Just as quickly as our hopes were lifted high with the announcement of Halo 2 Anniversary, it’s been debunked over at IGN and clarified by Steve Downes, who originally made the comment on the interview we mentioned over at Game Zone. In the Game Zone article, Steve Downes said “I think you may be ahead of yourself on H5. I wouldn’t expect anything until 2015. What you can look forward to this year is an anniversary edition of Halo 2.” After the interview was released, IGN reached out to Steve Downes and received the following: “What I said was: ‘I think you’re ahead of yourself on H5. I have read some things on line that you can look forward to a H2 anniversary edition maybe this year, but I have no official information one way or the other.’ I was just mentioning some of the things I had read online about Halo 2. I have no idea if there will be an anniversary edition and didn’t mean to leave that impression.”

However, IGN obtained a copy of the email interview between Steve Downes and Game Zone and indeed the statement that was posted in the original interview was the exact phrase that was used. This of course leaves questions to whether or not Steve Downes was approached by Microsoft to correct his statement after the fact or if he truly was basing his statement on the assumption of rumors scattered across the internet. Whatever the case, we are still waiting on an official statement from Microsoft, but it the suspicions keep building, and while we don’t like to talk rumors all that much, it seems recent news has almost eliminated rumor all-together and we’re just waiting on an official announcement to finally come out.