Just because we love a good rumor, we decided to post this story. It broke that Director of Technology Corrinne Yu (pictured above) has been hired by Microsoft Game Studios to be Principle Engine Architect for Microsoft’s Halo Franchise Team. Meaning that everything that Microsoft does with the Halo Franchise, yea, she’ll be directing it.

Well she came from a little company called Gearbox Software. (Think “Brothers In Arms”, “Borderlands” Halo:Combat Evolved for PC). Well waay back in the day Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford stated: “I’ve started a new project. It’s big. It’s, like, look-at-our-line-up-and-imagine-something-even-bigger kind of big. I’m Directing it myself. I can’t mention it publicly yet. When you find out what this is, you’ll likely agree that I can’t oversell this one.” Now of course that doesn’t necessarily mean Gearbox is doing Halo 4. The “big” project Pitchford is alluding to could be something else entirely… But with Bungie out of the picture as far as Microsoft is concerned, Gearbox does seem like a logical fit, why not go with the guys who developed Halo for the PC?

So let’s get back to this Corrinne Yu girl and her new job.

Corrinne Yu’s most recent works at Gearbox include programming Brothers in Arms, Aliens: Colonial Marines and Borderlands. Plus, we’ve also received this internal Gearbox email that Yu sent out:

    Hello, friends.

before 09/15/2008:
XXXX@gearboxsoftware.com
XXXX@XXXX.net
Director of Technology
Gearbox Software

Again, there’s nothing here that confims either1) there is a Halo 4 or 2) Gearbox is working on it. But we’ve learned that Microsoft has confirmed that Yu was hired by Microsoft. And Microsoft has said “As the Halo franchise continues to flourish, Microsoft Game Studios is growing its internal team to develop future Halo projects.”

Now here’s an interesting piece of news, several industry sources are claiming that Yu was actually part of a package deal. She, and her husband, Kenneth Scott are both joining Microsoft Game Studios. So who the heck is Kenneth Scott? Scott is the art director over at ID Software, who has been most recently working on Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

So if she’s just the tag-along, why does it matter that Corrinne Yu is headed for Microsoft Game Studios? Well just look at the tech that Gearbox Software is using and draw your own conclusions. Brothers in Arms, Aliens: Colonial Marines and Borderlands all use Unreal Engine 3 — with Borderlands using a heavily modified version of the Unreal Engine 3.

We’re also getting whispers that Yu has been called in to work on the Peter Jackson Halo game, which Microsoft is still in the planning stages of, but the company is ready to kick that project into full gear. And since Microsoft Game Studios is doing the Peter Jackson Halo game, that means the chances of Microsoft using Bungie’s proprietary, in-house “Halo 3 Engine” isn’t very likely. But, if she’s not bringing her Unreal Engine 3 expertise to Microsoft’s internal studio, she could very well be working on a new in-house engine specifically for the Peter Jackson game.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 1:28 am and is filed under Halo News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.