The Halo series is a series of first-person shooter video games developed by Bungie Studios and published by Microsoft. So far, two games have been released. In addition, although it has not been announced, a third game seems likely. The games' setting is very similar to the earlier Marathon games by Bungie. They are renowned for their relatively deep storylines, use of vehicles in gameplay and their multiplayer mode. Supporting the storyline is a series of novels, which provide background information and flesh out the proceedings between the games.

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When Halo began development, it was a real time strategy game, a product of MacSoft and would only have been released on Apple Computers. During its many years of development, it changed into a first person shooter, Bungie was bought by Microsoft, and Halo was released for the Xbox game console on November 15, 2001. It was later ported to both Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X computers.

The story deals with the adventures of the protagonist Master Chief on a ring-shaped space station, the titular Halo. Stranded with the rest of the crew of the Pillar of Autumn, he fights for survival against The Covenant while attempting to uncover the station's secrets, which include the sinister Flood.

Halo Custom Edition is an update to the PC version of Halo: Combat Evolved by Gearbox Software. It features additional multiplayer content and the ability to play on user-created maps.

Halo 2 was released exclusively for the Xbox on November 9, 2004. No ports to other platforms have been released so far. It featured improved graphics, slightly tweaked gameplay, and multiplayer via Xbox Live. It has an advanced graphics system which makes it one of the best looking games ever developed on the Xbox.

In Halo 2, Master Chief battles the Covenant on Earth and later continues the fight on a second Halo, called Delta Halo. Meanwhile, the Covenant slides into Civil War and an Elite warrior called the Arbiter is introduced to the series as a second playable character. It has won many awards, and is considered one of the greatest Xbox games.

Halo 2.5 is a speculative name for a rumoured game that is allegedly being made for Microsoft's next generation console.

Sources inside Microsoft and Bungie have each made opposing claims regarding whether Halo 3 is in development; Bungie, Halo's parent company, has said that they have made no plans concerning the game. Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, was quoted saying that Halo 3 was in development alongside Halo 2; however, this quote was recognized as a slip of the tongue and was debunked months before Halo 2 was released.

Later, Bill Gates revealed in a Time Magazine interview that Halo 3 will be released in the "second wave" of Xbox 360 titles in 2006, as close to the PlayStation 3's launch as possible to divert sales. According to Time Magazine, "'It's perfect,' Gates says, radiant with bloodlust. 'The day Sony launches [the new PlayStation], and they walk right into Halo 3.'"(Time.com article, registration required; relevant quotes on Gamespot.com). Bungie Software still has no comment on the matter and still denies that another Halo game is in progress. Recently, Microsoft senior vice president Robbie Bach also stepped out to say: "We haven't announced anything on what Bungie is doing or where we're going with the future of the 'Halo' franchise," ... "With all respect to Bill, I don't run Bungie's studio, and neither does he. We'll work with the Bungie guys and let people know" [when they have something to announce]."

The cliffhanger ending of Halo 2, in addition to the success of the Halo franchise, makes a sequel extremely likely.

Halo: The Fall of Reach is a prequel to the game, written by Eric Nylund. It provides background on the main character (Master Chief) and his team of genetically engineered brethren, the Spartans. The exposition marks the beginning of the Human-Covenant war and ends at the beginning of the video game.

Halo: The Flood is an adaptation of the Halo: Combat Evolved's story by William C. Dietz.

It shows the UNSC's battles not only against the Covenant, but against Alpha Halo Installation 04's secret, the parasitic race known as The Flood.

Halo: First Strike is the story between the first game and its sequel by Eric Nylund. It shows the UNSC's attempt at temporarily disrupting Covenant plans for invading Earth.

According to an early February 2005 report by the Seattle Times, Microsoft has sent Alex Garland, author of The Beach and the screenplay for horror movie 28 Days Later to Hollywood and tasked him with bringing the Halo story to the silver screen. [1]

Bungie's official response has been, roughly, "we haven't announced a movie." In the past Bungie had been against a movie and had the final say in such matters. Microsoft has since confirmed that Alex Garland has written a script for a Halo movie, and had courted various studios with regards to producing the movie, until reaching a deal with Universal Studios and Twentieth Century Fox that halved the development costs between the two studios. Microsoft had described various requirements for any studio to meet, for example a minimum budget and Bungie's level of creative control over the project. [2]

The Haunted Apiary (aka "I Love Bees") is an alternate reality game which acted as a teaser to the release of Halo 2, and supposedly unraveled the entire story of the time between when Halo ends and Halo 2 begins. The site where the game is located is ilovebees.com, which is still explorable, but a timer has been placed on the front of the page which counts down to a time more than 500 years in the future. The date is during the year 2552, the year in which the humans first found Halo. Both Bungie and Microsoft disacknowledge that the site is their creation, although the developers insist that the companies helped advertise the site. The URL was discovered when it was briefly flashed on an official Halo 2 trailer.

It has since been revealed that 4orty2wo Entertainmentwas behind the creation of this particular ARG, funded by Microsoft, and endorsed by Bungie. However, Joe Staten of Bungie states that I Love Bees is NOT Halo Story Canon.

Similarly, Red vs Blue, a production of Rooster Teeth, is a machinima series based on the Halo universe. Virtually all of the footage of the series is taken from Halo and Halo 2 gameplay. Red vs Blue chronicles the Civil War that supposedly ensues between differing human factions in the time between the two Bungie games, specifically the story of the men and women(specifically, Tex) posted at both armies' outposts at Blood Gulch, a dried creek bed in the middle of nowhere. The series is largely comical in nature and can be found at RedvsBlue.com.

Recently, the creators of Halo were listed in Time's 100 most influential figures of the past year, alongside figures such as George W. Bush. This is due to the reason that Halo manages to appeal to both casual and hardcore gamers, and broke sales records, making gaming more mainstream entertainment.

• Official Site
• HBO Halo Community