Halo's TV Series Is Just What the Franchise Needs

The month of June proved to be a rather eventful one for Microsoft and 343 Industries. At E3, Microsoft opened up its conference with an all-too brief tease of Halo Infinite, the next major entry in the company's long running sci-fi series, stoking fans' interest in the series again. Late last week saws Halo's time in the spotlight again with the news that the franchise will finally receive its long in stasis live-action series courtesy of Showtime.

Halo has been eyed for a live action epic for years, albeit primarily as a film as opposed to television. Despite the continual interest, the various attempts have all fallen apart due to a myriad of reasons. But that's fine, because now more than ever is the right time for this series to come out. When 343 took over development of the core games with Halo 4, a greater emphasis was placed on the world's mythology, using various characters to help set those pillars up and creating the series' expanded universe in full.

As is the case with most big budget games, though, the expanded universe has largely been relegated to tie-in novels and comics rather than the primary games. Even before 343 took over development duties, the books released during Bungie's tenure with the series were offhandedly mentioned in the games, if they were even brought up at all. Halo 5 saw the first time that the expanded universe really came into the core games, with a team of Spartan supersoldiers known as Fireteam Osiris taking center stage and hunting down series protagonist Master Chief and his own Blue Team of Spartans.

With that game came the perfect opportunity to truly branch out the wider Halo universe, with Chief's former AI partner Cortana gone evil and threatening to wipe out the entire galaxy with giant robots known as the Guardians and threatening various races in the galaxy to join her rule or die.

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Though the Halo show will apparently focus on the war between humanity and the alien coalition known as the Covenant, the plot device that has served as the primary conflict of the first four core games, it will also provide an opportunity for the series to get into the head of the non-Chief Spartans and other members of the military and Covenant. 343 has made it loud and clear that Infinite and likely future core games will focus on the Master Chief, so the character development for Blue Team and Osiris will have to be done in other ways, given how the game ended with the two groups coming together as allies instead of enemies.

Some of this is in the works already, thanks to the recently released Bad Blood novel set immediately after Halo 5's ending, and the show can (and indeed should) follow suit at some point through its 10-episode run. Divisive as Osiris was when they took the spotlight in Halo 5, they still hold potential to carry their own adventures as the B-team of Spartans if the series needs a recurring team of supersoldiers.

The bottom line is, a Halo series has a better shot of making it these days than in the past. Thanks to shows such as Timeless, The Expanse, and The 100, it's been made clear that fans will turn up for legitimately enthralling sci-fi, something Halo has always provided, even in its less than stellar titles. By making a TV show, this shows that Microsoft and 343 are ready to bring Halo back to the forefront in a true way.

Even the most diehard fans would admit that the series has in some ways fallen to the wayside in recent years, eclipsed by other shooter franchises that decided to go sci-fi. But despite all that, there's still something about Halo that makes it unique and compelling; whether it's the consistent stoicism of the Chief, the potential that the world provides, or even just the gameplay, When this show releases, it'll draw plenty of attention just through morbid curiosity alone, and if it turns out to be genuinely great, even better.

There's some time before the Halo series actually comes to light, as the series isn't even slated to go into production until 2019. Still, the idea of its potential is worth paying attention to, and that alone may be enough to turn heads before any actual footage of the show arrives. Whatever the case, the combined efforts of this and Halo Infinite have the ability to make Microsoft's top franchise king of the hill once again.

Described as "an epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant … Halo will weave deeply drawn personal stories with action, adventure and a richly imagined vision of the future," Showtime’s live action Halo series does not have a release date.