Looks like a Halo Wars 2 for Xbox One announcement might be imminent. Thehalowars.com was discovered by some people on twitter today, and it seems to be a Halo Wars 2 teaser site. Halo Wars 2 has been speculated for some time and is deemed highly anticipated by fans of the original.
Halo Wars is a real-time strategy game from Ensemble Studios that released back in 2009. Even though it was entirely different from any other Halo before it, it was praised for its cinematics and intuitive controls. However, reviewers felt as though the RTS side of it was very shallow and had a lack of strategic options.
Once headed to the website, the first thing you will notice is a countdown timer that appears to end on December 17 of this year. Also on the site there is what appears to be a transmission from Serena, who happens to be the AI of the UNSC Spirit of Fire phoenix vessel. The transmission is of her asking the captain to defrost, and she then states, "Captain, wake up. Something has happened." If you stay on the site long enough you will even hear the audio of her saying this, which you can listen to here.
One final clue to this being a Halo Wars 2 announcement, is that at the bottom of the transmission there is a button with the hashtag "#SPIRITOFFIRE" which, as I stated is the name of the vessel from the original Halo Wars. When you press this button, it launches twitter so that you can tweet your friends, "Captain, wake up. http://thehalowars.com/ #SpiritofFire #HaloWars2."
However, the site SegmentNext believes the site is an elaborate hoax. Their evidence comes from the domain registration, which goes to a third-party host (Bluehost) instead of being hosted by Microsoft directly. Indeed, that oddity does raise a red flag.
If this website is the real deal, it has us all over here a Windows Central thoroughly excited for a brand new Halo RTS. One thing that also has us giddy, is that at the bottom of the screen there is a mention of Blur Studios which 343i teamed up with for the cinematics for Halo 2 Anniversary in Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
For now, we'll just file this under 'Rumor'.
What do you guys think, is this an elaborate hoax or the real deal?
