The Halo Universe - Transmedia Storytelling

The Halo Universe

Alright, nerd out time. After class I couldn't help but think about just how many avenues different brands incorporate, specifically the Halo Universe since I've been replaying Halo Reach to finally 100% the achievements after seven years since it's being added to the Master Chief Collection... it's kinda on my mind. So, here's a run-down of the different avenues Halo covers... it's... kinda crazy when you think about how this used to not be remotely possible.

Video Games... Obviously

Halo currently has a total of 13/14 (ish) games out right now with Halo Infinite (Halo 6) to come out sooner or later. (They haven't set a release date yet, but boy am I exited.) The reason that number is a little finicky is because Halo isn't exclusively a FPS (First-Person-Shooter).

FPS's

• Halo: Combat Evolved
  
• Halo 2
• Halo 3
• Halo 3: ODST
• Halo: Reach
• Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
• Halo 4
• Halo: The Master Chief Collection (Which added Halo 2 Anniversary)
• Halo 5: Guardians. 

(Is it just me or does Halo look like it's spelled wrong now?)

RTS (Real-Time-Strategy) games

• Halo Wars
• Halo Wars 2

"Top-down twin stick shooter"

• Halo: Spartan Assault
• Halo: Spartan Strike

Other

• Halo: Fireteam Raven - an Arcade game that is 100% amazing, but really overpriced. :(
  
• Halo Recruit - A VR experience/demo.
• The Cortana Letters - An "AR" experience that was literally just some cryptic e-mails.
• ilovebees.com - An actual AR experience. More on that later.
• Iris - Another AR campaign but was more of a server than a game.  

ilovebees.com

Convergence Culture brings up ilovebees.com and really it's a shame it didn't go into more

detail than just saying 42 Entertainment made it. I wish I was old enough to have participated when it was a thing, but alas I was but a child in 2004. ilovebees was both a marketing campaign and one of the first major alternate reality games.
Basically it was a website that had been 'infected' by a broken AI that had been sent to the past from the year 2552. The site had fans going around the world using payphones while trying to decrypt the warning the AI all while the 'original webmaster' was trying to take control back over her website. 
I highly encourage clicking on the link for the site and explore the pages, it's pretty crazy. (Click on the top one I set it to take you to the right place. If you go to ilovebees.com it redirects you to the 42 Entertainment site, but some cool fans keep a copy running on ilovebees.co) ilovebees even won several awards and had over 3 million visitors over 3 months.

Books & Audiobooks

I found out about Halo's book series back in 2008. They're easily my favorite books, but that might be because I'm a huge Si-fi nerd. There are 16 books, most of which are fantastic. The Forerunner Trilogy less so in my humble opinion. (Apparently the last book of that was good... I haven't managed to finish the first one yet.)

• Halo: The Fall of Reach

  

  I think I might have read these too many times...

• Halo: The Flood
• Halo: First Strike
• Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
• Halo: Contact Harvest
• Halo: The Cole Protocol
• Halo: Evolutions
• Halo: Cryptum
• Halo: Primordium
• Halo: Silentium
• Halo: Glasslands
• Halo: The Thursday War
• Halo: Mortal Dictata
• Halo: Broken Circle
• Halo: New Blood
• Halo: Fractures

(I'm copy/pasting Halo: now. It's kinda making my eyes go funny.) Most of the books have received high praise from the community and even shaped how the Master Chief is portrayed today. 

Comics/Graphic Novels

I'm not going to list the comics and graphic novels because I'm honestly not sure how many they have now, but it's a lot. I personally own HaloBlood Line, Halo: The Fall of Reach (Boot Camp, Covenant, and Invasion.), and Halo Graphic Novel (Really creative name right there). The comics dont sell as well, obviously, but fans love picking them apart for lore bits. 

Live Action

Halo has had a rough go at live action productions. Most have died in various stages of production never to see the light of day. The few (two) that have made it were pretty good though. Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn was amazing really. It was released as five 15-minute episodes and looked absolutely amazing. Halo: Nightfall... wasn't bad. Not super memorable though. 

On a higher note, the TV show 343 Industries has been hyping since 2013 is finally in production with Steven Spielberg at the reigns and apparently a budget to rival Game of Thrones. 

"Anime"

There has been two "anime" style productions. Halo Legends was released back in 2010 as a series of different anime styled shorts. It was fantastic. Halo: The Fall of Reach was released with Halo 5: Guardians... it was another retelling of the Fall of Reach. I liked it, but it was kinda unnecessary.

Cool Gif... bit bloody though...

Machinima

Technically this is fan engagement, but Bungie and 343 Industries have been extremely supportive of those create things based on Halo. In fact Halo has become one of the most popular tools for generating machinima and has even created tools to help fans make footage (Forge, Theater Mode, and an official way to lower weapons). Microsoft even updated its user license when machinima started taking off to allow noncommercial distribution of films. 

That said, they're such a big fan of Red vs. Blue that they made an agreement with them so they could sell their shows. They even commissioned Rooster Teeth to make promos and have included characters in several Easter Eggs over the years. 

Finishing the Blog Post

Wow... that's a lot of stuff. Like I said at the beginning, I've never really thought about how crazy this franchise is. Having it all laid out is... kinda impressive. I’m reworking this section after I’ve written my post about transmedia storytelling so I’m going to reference what I said over there.

“What’s really fascinating about all these different avenues, however, is how a different type of story is told in each based on how the user interacts with it…”

All of these different stories are only really possible/successful in their respective mediums. Even the instances of the same story being retold have their own twists. Halo: The Flood and Halo: Combat Evolved take place at the same time, both (mostly) following the Master Chief. Yet, they’re fairly different.

On one hand Halo CE is an enjoyable game with little downtime outside of the monotony of the Library level. In the book, however, you get to see behind the scenes like when the Master Chief meets up with The Pillar of Autumn’s survivors at a base they made and a bit in the POV of a marine who was infected by the Flood. While you’re playing a video game, you don’t need to know about how MC was practically accosted by the ODST’s and their CO (the jerks) after taking a shower, you don’t need to know about how Echo 419 made it off of The Pillar of Autumn. It’s fun to read about, though.

Alright, I’m going to wrap up my exploratory post there. This has already gone on longer than I meant to, but that seems to be a common occurrence with me. :D