San Francisco (CNN) -- Executing a successful remake of a video game can be like shooting blindfolded, and that's especially true when you're dealing with the fervent following behind Microsoft's "Halo" series.





Longtime fans look for any reason to balk at attempts to repackage their beloved games, and for "Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary," people who follow its development closely have reasons to be skeptical. It's the first game wholly developed without intervention from Bungie, the company that created "Halo" but which has since severed ties with Microsoft.





"Halo Anniversary" is available only for the Xbox 360 starting Tuesday, the 10th anniversary of the original "Halo," which launched alongside Microsoft's first home gaming console.





The game adds high-definition graphics and a big-production musical score to the original, without changing much else.





Producers often look at remakes as a way to add their signature to a well-regarded work, but the team shepherding "Halo" went to extraordinary lengths to preserve the feel of its decade-old model.





Frank O'Connor, a development director for 343 Industries, the division Microsoft created to specifically handle the "Halo" franchise, stressed that "Halo Anniversary" was created to appease fans.





The $40 price tag, versus the standard $60 price for new games, fits with that model. "This is a celebration of the past."





O'Connor leads a team of a few people within 343 Industries that's tasked with making the final say about whether a storyline for new games, books and other media fits with "the Halo canon," he said.





With several bestselling books and more products in the works, this is a fragile process.





Sometimes O'Connor has to temper his own instincts in order to stay true to precedents set by earlier games. For example, he wanted to hide a rocket launcher behind a waterfall in the second level of "Halo Anniversary" as an Easter egg for explorers. His team challenged him on it, and so he conceded: no rockets, he lamented as he motioned to the waterfall while demonstrating the game.





Designing a familiar but unique 'Halo 4'





The team within 343 Industries that's working on "Halo 4," the major new game scheduled to be released late next year, has been given more creative freedom than the external group that's programming "Halo Anniversary."





Kiki Wolfkill, the executive producer for "Halo 4," said that being able to consult with O'Connor's team makes it "incredibly easy" to keep their stories straight. But Josh Holmes, the creative director for the game, said that despite the help, the breadth of the "Halo" franchise creates a minefield for storytellers to traverse.





"There are times when we're thinking about all of the different interconnected storylines," Holmes said. "That's really important to us, because we believe in the universe and want to keep the universe consistent."





They declined to talk much about "Halo 4," but they said it will strike a delicate balance between keeping up with innovations in other first-person-shooter games and keeping the mechanics familiar to fans of the series.





The game will have a familiar control scheme, using two analog sticks for movement, rather than doing a drastic departure with, say, Kinect camera navigation, 343 Industries executives said. It may incorporate limited Kinect functions for throwing grenades or toggling settings using voice commands, like those in "Halo Anniversary," they said.





"One of the things that's really important to us is that the game feels, at its core, like 'Halo,' " Holmes said. "It feels like 'Halo,' yet it feels new and unique."





Staying true to 'Halo' in 'Anniversary' edition





That same criteria are not what's driving "Halo Anniversary." The primary concern for developers was that it feel almost identical to the original "Halo."





One roadblock that Saber Interactive, the team behind the single-player element of "Halo
What console is this played on? About what is the remake? What did the team have? What is a remake of the original for XBox 360? The team working on Halo 4 has more freedom to what?
Xbox 360 Microsoft's "Halo" series. the final say about whether a storyline for new games, books and other media fits with "the Halo canon," "Halo" creative
question: What console is this played on?, answer: Xbox 360 | question: About what is the remake?, answer: Microsoft's "Halo" series. | question: What did the team have?, answer: the final say about whether a storyline for new games, books and other media fits with "the Halo canon," | question: What is a remake of the original for XBox 360?, answer: "Halo" | question: The team working on Halo 4 has more freedom to what?, answer: creative