Gaming company Bungie Studios, the developers behind the popular Halo franchise, dropped a bombshell this week with the news of a public beta for Halo 3 coming next spring.

Bungie has confirmed that fans of the game will have the opportunity to play Halo 3 multiplayer over Xbox Live before the final game is available.

The company said that selected beta testers would be playing a multiplayer game and providing Bungie with valuable data to help the development team.

Bungie is still working out the details on timing and scope, but has confirmed that testers will be required to have an Xbox 360.

An exclusive worldwide Halo 3 TV commercial is set to air on 4 December. To whet the appetites of Halo fans, the ad will feature scenes built by third-party agency Digital Domain.

"We all agreed that a cooler thing to do would be to move as far away from gameplay-style footage as possible, and make something more movie-like to let our fans see what the Halo universe looks like in a photo-realistic fashion," said Bungie.