Halo (franchise)
Halo is a military science fiction media franchise, originally developed and created by Bungie and currently managed and developed by 343 Industries, part of Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios. The series launched in 2001 with the first-person shooter video game Halo: Combat Evolved and its tie-in novel, The Fall of Reach. The latest main game, Halo Infinite, was released in late 2021.
Halo
Halo: Combat Evolved
November 15, 2001
Halo Infinite
December 8, 2021
Combat Evolved started life as a real-time strategy game for personal computers, turning into a first-person shooter exclusive to Microsoft's Xbox video game console after Bungie was acquired by the company. Bungie regained its independence in 2007, releasing additional Halo games through 2010 before moving on from the franchise. Microsoft established 343 Industries to oversee Halo going forward, producing games itself and in partnership with other studios.
Combat Evolved was a critical and commercial success, serving as the Xbox's "killer app" and cementing Microsoft as a major player in the video game console space. Its sequels expanded the franchise's commercial and critical success, and have sold more than 81 million copies worldwide. With more than $6 billion in franchise grosses, Halo is one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time, spanning novels, graphic novels, comic books, short films, animated films, feature films, and other licensed products.
Cultural influences and themes[edit]
In 2006, in acknowledgment of the "wealth of influences adopted by the Bungie team", a list of Bungie employees' favorite science fiction material was published on the company's website.[87] The developers acknowledged that the Halo series' use of ring-shaped megastructures followed on from concepts featured in Larry Niven's Ringworld and Iain M. Banks' Culture series (of which Consider Phlebas[88] and Excession[87] were said to be particularly influential). In a retrospective article in Edge, Bungie's Jaime Griesemer commented, "The influence of something like Ringworld isn't necessarily in the design – it's in that feeling of being somewhere else. That sense of scale and an epic story going on out there."[88] Griesemer also explained, "One of the main sources of inspiration was Armor [by John Steakley], in which a soldier has to constantly re-live the same war over and over again. That sense of hopelessness, a relentless battle, was influential."[88] The Flood were influenced by the assimilating alien species in Christopher Rowley's The Vang;[88] it has also been speculated that the Master Chief's name "John 117" may have been a reference to a character named Jon 6725416 in Rowley's Starhammer,[89] or to the John Spartan character of Demolition Man.[90] An IGN article exploring the literary influences present in the Halo franchise commented on similarities between Halo and Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game: aspects of the SPARTAN Project and the design of the Covenant Drones are perceived as reminiscent of the super soldier program and Buggers found in the novel.[89] Bungie has also acknowledged James Cameron's film Aliens as a strong cinematic influence.[91]
A report written by Roger Travis and published by The Escapist compares Halo with the Latin epic Aeneid, written by classical Roman poet Virgil. Travis posits similarities between the plots of both works and compares the characters present in them, with the Flood and Covenant taking the role performed by the Carthaginians and Master Chief taking the role of Aeneas.[92]