Current ISU software engineering student, Anthony House, is the lead programmer of a worldwide project to create a fan-made, free-to-play game based on the popular “Halo” series.

Project Contingency, while not endorsed by Microsoft nor the “Halo” franchise, is being created using Cryengine and several default assets—trees, rocks, grass, etc.—traversed by Master Chief during his expeditions.

The Contingency team is currently made up of around 25 to 30 people from all over the world, but only around five of them are on House’s programming team. The project consists of members with all types of skills—concept artists, 3D modelers, programmers, map designers, voice actors, and anyone else who is interested in helping the team move forward.

The game is currently in a 0.7 Pre-Alpha stage, but gameplay is quite advanced. There are already two guns programmed, based off of the assault rifle and Covenant Carbine. The map is an extremely well replicated version of the classic Blood Gulch map.

All of the vehicles, guns, maps, and interface are custom-made by the Contingency team. In the future, they plan to include a wide variety of weapons, vehicles, and playable characters from all of the various “Halo” games.

House’s main role as programmer is to develop the graphic user interface as well as program the underlying code for health and shield systems. He hinted at adding aerial space combat in the future, when he is done programming all of the basics to the game. On average, it takes him about two hours to program each menu page. If adding animation, it takes even longer.

House spends around 15 to 25 hours per week working on Project Contingency, but prioritizes class and his job with IT over game creation. He also delegates tasks to the other programmers on the team, such as vehicle creation and specific game-types—like capture the flag.

Most recently, the team got nine players in the same game and played for around two hours before the server crashed. This is a huge landmark when programming a game on this scale, and they will be looking to stress test even more extensively in the future with a private alpha release.

For more information about the team, you can check out the official website at project-contingency.net. House—who only started programming after joining this project—said, “ it is completely possible for others to learn how to do this on their own too. Even if they don’t have previous experience.”