This spring, the long-awaited Halo series premiered on Paramount+. In development since 2014 and cycling through several creative teams and networks, fans finally got to see Master Chief – or John-117 – in live-action. Upon viewing, it is clear that the show deviates from its source material in the Halo games.
The reaction to the show was...divided, to say the least. The show made some changes to the games to establish itself in what the showrunners called the "Silver Timeline" separate from the mainline Halo video game series. However, a lot of these changes did not go over well.
8 Chief's Helmet Off All The Time
By far the biggest gripe fans have had with Halo is with the Master Chief removing his helmet. In the games, Chief very rarely removes his helmet and when he does his face is obscured, so players have never really seen his face. In the show, not only does Chief remove his helmet, but he rarely even has it on.
Seeing Chief's face is certainly a massive change from the games, something that fans were up in arms about even before the show was released. Seeing Chief's face all the time took away from the mystery of the character, something the show was surely trying to move away from to make it distinct from the games.
7 Chief's Backstory Explained
The show establishes that John begins to view his locked memories of his childhood after making contact with a Forerunner artifact. It is revealed that John, along with the other Spartans, was kidnapped as a child and conscripted into the UNSC's Spartan program.
While the specifics of the Spartan program were touched on in the games and other sources of lore, no one really wanted it to be a focal point of the show. Not only that, but the series spends the majority of its time looking into John's backstory as opposed to fulfilling the action-hero promise of the games.
6 Makee Being A Human Living Amongst The Covenant
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Makee is an original character created specifically for the Halo television series. A human who was kidnapped by the Covenant as a child, Makee was raised by them after they found out she was a Blessed One – an individual who could make contact with Forerunner artifacts like John.
The idea that a human was raised by the Covenant is one thing, but it's another thing entirely when they have as much contempt for humanity as the Covenant do. Although Makee is seemingly killed off in the season finale, it's possible that there could be another human under the Covenant's spell down the line.
5 John And Makee's Sex Scene
When John and Makee got closer after she ends up in the hands of the UNSC, they find out that they are both Blessed Ones. What John does not know is that Makee is acting as a spy for the Covenant. After they bond over a few episodes, they end up sleeping together.
Fans were left baffled by the scene. For one, some found it unlikely that John would trust someone so quickly – a prisoner no less – let alone sleep with them. On top of that, Cortana, who reports the encounter to Dr. Halsey, was watching the two engage in the act, which just adds to the overall oddness of the scene.
4 Cortana As A Fail-Safe
Cortana is introduced as an AI birthed from Dr. Halsey's DNA, whose role was to become a partner to the Master Chief. While this is established in the games as well, the show takes a different approach to why Cortana was paired with Chief in the first place.
In the show, Cortana is developed to influence Master Chief's decisions and be a fail-safe should he ever rebel against his superiors. The door is open for their relationship to be more akin to theirs in the games in season 2 but the hostile attitude Chief has with Cortana in the show just seems so far from how it should be.
3 The Halo Rings Not Being A Focal Point Yet
Halo has always been about the Halo rings, worlds created by the Forerunners to control life in the galaxy by wiping them out. Unfortunately in the show, the rings have yet to appear other than in John and Makee's visions when they touch the artifact.
In the games, the player jumps right into the Halo ring in the second mission and the story takes off from there. One would hope that the focus is on the rings next season as well as any seasons after that to fully explore their lore in live-action.
2 Cortana Taking Over Chief's Body
In the finale, Chief realizes that the only way to save Silver Team and the artifacts from the clutches of the Covenant is to have Cortana take over his body and mind. Cortana protests and says she might not be able to bring him back, but John says that he trusts her. After Cortana takes over Chief, he is able to save his team and the artifacts. The last shot of the finale is Kai asking John if it's really him, and he just stares at her, saying nothing.
The gist is that now Chief is more like his video game counterpart: colder, a man of few words, and an efficient fighter. However, the show deviates from the source to how Master Chief gets this way. Season 2 should provide some answers to whether John will regain control of his body or Cortana will continue as the de facto Master Chief.
1 Less Action, More Exposition
A big turn away from the games is that until the finale, there was not a lot of action going on. There was more of a focus on military and political matters, as well as John finding out about his past, than action at the forefront of the show. The argument can be made that there was a lot for the show to set up in terms of the world-building and explaining to viewers who are not fans of the games what is going on, but there was a lot more expositional talking than action in the show.
While there were a few big battles and the finale was filled with action, fans are hoping that the already announced season 2 will have a lot more action than this freshman season did. Especially if the Halo rings are brought into play, as well as fan-favorite characters from the games that have yet to appear.