Grab your salt shakers and prepare to tip for a doozey of a rumour. A report has emerged suggesting that Gearbox, the developer behind the Brothers in Arms series, will be producing Halo 4. Not only does this rumour suggest that the series is leaving its home at Bungie, it also suggests that it will be doing so to be released alongside the next Xbox. As we said, this is one for a healthy sprinkling of salt.

This comes via Joystiq, which apparently got the information from the next Official Xbox Magazine - the October issue.

The future of the Halo franchise does remain very much up in the air. It has been rumoured that the game is already in full development at Bungie, while head writer Frank O'Conner has left that very same developer to work more closely on the Halo franchise with Microsoft. Quite why he'd leave Bungie to work more closely on a franchise it's still working on is still a little beyond SPOnG.

Microsoft, for its part, has said (via Don Mattrick) that Bungie is working on an as-yet unannounced Halo project.

One possibility is that Bungie feels its need to branch out will be fulfilled by working on a slightly different Halo project, while the main series will be developed elsewhere. This fits with the rumour that Bungie is working on a Halo (FPS) game that doesn't feature Master Chief. It's all so very confusing...

One thing that you can be fairly confident about, however, is that a new Halo game will be made. Unless the sky turns red and Microsoft loses its interest in money, that is.

Then there's the suggestion that the supposed Gearbox game will be a launch title for the next Xbox. That machine, SPOnG would hope, is a good few years away, so don't expect any confirmation on that in the near future.

^{Source: Joystiq}