for a Halo prequel.....


You might want to go check out wikipedia info on Bungie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bungie)and Alex Seropian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Seropian).

Bungie its self was created in 1991, producing many games prior to Halo.

From Seropian's own wikipedia article
"In 2004, Seropian left Bungie and created Wideload Games, with the goal of streamlining game development. Wideload's small core development team worked with outside contractors to produce Stubbs the Zombie and Hail to the Chimp. Wideload was acquired by Disney in 2009. As part of the deal Seropian became vice president of game development for Disney Interactive Studios, a position he left in 2012 to start a company focusing on mobile games."

Seropian hasn't been a part of Bungie for almost 9 years, but was with Bungie for the first 13, those being the golden years of Bungie. And since when was "Space" not a common background for science fiction stories? It's about the story, not the setting...
Rating: 1 Votes
Avatar
mac98aop
83 months ago
Marathon, we miss you!

I hope this new concept incorporates elements of Marathon. Halo was enjoyable, but so, so repetitive. Kill it all, and quickly.

Marathon had complex puzzles to solve, amidst the shooting spree. Most of them were counterintuitive and so clever to try and work out, requiring many failed attempts. Who couldn't love running through hot lava as your body shield depletes, only to find the hidden switch that could only be activated by a grenade as if you got any closer, you'd never make it back before the door closed!

Come on, bring back some of that gameplay PLEASE!
Rating: 1 Votes
Avatar
blesscheese
83 months ago

WRONG. He "earned his pedigree" because of the Marathon series, the best ever game trilogy for the Mac.


I agree, the lead in to the article is absurd...Bungie was making great games wayyyy before Halo (I'm thinking Marathon *and* Myth). I'm guessing the writer is some teen/young 20 year old who doesn't have any idea of anything that happened pre-XBox. And on MacRumors, no less!
Rating: 1 Votes
Avatar
MattInOz
83 months ago
For the love of all thing good, there better be network play.

Poker night just hasn't been the same since we stopped playing marathon and started playing poker.
Rating: 1 Votes
[ Read All Comments ]