Bungie co-founder on Halo 4: "I'd be pretty surprised if they wiffed it"
Expects MS will grant 343 the time and resources to "make it great".
Bungie co-founder Alex Seropian is convinced Halo 4 is in good hands.
With Bungie moving on to its new game universe, to be published by Activision, Halo IP owner has charged new studio 343 Industries with continuing the popular Xbox exclusive science fiction shooter series.
Halo 4, due out this Christmas for the Xbox 360, is its first effort.
Some fans are concerned Microsoft will take Master Chief and friends in a direction they're not happy with, but for Seropian, one of the chief architects of Halo's early success, there's nothing to worry about.
"It's so crazy in an interesting way," he told GameSpot. "I've been an observer for a while now. So much has gone on with the franchise. I will say the encouraging thing is that I know a lot of the folks at Microsoft working on it and they are great people. I'm very hopeful that the team there is very fantastic.
"They are certainly treating it with a lot of care and respect. And applying the resources you'd like to see applied to a franchise like that. I'm hopeful that it will continue to bring the high production value and cool experiences it's known for."
Little is known about Halo 4, save glimpses of Master Chief's new armour, concept art, and basic story and design details.
When asked if he was nervous about the game, Seropian replied: "Yeah, a little bit, but I don't think I can be anything other than hopeful that it will be great."
He added: "We'll see. Halo is one of the crown jewels in the Microsoft gaming IP, if not the crown jewel, so you would expect nothing less than for them to take the time needed and apply the resources needed to make it great.
"I would be pretty surprised if they wiffed it. Maybe it will bring a fresh perspective, and that's so hard because there's so many fans that are used to a particular thing that bringing something new is often... it's hard to bring something new to a franchise that's so established. I'm looking forward to it."
Seropian recently left Disney's game division to start up his own company, Industrial Toys. He aims to create mobile games for core gamers.