Bungie Aerospace Is Not What You Were Hoping For

Remember “Bungie Aerospace,” that new trademark registered by the makers of Halo? Sadly, it’s not in any way related to Bungie’s mysterious new mega-franchise. It’s not related to air and space travel, either. So what is it? Not what you’re guessing.

Bungie Aerospace, as announced today by the game company, is a new arm of their studio that’s devoted to indie mobile and social game publishing. As in, games for iPhone, iPad, Android, and Facebook. And in case you missed it: these aren’t games being created and developed by Bungie itself. These are games being made by unknown, “indie” developers, and shepherded through the publishing project with Bungie’s help.

Bungie says that Aerospace games will give indie studios access to Bungie’s proprietary resources, such as “the Bungie.net platform,” and the publicity that comes with being associated with one of the world’s best-known game developers. Bungie stressed that their staff will not be helping to create any of these games, as their entire workforce is “laser focused” on their new action game franchise.

Seattle developer Harebrained Schemes is the first beneficiary of a Bungie Aerospace partnership. Harebrained is known to fans as the people behind the Halo 2 viral campaign/game, “I Love Bees,” though they also created Wizkids, MechWarrior, Shadowrun, and lots more. Crimson is the codename for Harebrained’s first mobile game, launching this summer from Bungie Aerospace, for iOS and Android.

That’s all the details released by Bungie so far, but more indie studios and games are believed to already be in talks to sign on with Aerospace.