After nearly three years of work, the Halo RTS mod project known as Halogen has been asked by Microsoft to cease any further development. The project used the Halo intellectual property to create a real time strategy game featuring the Halo universe, putting Humans against Covenant in an entirely different genre than Halo: Combat Evolved.

In a farewell address on the Halogen website, the Halogen team said their goodbyes and promised that the website would be shut down within the week.

\"Dear Friends,

For the last three years, we\'ve worked incessantly to bring you the best Halo mod that we could. There have been a lot of ups and downs, but somehow Halogen has always managed to come out kicking. The problem with using copyrighted intellectual property as a base for a fan project is that you\'re very susceptible to legal action. We always figured that since Halogen was such a different take on the Halo franchise, we might manage to make it without incident. That changed today.

Hours ago, we finally received the words we\'ve been dreading since the mod started to get noticed. Microsoft has decided that we are infringing on the intellectual property of Bungie Studios and has asked us to stop development on Halogen.

I was going to write a big sappy letter here, but what\'s the point. So..that\'s it then, I guess. The forums, site, and Moddb profile will all be shut down within the week. I can\'t say it hasn\'t been fun. It\'s a shame it has to end like this, but I suppose that\'s how it goes. Thanks, guys, for all the time you\'ve spent supporting us. It\'s been a pleasure. We hate this as much as you do.

- The Halogen\"

This is not the first time a popular fan driven mod has been shut down as a result of copyright infringement. Last year, Vivendi Universal, who owns the rights to the Sierra classic franchise King\'s Quest, shut down a fan created version of King\'s Quest IX. However, in that case Vivendi was convinced to change their minds by an affectionate defense put forward by the gaming community. This is a much different situation, however; King\'s Quest was a franchise that\'s unlikely to see a return to the commercial front, while Halo is still an active and popular intellectual property. The possibility of an official Halo RTS is at least theoretically possible, and you have to give Microsoft credit for keeping their nose out of things for as long as they did.

Still, it\'s sad to see a promising looking mod go away. Thanks for all the hard work, guys. Best of luck.