We know that Microsoft needs to come out of the corner swinging when the company takes the stage a week from Monday at E3. That means lots of exclusives to woo gamers back in after some rocky communication last week.

A new Halo title certainly would make it harder for a segment of the population to say no to Microsoft. Fusible has noticed that domains for Halo: Spartan Assault have recently been registered by MarkMonitor, a company that helps protect brand identity.

The registrations for Halo-SpartanAssault.com (and .net), HaloSpartanAssault.com (and .net), and SpartanAssault.net were initiated on May 30, 2013. Fusible also points out that Halo: Spartan Assault is the name of a piece of fan fiction written in 2009.

After the company needed to initiate action to recover XboxOne.com and XboxOne.net from a domain squatter, it could simply be protecting itself. We certainly wouldn't mind new, diverse takes on the Halo universe, though we likely won't ever see that Halo Wars sequel we've been hoping for.

Stay tuned for our E3 coverage next week to find out if Master Chief (or other Spartans) share the stage at the Xbox One keynote.

[Source: Fusible, WHOIS (1), (2), (3), (4), (5)]