Bungie's last Halo game, Halo: Reach, is fast approaching its release date and fans are anxious to get their hands on the title which takes players back to the time before Master Chief was the only Spartan warrior. It was a possibility at one point however, that we may have gotten an entirely different story for the game.

Bungie recently admitted something interesting that would have brought about the return of Master Chief instead of the fall of Reach. That's right folks, the idea of a fourth Halo was being tossed around by Bungie before they even thought about doing the prequel, Halo: Reach.

Brian Jarrard, Bungie's community director, is the one who spilled the beans to MTV's Multiplayer Blog about considering Halo 4 before eventually deciding to go the prequel route.

"Even before the idea to build a game based around Reach came about, a lot of other concepts were explored, up to and including a proper 'Halo 4,' where Master Chief was going to wake up from cryo-sleep and we were going to tell that story."

If you care to recall --and spoiler alert to people who have yet to complete Halo 3-- at the end of Halo 3, Master Chief was left in deep space taking a cryogenic nap on the back half of a spaceship. Bungie felt that "it just wasn't as interesting" and that they didn't want  "the team to just pick up where that left off and all the baggage that came with it." I can see why Bungie would want to avoid revisiting Master Chief because that would just involve finding a new enemy to fight; there's no point in beating a dead horse, but I'm sure we haven't seen the last of Master Chief.

Reach is said to feature some nods to the original Halo: Combat Evolved, but it will feature some new elements not found in previous Halo games (i.e. jetpacks and the ability to sprint!).

"I think it was a little bit liberating. Hearing the guys talk about working through the trilogy and the obligation of keeping the themes moving forward and tying them up systematically. And 'ODST' was also kinda nice 'cause they could do something different, something separate, and it's totally self-contained. I definitely think that, for 'Reach,' a lot of the same attitude carried over. We don't want to open up a whole bunch of doors that we're not going to close. By the end of this, it's all going to come to a nice, neat finish, and if people want to then go play the Halo trilogy, I think they'll have a better understanding of what's going on, but it's not required at all."

Fans who were hoping for an appearance by the leader of the Spartans, Master Chief, Jarrard has some bad news for you -- he's not in it. Even though Reach's lore claims that Master Chief has a pivotal role in the fall of Reach he will not be making an appearance, but then again Bungie may be trying to surprise us... maybe.

Halo: Reach is set to hit store shelves on September 14.

What would you rather have, Halo 4 or Halo: Reach? Do you want to see Master Chief show up in Reach?

At E3 2010, we had a chance up close and personal with Halo: Reach and some of its new features, namely Halo: Reach's space combat and the new Halo Firefight 2.0 improved multiplayer mode.

Source: MTV Multiplayer Blog