Halo (franchise)

Halo is a military science fiction media franchise centered on a series of video games managed and developed by 343 Industries, a division of Xbox Game Studios. Halo was originally developed by Bungie Studios. The series centers on an interstellar war between humanity and an alliance of aliens known as the Covenant. The Covenant, led by their religious leaders called the Prophets, worship an ancient civilization known as the Forerunners, who perished while defeating the parasitic Flood. The central focus of the franchise builds off the experiences of Master Chief John-117, one of a group of supersoldiers codenamed Spartans, and his artificial intelligence (AI) companion, Cortana. Other characters, such as Noble Six from Halo: Reach, are also introduced in the series. The term "Halo" refers to the Halo Array: a group of immense, habitable, ring-shaped superweapons that were created by the Forerunners to destroy the Flood, but which the Covenant mistake for religious artifacts that, if activated, would transport them on a Great Journey to meet the Forerunners. They are similar to the Orbitals in Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, and to a lesser degree to author Larry Niven's Ringworld concept.[1][2][3][4]

The games in the series are critically acclaimed, with the original considered the Xbox's "killer app".[5] This led to the term "Halo killer" being used to describe console games that aspire, or are considered, to be better than Halo.[6] Fueled by the success of Halo: Combat Evolved, and by marketing campaigns from publisher Microsoft, its sequels went on to record-breaking sales.[7][8][9] The games have sold over 65 million copies worldwide, with the games alone grossing almost $3.4 billion.[10][11][12] Halo has since become one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time and one of the highest grossing video game franchises.

Strong sales of the games led to the franchise's expansion to other media; the Halo Universe now spans multiple best-selling novels, graphic novels, comic books, short movies, animated movies and feature films[13], as well as other licensed products. Halo Wars took the franchise into new video game genre territory, as a real-time strategy game, while the rest of the games in the series are first-person shooters. Beyond the original trilogy, Bungie developed the expansion Halo 3: ODST, and a prequel, Halo: Reach, their last project for the franchise. A high-definition remake of the first game, entitled Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, was released on November 15, 2011, ten years after the release of the original. A new installment in a second series of games, Halo 4, was released on November 6, 2012. Halo: The Master Chief Collection, a remastered compilation of the four primary Halo titles, was released for the Xbox One on November 11, 2014. In October 2015, Halo 5: Guardians was released. In February 2017, Halo Wars 2 was released. The next main installment of the Halo series is Halo Infinite, due for release in 2020.