Halo: Reach is expected to deliver an experience that not only speaks highly of its developer, but also of the technological capabilities and commercial identity of its home platform. Unlike Halo 3: ODST which was built upon Bungie’s 2007 engine. The developer tells Edge that its next shooter is already “bending the Xbox as far as it’ll bend.”

“We are… taking every advantage of everything on the CPU and GPU, and every bit of memory in order to produce the look of Reach beyond anything of Halo 3, ” creative director Marcus Lehto noted, attributing the evolution — which also benefits the size of environments and complexity of the AI — to increased understanding of the hardware. “We’re pushing it as far as we can go,” Lehto said. “With every iteration we understand what more we can exploit with the hardware.”

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