Pretty soon, anything that has even the slightest modicum of popularity is going to be marketed in a viral manner. Granted, the Halo video game series is a little bit more than slightly popular, but the point remains. Viral marketing is here to stay, and considering entertainment-related viral campaigns engage the fans like no marketing strategies before them, that’s a good thing.

Take the upcoming fourth installment of the Halo video game series. Halo 4 is scheduled to be released on November 6, and to help increase the anticipation to a fever pitch, Microsoft sent an email to members of the Halo Waypoint forums, with the subject, “Your piece of the Halo 4 puzzle,” of which, there were apparently 32 such pieces.

The forum members pieced these image fragments together, which, when completed, revealed the box art for the latest installment of the Halo series. The box art in question:

Click for a larger image

As you can see, the reaction was incredibly positive. In fact, I didn’t notice any negativity on Twitter, which is a surprise in and of itself. Granted, I didn’t scan the entire Twitter thread, but the ones I’ve embedded are representative of the overall reaction.

[Via ComingSoon.net]