Looking back at all of these Xbox 360 anniversaries these days is starting to make us feel hella old, but today's revelation was a particularly hard punch to the gut. In just over a month's time, Halo 3: ODST will be 15 years old - so here's a timely tribute to what is probably Halo's weirdest console release.
Launched back in September '09, ODST initially served a stop-gap between two big Bungie releases; Halo 3 and Halo: Reach. In time though, it's gone down as a legend of the franchise - a real marker for when smaller, more experimental games seemed plausible for such a huge IP like Halo.
It's also stuck in the memory because of just how different the game is to traditional Halo, both visually and in terms of its overall structure. Halo 3: ODST was dark, eerie, atmospheric - it almost veered into 'horror shooter' territory at times. We still have fond memories of dropping in for the very first time and just thinking 'is this really a Halo game?'
That change of pace also extended to the game's structure. Halo 3: ODST featured an open-world environment, which isn't too out of the ordinary for the series now thanks to Halo Infinite, but back then it was certainly very different for Halo. This structure provided some cool moments though, moments where you could just slow things down and take in the game's rich atmosphere and brilliant attention to detail.
In the run up to the release of ODST, we never imagined ourselves looking back on it that fondly afterwards — 15 years later no less — so the fact that we are shows how unique and memorable an experience it was. We might just have to drop back in one more time next month - either on Xbox 360 or as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection!