[ARK]phoenix

LOS ANGELES--Microsoft has released the Halo 3 announcement trailer on Xbox Live. The trailer approximately 104MB large, is available free on the Xbox Live Marketplace, the online service available to Xbox 360 owners.

To quote the accompanying text found on Xbox Live, Halo 3 is about Earth under Convenant rule: "With its defensive forces, all but obliterated, Earth has fallen to the unstoppable might of the Convenant. These alien occupiers have discovered something beneath the ancient African sands - something incredible... something Forerunner."

Halo 2 ended in a cliffhanger, with the Master Chief, the hero of the Halo series, returning to Earth in the midst of a climactic battle between the Covenant, an alien coalition, and Earth's defense forces. It has always been assumed that Halo 3 would pick up seconds after its predecessor left off, but it appears now that it's set sometime a bit later in the future.

The importance of a new Halo game for the Xbox 360 cannot be underestimated. The original Halo was a launch title for the first Xbox, and was easily the biggest hit driving sales of that system. Halo 2, which launched in 2004, became a cultural event, with thousands of gamers lining up for hours for the midnight launch. Halo 2 made entertainment history by generating $125 million in sales in one day. However, Microsoft didn't mention Halo 3 at all during last year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, and fans had been left wondering when the software giant would finally drop the big news. Well, the waiting has now come to an end.

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