Bungie’s updated their gallery with some brand new screenshots of Cold Storage, the remake of the classic Halo map, “Chill out”.  High Resolution versions of the screens can be found in the Bungie Halo 3 gallery.

I think it’s safe to say that the Halo community is pretty excited about the release of this map.  While we don’t have any new details about a release date, Bungie states that we’ll learn more about this map next week!

Arguably Halo: CE’s most popular map, Chill Out was put on display last night by Bungie at the MLG San Diego event, the second stop on the 2008 MLG Pro Circuit. The new map – dubbed ‘Cold Storage’ – was displayed by Luke Smith and Shishka in an exhibition match against two MLG stars. The boys from Bungie made no mention of the intended release date.

MLG has kindly hosted some images from the event. Follow this link for the gallery.

We’ll be keeping you updated on the new maps as they are announced, and we might even help a few lucky readers pay for the pack.

Several folks have already started putting together Canvases for the Legendary Maps released today. If you’re interested in grabbing the blank versions of the maps, check out the links below:

• Avalanche Canvas
• Blackout Canvas
• Ghost Town Canvas

Thanks for the tip Max!

This is just a friendly reminder that the Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack is due for release, tomorrow, April 15th. If you get a chance, you’ll probably want to start downloading the new map pack as soon as it’s released, as it will take some time to actually download all of the files.

For those of you looking for a recap of the Legendary Map Pack, here are the 3 maps that will be released tomorrow:

• Avalanche – A brand new rendition of Sidewinder. Not exactly a remake.
• Blackout – A remake of Lockout!
• Ghost Town – A brand new map, which some say slightly resembles Turf from Halo 2.

Tomorrow’s going to be an awesome day!

EDIT: *YAWN* Ok, the maps are live for all you night owls who stayed up.

Bungie has revealed their final Legendary Map, Blackout.  Blackout is the Halo 3 remake of Lockout, as many fans have speculated up until todays announcement.  And when we call it a remake, it REALLY is a remake versus a new rendition (like Avalanche, the new Sidewinder).   The level is constructed to play almost identical to Lockout from Halo 2, only with a difference in style and setting.   Heck, even the name of the level brings back memories of Lockout.

High Resolution Shots of the new Halo 3 Map can be found in Bungie’s Gallery.

Standoff

According to the folks over at Bungie, you can think of this new outdoor map as “Blood Gulch, except squished together, with 4000 foot satellite dishes.“  Are we excited about this so-called third installment of the Gulch?  More than ever.

Rat’s Nest

Rat’s Nest appears to take on the appearance of Crow’s Nest from Halo 3’s Campaign mode.  According to Bungie, it will be a great addition to matchmaking for Big Team Battle players.

Foundry

Foundry has been called “The Forge Level”, as it will be completely customizable to players using Forge… even more so than the levels shipped with the game.  It sounds like it can essentially just become an “Open Space” by deleting everything in Forge.  The possibilities are endless!

[Photos from Bungie.net] 

More photos of the new [tag]Halo 3[/tag] Maps will be released shortly after Thanksgiving Day according to Bungie.   They’ve also done a really great Q & A in their news post, which is definitely worth a quick glance.

Available for 800 Microsoft Points exclusively on Xbox LIVE Marketplace, each map presents a totally different play style.

• The symmetrical valley of Standoff, with its entrenched bases and fields of boulders is ideal for mid-sized objective and Slayer game types.
• The vast, labyrinthine passages of the Rat’s Nest bring something completely new to the multiplayer experience: an indoor vehicle paradise. Strongly influenced by the Campaign mode, this map is ideal for big team battles.
• Foundry is the ultimate Forge map. Players can edit every single object in this voluminous industrial warehouse, placing stairways, walls, bridges, and tunnels to create an entirely new play space and build almost any kind of map imaginable.

All three maps will become available for free download via Xbox LIVE Marketplace in Spring 2008, just prior to the next wave of new Halo 3 multiplayer maps.

Foundry sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun!  We may need to have another Forge contest soon!

Halo Wars E3 Demo

This guided tour through 10 minutes of play time really gives us an excellent look at what Ensemble Studios has in store for us come 2008.  With the end of the Halo Trilogy so close at hand, this is some refreshing news for the Halo Nation!

Sorry Folks, Microsoft has requested that we kindly take down the images.  It seems that they are going to be monitoring this issue pretty well, so most other sites will probably follow suit.  If you really must see these leaked screenshots (they really, really are not that impressive since they are such low quality), I’d suggest searching for “Halo 3 Epsilon” on Flickr.

As many fans are well aware, the Halo 3 Epsilon Beta launched just a few days ago, and already, leaked screenshots and gameplay videos are already hitting the internetz. Although tragic that users granted the opportunity to play the new Halo 3 before anyone else would breach their NDA, it is without a doubt that [tag]Bungie[/tag] expected this to happen. It’s nearly impossible to keep things concealed when you release a build of the game to a large group of gamers.

There are 18 images available and all nicely packaged for people interested. We’ve hosted the package locally, although we believe the source to be from 360wtf.com.

Download the Leaked Halo 3 Images

There are rumors that the authors of this package will be releasing [tag]leaked[/tag] [tag]Halo 3[/tag] video footage very soon. The [tag]images[/tag] in this pack are fairly low quality, but they do have some new images of the “Forge” multiplayer feature, new halo weapons and vehicles (like the Elephant), and some other cool stuff.

The downloads include:

•  3 Halo [tag]Ringtones[/tag]
• 2 Halo 3 [tag]Screensavers[/tag]
• 3 Brand new Halo 3 [tag]Wallpapers[/tag]
• Several Halo related avatars for [tag]Windows Live Messenger[/tag] and [tag]Live Spaces[/tag]

No subscription is required or anything, they are all completely free downloads.