The story behind the Halo franchise as it's never been told—by the key individuals that made it.
It makes so much sense that the Warthog and MC’s blocky design where central to the aesthetic and the change to FPS cause even though they get mocked for being “generic” they are for sure two of the most iconic and memorable (in a muscle memory way even) things in videogames.
Also their discussion on the name lol: "Nobody like “Halo”. It was like, oh, it’s too religious”, ok Mr. Least Subtle Bible References Ever.
This piece is fantastic.
Thanks so much! We include their names in the credits at the bottom of the story, but I wanna say it here too:
Thanks to Steve Haske, who wrote and compiled this amazing oral history, to Erica Lahaie (@aurahack!) for her fantastic artwork, to @Mike_Diver who was the lead editor on it, to Aaron Shapiro and Omar Delarosa for design and coding, and to Jordan Mallory (@Jordan) for some additional research help!
Mike put the wheels of this piece in motion back before I even arrived at VICE, so it’s amazing to see it finally hit the page today!
this piece is killllleerrr and really made me think about Halo’s place in the annals of FPS history.
Halo is the first shooter i can really remember that seamless shifted from interior areas to outside areas, and the outside areas were BIG and didn’t feel like they were just more corridors with a different skybox. levels like The Silent Cartographer just didn’t happen in shooters before that.
also, it really did a lot of work in normalizing the now tried and true dual stick move/look dichotomy. i remember actually HATING how it controlled at first, but i came around to it over time when i had some more practice, and lo and behold, that’s how pretty much every console shooter controls to this day.
not too shabby for a game that was A. kind of a genre accident B. EXTREMELY rushed and C. tied up in a loooot of company politics and hardware shuffling.
I loved this piece! The layout in and of itself is awesome. @aurahack’s art is excellent! Halo is probably my favorite game series. I knew the surface details of some of its history, but never like this. I already sent a link to a bunch of my ex-Halo XBL squadmates. Excellent work Steve Haske et al.
This is absolutely bonkers and must have taken so, so long to put together. Props to Steve Haske and everybody else involved. Absolutely love seeing long-form journalism on the site, even if it’s not something I’d normally read about.
This is probably my favourite story to hit Waypoint, it’s absolutely fantastic. I have never played a Halo in my life (short of five minutes failing to hold a chunky original Xbox controller in my tiny hands and failing), but opening a shaft of light into the long history of six-eight different games (if you include Halo 5 and Destiny) is super-illuminating. Household games coverage names (e.g. Marty O’Donnell) finally have a name and person to attach them to, in my mind.
I really can’t praise Haske enough, along with the great editing, design, and artwork that accompanied it. This is awesome and I feel very happy to have sunk my evening into it.
Got to say, I really appreciated the out of left field dumping on Azurik about 1/5 of the way in.
RIGHT? I had a lot of expectations going into this article, but mad shade being dropped at a shitty Xbox launch title being dropped out of the blue was not one of them.
Hah. I audibly laughed out loud in an otherwise quiet bar at the Azurik line when reading through the first time.
Can not wait to read this.
Halo was such a big part of my early 20s. My buddy and I would get home from University, play co-op Halo until midnight, watch Conan, go to bed, and repeat the next day. Before that I remember spending HOURS, yes hours, downloading the trailer for the original Mac exclusive Halo back in grade 8. Quicktime only, friends. I haven’t played Halo 5 because I don’t have an Xbone but Halo still holds a special place in my heart. In fact, I am looking at some Mega Construx Halo figurines on my desk as I type this.
The weekend is finally here and I am gonna sink my teeth in to this monster.