• Next Generation: Game Trailers Hitch Up (mentions the H3 trailer)
• Marine Corps Times: Halo becomes literary blood-and-bone ballet (about the graphic novel)
• NG-Gamer: XCN Interviewed Peter Moore (Halo Wars, Bungie and Ensemble mentioned)
• Bungie.net: Halo 2 Vista Developer Diary Part Two (Vista is pretty and likes to kiss all the boys)
• Halo Wars.com: New forums for Suggestions and Haloverse Discussion.

The latter, it seems, not an actual Bungie Weekly Update; Frankie is having difficulty putting one up from his location and KP is at a loss for words.

The buzz has died down a bit, but there are still a few sites catching up with the X06 Halo Wars bombshell. The latest is the BBC's site, which quoted Bungie's Brian "SketchFactor" Jarrard as well as HBO's own fansite editor, Claude "Louis Wu" Errera.

As for why a Halo RTS by Ensemble, Sketch put it nicely:

"Halo started as an RTS. Would the Bungie team love to do one themselves? Possibly.

"We are not focused on that. We've got a lot of work to do on Halo 3 and a trilogy to finish."

As for Wu, he was cautiously optimistic. Or optimistically cautious, depending:

"The entire team has been working on Halo games since 1998 and they are probably tired of it. But there are still stories to tell."

I suppose if one works on Halo games long enough, Pimps at Sea starts to look like a really good idea.

1Up is reporting that EGM's issue #210, presumably the December 2006 issue if it will hit newsstands on November 14th as they claim, will feature Halo 3 in a big way. The current issue has a teaser for that feature.

Less ado, more do:

• Eurogamer: Halo Wars Is For Ze Germans
• Dolbex: How Far Can Bungie Stretch?
• Bungie: Bungie.net Update
• Xboxyde: HaloWars Q&A and Interview with Peter Jackson
• Primotech: Marty O'Donnell's Wife Plays Bejeweled

More links about the ever-expanding Halo universe:

• WarCry: Peter Jackson Into Games, Working on New "Halo"
• TeamXbox: Video of Storytelling panel at X06 featuring Jackson, Frankie, and Peter Molyneux
• IGN: Video interview with Bungie's Marty O'Donnell
• Hollywood Reporter: Peter Jackson buddies with Microsoft for video game studio
• HBO: The audio portion of Microsoft's X06 presentation
• Wikipedia: Halo Wars
• Podtacular: Episode 82, now with more Stuntmutt
• Rampancy: HawaiianPig's take on Halo Wars.
• Eurogamer: Peter Jackson Bored With Movies
• Playfuls.com: Halo Wars RTS In The Works At Ensemble

Frankie and SketchFactor, over in Barcelona for the X06 event, decided to do a different sort of Humpday Challenge this week, applying their Halo 2 skills to other games available for play.

The two pitted themselves against bots in Shadowrun (the bots won) and then against each other in Gears of War (Frankie won).

Since real Bungie fans don't trust a word that is said about the Halo franchise, or indeed any Bungie game, unless it comes straight from Bungie, KP has now posted at Bungie.net to give the official imprimatur to the heretofore scurrilous rumors spread in Spain by Peter Moore and Peter Jackson.

To wit:

• Ensemble Studios is making Halo Wars, an RTS game for the Xbox 360.
• Wingnut Interactive is working with Bungie on an as-yet unrevealed Halo project.

The latter is being referred to as a "new chapter" in the Halo series; no doubt this prevents any conflict with the idea that Halo 3 will be the "end" of the Halo story, as it will only end that particular story arc. Where or when these new games take place isn't yet known.

In addition to the projects mentioned above, Wingnut is also working on original intellectual property.