The people over at Bungie are celebrating their 20th anniversary of developing games and the 10th anniversary of their beloved Halo series, and they want to bring their adoring fans in on the  celebration. To do this, they are giving away blue flaming helmets and Bungie nameplates for Halo: Reach, which use to be exclusive to Bungie employees.

If you linked your Bungie.net profile with your gamer tag, there are two ways you can get these unlockables: you can either download the Bungie Mobile app for you iOS device of choice, or you can use the registration on Bungie.net. You can do this anytime between now an July 7th, which is the last day the close of Bungie Day. This is just Bungie’s way of saying thanks to all of their loyal fans.

Who expects to see a lot of blue flaming helmets running around in Halo: Reach sometime soon?

As of this posting, the game is not yet available in the AppStore. You can read Bungie’s interview with Daniel while you wait for it to show up.

via Bungie

Remember a little while back when an ex-temp at Bungie spilled the beans to Kotaku that Bungie’s next game was a sci-fi MMO called Destiny? And everyone was like nuh-uh. Well yeah-huh, because the folks over at Halo.Bungie.Org (its a fan site) uncovered a trademark for Destiny owned by a company called Podophobia Entertainment. That company is owned by Bungie president Harold Ryan and music maestro Martin O’Donnell.

To make things even more suspicious a NeoGaf user noticed that on last week’s episode of Penny Arcade TV the fine folks from Penny Arcade went to play ping pong against Bungie and someone on the Bungie team was wearing a weird shirt and HEY THERE’S THAT SYMBOL AGAIN!! Its all making sense now. Right? Does it make sense?

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the original Halo, and the original Xbox for that matter, but let’s focus on Halo shall we? Let’s start with this Friday April 15th the Halo Waypoint app on Xbox Live will be updated to bring it closer to the kind of stat tracking you get on Bungie.net, still the only game it tracks is Halo: Reach which I’m sure is what the majority of Halo fans are playing anyways. Halo Waypoint will also bring another tale of Halo’s fiction to life with the motion comic “The Mona Lisa”, which is a tale from the Halo: Evolutions short story collection. If that’s not enough for you there will also be tons of new Avatar items including Red Vs. Blue themed t-shirts, Spartan helmets, and Flood pets.

Microsoft also took the time to announce that this year’s PAX Prime being held in Seattle on August 26-28th will be one giant party for the 10th anniversary of Halo. Look for big announcements and other fun activities all weekend long. If you’re a Halo fan it sounds like this will be the place to be.

So what do you think these surprises will yield? Could it be a new IP? We’ll have to wait and see.

Bungie cleared up the confusion on their weekly update saying it was “playfully riffing off of the recent rumors.” So who is to blame for all this misled excitement? Is it Bungie and their failure to properly deliver a joke, or is it people who couldn’t distinguish jokes for sincerity when they got less blood flow to their brain after the thought of a Halo MMO made their nether regions swell? Finally, do you think this statement completely rules out the idea that Bungie is working on or plans to work on an MMO?

Microsoft’s Major Nelson has officially revealed that Halo: Reach will be getting the “Defiant” Map Pack next month.  The creation of the new map pack is being aided by Certain Affinity, which is comprised of Bungie vets and has made maps for Call of Duty: Black Ops, World at War, and Halo 2. For 800 Microsoft, you’ll get three new maps for your multiplayer pleasure. There’s been no mention of a pre-order bonus, as there has been in the past.

“Condemned is a 6-12 player map for team game types and free-for-all, and it takes place in an abandoned space station above Reach. “Highlands” is for 8-16 players in Big Team Battle, Team Slayer and Team Objective, and is set in a top secret wilderness training preserve. Finally, “Unearthed” takes place inside a titanium mining facility, and it is for Firefight game types. Look at the screenshots below, and tell us what you think.