What’s going on over at Bungie.net?

Take a trip to the Halo developer’s official site and you’re greeted with a screen displaying such opaque messages as ‘Pardon our dust’, ‘Final Notice: Bill past due’, ‘Proceed with caution’ and ‘Expect delays’. None of which would be especially tantalising were it not for a little countdown clock in the bottom right-hand corner that seems set to reach zero at some point shortly after three this afternoon.

Needless to say this has set fire to the heads of speculation-mongers across the wires, most of whom are predicting that Bungie is about to unveil the next chapter in the Halo series. They could well be right too, since Bungie has been muttering that there would be some kind of new Halo-realted product announcement before the year is out. And the countdown clock/mysterious message mechanic does seem rather dramatic if all they’re about to unveil is a new site design, don‘t you think?

Anyway, we’ll be back with the full skinny as soon as it’s published and our little fingers can type it up. Unless it really is something unremarkable and irrelevant, of course.