343 Industries has issued an official statement about the release of Halo Online ElDewrito 0.6, stating that Microsoft has initiated actions to protect its Halo intellectual property. 343 Industries and Microsoft have clarified that while they do support mods and fan remakes, they will not allow copyrighted material to be distributed for free (as is the case with Halo Online ElDewrito).
As 343 Industries claimed:
“More recently, Installation 01 has garnered some buzz and even made headlines for receiving a thumbs-up from 343. Installation 01 is an original work, built from the ground up in a separate engine, that abides by Microsoft’s content usage guidelines. With Halo Online, there’s a common misconception that once it was canceled, the assets were either turned over as “open source” or left for the community’s whims as “abandonware” – neither of which is actually true. Not only did Microsoft issue takedown notices at the time of the original leaks, but many elements of that underlying code and content are still actively being used today and will continue to be in the future.”
I believe that it’s really important here to note that Microsoft is fine with fan projects as long as they are not using copyrighted assets or code from its games. However, that’s not the case with ElDewrito which re-enables all functionality to the cancelled Halo Online game.
343 Industries got in touch with the ElDewrito team and our guess is that the project will get shut down really soon due to legal implications. However, 343 Industries also acknowledged the desire for more Halo games on the PC platform, re-assuring fans that the PC community is very important to them and top of mind as they work towards the future.
“One thing remains clear – the community really wants more Halo on PC. As we look ahead, we’re very excited about the prospects of an official classic Halo experience making its way to PC and we hope to be able to partner with the ElDewrito team and broader mod and content creation community to help inform the types of experiences and features our fans desire. While we have nothing to announce today, please know that the PC community is very important to us and top of mind as we work towards the future.”
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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