Halo Combat Evolved the name that almost wasn’t

Halo: Combat Evolved, a name that is synonmous with both the Xbox and the Halo series. Though, Bungie recently revealed that they intially “hated” the idea. According to Bungie Microsoft forced the now classic subtitle on the developer because they didn’t think that just Halo was a good marketing move.

In a recent interview with Edge Magazine Jaime Griesemer had this to say

“Oh, man… the subtitle,” Halo designer Jaime Griesemer told Edge Magazine. “At the time, Microsoft marketing thought Halo was not a good name for a video game brand. It wasn’t descriptive like all the military games we were competing with.”

The suggestion caused a bit of disagreement at Bungie HQ. “We told them Halo was the name,” revealed Greisemer.

“The compromise was they could add a subtitle. Everyone at Bungie hated it. But it turned out to be a very sticky label and has now entered the gaming lexicon to the point where articles that have nothing to do with Halo get titles like ‘Skateboarding Evolved’. So I guess in hindsight it was a good compromise.” [CVG]