The restructuring going on at Xbox created huge changes for the Halo series, leading to its next project being developed by Activision, the creators behind the Call of Duty franchise. This also led to huge layoffs from Halo Studios, formerly 343 Industries, the inheritors of Halo after Bungie who released games like Halo Infinite and Halo: Campaign Evolved in recent years. With Halo Studios’ staff reduced to a small group to advice Activision’s direction with the IP, some former creators from the studio have shared where Halo‘s story may have gone had it remained with that company.
Now, Halo Studios admittedly was nowhere close to finalizing concepts for a future Halo game, having just launched Campaign Evolved to mixed reception. That being said, there were still ideas for books and future games to expand upon the narrative of Halo, taking it beyond Halo Infinite in the timeline or exploring elements from the past stories the series has told. One blog post by Halo franchise writer Alex Wakeford went into plenty of detail regarding where Halo‘s story may have gone, if Activision had not been named the ones who would build the next game.
The blog of Alex Wakeford oftentimes shared thoughts behind the narrative process at Halo Studios, revealing details about Halo‘s various stories in attempts to clarify its large world for all audiences. During a recent post on Wakeford’s blog, he talked specifically about two books in production — Halo: Fireteam Noble and Halo: Burn the Road Home, with the first still planning on being completed despite the series’ move to Activision. Halo: Fireteam Noble is being written by Troy Enning, but this project could get cancelled following Activision’s shift of the franchise.
Meanwhile, Halo: Burn the Road Home is being written by Kenneth Peters, another senior franchise writer for Halo who’s intimately familiar with the sci-fi universe spawned from Xbox’s flagship FPS. Work with Peters and Enning have equal chances of being axed, but they each bring some clues as to where Halo‘s story could have gone without Activision’s involvement. At least one of these projects was set to be focused on The Flood, the parasite enemies of the first trilogy of Halo games made by Bungie. These terrifying threats were an integral part of those early Halo experience, with fans asking for more stories involving their cosmic horror in almost every new Halo game.
It’s unclear if content from these books would ever make it into a new Halo, but they do propose interesting ideas regarding The Flood’s origins. The blog post by Wakeford shows concept art for an early version of The Flood’s leader, the culmination of biomass called The Gravemind in Halo 2 and Halo 3. Called “The Primordial” in the post, this art (shown above) was meant to be an early version of an entity that experimented with The Flood, mixing a strange alien super-intelligence with the parasite to form what would eventually become The Gravemind itself.
This Primordial was apparently a twisted progeny of the Precursors, an advanced race that created the Forerunners, the civilization that created the Halo rings in the first place. Executed by someone named Bornstellar, The Primordial was reduced to dust, forced to watch the universe age before coming into contact with The Flood. By combining its form with The Flood, the Gravemind was born. This perhaps could have been a central antagonist for a new Halo game involving The Flood more heavily, exploring the parasite’s origins and explaining how they gained such direction to attack humanity and The Covenant so effectively under The Gravemind’s influence.
While Wakeford and company’s books about The Gravemind would have likely been received well by fans who love The Flood as a Halo staple, the remaining parts of the blog post may not have gone over well. The post concludes with a teasing image at what Halo Studios may have pursued outside of any books, with an array of concept art for new enemies to the franchise named the Xalanyn. The Xalanyn are supposedly immortal techno-wizards that were imprisoned by The Forerunners, and are almost a council of strange antagonists with mysterious goals.
These enemies’ designs are striking, and Halo finally moving on from The Covenant as the main foes could be interesting, but this approach already somewhat failed in Halo 4. The Promethians were another hyper-advanced techno alien species that Master Chief had to fight in that game, representing a new “third” faction besides The Flood for that game. The Promethians are not bad enemies in Halo 4, but they were very lackluster in Halo 5: Guardians, especially with the plot of that game being one of the worst in Halo‘s history. Unfortunately, as cool as the Xalanyn look, fans might view them as another attempt to catch audiences’ attention in the same way as The Promethians.
Having more enemies connected to The Forerunners also retreads old ground, and mistakes why The Flood is so preferred by fans. The Flood is so out of left field compared to the The Covenant, as they change the tone of Halo: Combat Evolved completely with how different they are from everything else. In games dominated by sci-fi tropes, a hyper advanced enemy faction is already well represented by, well, The Covenant. Activision could take inspiration from the Xalanyn in its Halo project, but for its series interpretation to work, they may have to go in a different direction.
What story direction do you think Halo should go at Activision? Let us know in the comments below!
