Gearbox, the developer behind Halo's port to the revealed late last week that a new version is in development, titled Custom Edition, and will be made available free with support for and custom content.

Halo CE will be a full, stand-alone product, weighing in at 170mb and based upon version 1.04 of the PC title. Whilst the game is a 'free', 'standalone' offering - it does require an original Halo CD key to load, and will only be supported by Gearbox, not or Microsoft. Strictly multiplayer is the order of the day, and all singleplayer maps will be excluded from this package.

Sitting nicely alongside the Custom Edition comes the Halo Editing Kit, an additional, free, 250mb download which will allow gamers to create their own unique content for the game. A variety of tools, tutorials and art will be included.

An FAQ for the CE edition has gone live here, and the downloads will apparently be available within the next week or two.

By Luke Guttridge