In this week’s Bungie Weekly Update, Luke Smith discussed some of the upcoming maps for Halo 3.

Work is progressing on new maps for future downloadable content, with the design and art teams vigorously engaged in the process. More entertainingly however, the ad-hoc test team of Bungie staff is enjoying these new maps greatly. My favorites are what I have already nicknamed Jodrell Bank and Moonbase Alpha.

I “invented” a game type on Jodrell Bank which is actually just Team Slayer with Swords and Snipers. Thanks to some unique geographical features of that map, it works great. Moonbase Alpha, on the other hand is best suited to objective games, like CTF and Assualt, but it has some natural deadlocks that make Slayer interesting and Infection terrifying.

Which reminds me of one more downloadable map. The scariest map of all time. Dark, frightening and surprisingly enormous. One of the scariest things that has ever happened to me (and this in a lifetime fraught with terror) was racing away from a marauding gang of zombies in Infection atop a Mongoose, only to have one leap out of the darkness ahead and unseat me with a throaty scream. I call that level John Carpenter’s Prince of Dorkness. It’s not as catchy as Jub Jub, but it’s every bit as accurate.

Sounds like a plan to me. No word yet on a time frame for the release of these maps, but I’d bet around Christmas is a good guess. No better time to release a good update to make some more money. Seriously, who isn’t going to buy new Halo 3 maps at this point?