At the Edinburgh Interactive Festival today, Bungie beat competitors such as Nintendo and Rockstar to win the Edge Award For Interactive Innovation for Halo 3.
We hand out this accolade to the title released in the last 12 months that does most to further the creative culture of gaming – in other words, to mark out new directions for the form.
This year’s Edge Award For Interactive Innovation was a closely fought affair, Bungie proving victorious in a shortlist that also included Grand Theft Auto IV, Portal, Rock Band, Super Mario Galaxy and Wii Fit.
Ultimately it is the integration and coherence of Halo 3’s online content that makes the game stand apart. From its Theater mode to Forge, and the way a party playing through Live can seamlessly manoeuvre between them, here is an experience that demonstrates an unparalleled understanding of the potential for console online play. Outside of the game, Bungie.net has been engineered to become a remarkable resource for Halo 3 stats and communities, providing life for the game even when your Xbox 360 is switched off. Halo 3, just as Halo 2 did before it, presents a roadmap for the way online will be integrated in videogames in the coming years.
In the light of its incredible success and the number of fans it has attracted, it’s easy to overlook all of the ideas that are present in Halo 3 and the remarkably robust manner in which they are implemented, but we hope that this award serves to help credit Bungie for its achievements. Naturally, congratulations also go to the makers of the games that also made the shortlist.
