Bungie has announced that the two new multiplayer maps for Halo 2, developed by Certain Affinity, will be available April 17. They' ll be Tombstone, a remake of Hang ' Em High, and Desolation, a remake of Derelict. $4 for both, available through the Halo 2 internal downloader.

Edit: They' ll also be playable on the original Xbox, as opposed to the initial announcement that they would only be playable on the 360. Sounds like Bungie probably lobbied hard to make that possible.

Is anyone really gonna get it? I mean do people still play it on live? I would get it if it were free, but i probably wont waist my time with it

There' s 25,000 playing at this moment... Bungie keeps a live tally of how many are online on the top right of their homepage.

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Players Online:
25,306
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Unique Players (Last 24 Hours):
223,225
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Matches Logged (Last 24 Hours):
465,210

I' ll probably get them, but I wonder about the timing of the beta stealing the thunder of these maps. They probably would have gotten more use if they' d been released in January or February.

On second thought, since Beta is coming 10 days after they come out i' ll probably get them so i can practice for Beta

Beta hasn' t officially been announced yet. Make what you will of the rumors, but the only official word is this:

The thing everyone wants to know is ‘when will the beta be ready to roll?’ He says, “We have hard dates for when the content for the beta is going to be ready. There is a drop-dead date here internally, which is fairly soon, but that has completely different dependencies than the actual roll out to the public, so we don’t know what that date is. We know roughly its spring and we’re working towards a big, pretty wide open period of a couple of months.”

That' s from an interview with Frank O' Connor at Next Gen.

Im sure it will be april. I just think may would be a bad month to do it

May has cooties.

I' d buy new Halo 2 maps. I' ve already secured a spot in the 3 beta, so it' ll give me something to play online untill then. And at 4 bucks a pop, it beats getting most of the other map-packs on XBL at the moment.

I' ll pass on this. I haven' t played Halo 2 multiplayer in a long time. Instead I' ve been lanning Halo 1.

The BR doesn' t have enough range to bring back the classic Hang ' em High battles.

Are these the maps from the poll they have been running?

I was under the impression that 27th April was Beta release day?

Are these the maps from the poll they have been running?

No, these maps were begun quite a while ago. The poll was only started fairly recently so it probably has more bearing on future map packs for Halo 3.

May has cooties.

Oh, it has more than that!

No, these maps were begun quite a while ago. The poll was only started fairly recently so it probably has more bearing on future map packs for Halo 3.

I think they should just start by making the maps they want to put on there, and then gradually keep making more and more maps until theres like 100 maps and then it gets to hard to find a match

You have to respect Bungie for this. It' s not something that will get them any sales at all. Only the most hardcore Halo fans still play Halo2, all of which will buy Halo 3. Even if they' re charging for the maps, it' s just chump change for them. This is a case of them trying to please their fans, reminds me of Epic.