Ryan Payton, the American assistant producer on Konami’s Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, is now working for Microsoft Game Studios on and "upcoming and existing Halo title."

Payton will be part of the new, as-of-yet unnamed group within Microsoft Game Studios that is, for the time being, working solely on the Halo franchise. No one really knows what the group is doing yet, as Bungie itself seems to be working on a single-player Halo 3 expansion (teased in the "Keep it Clean" trailer) and Ensemble is handling the real-time strategy title Halo Wars. That leaves Peter Jackson’s Halo game (which we still know nothing about), or perhaps something completely different.

Kojima Productions and Payton parted ways back in August, when Payton cited family health issues as the reason for his return back to the States from Kojima Productions’ headquarters in Tokyo. He helped design Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops and Metal Gear Online, the multiplayer portion of Guns of the Patriots. He is also credited with infusing Western design sensibilities into MGS4, such as the new targeting system.