A Halo TV show is in the works for 2022, and now Halo’s transmedia boss has spoken more about what the show is aiming to achieve and what it’s been like to work on.
Kiki Wolfkill, the head of transmedia at 343 Industries, said in an interview with IGN that the biggest challenge with adapting Halo for TV is finding how to best present Master Chief’s story in a non-interactive way.
“Probably the biggest challenge with adapting the game is, the game is designed to put you in Chief’s armor. What we’re asking people to do with the show is sort of sit back, and we’re going to present a side of Chief that you just don’t get to play in the game,” Wolfkill said.
We still don’t know very much about the Halo TV show, but Wolfkill previously talked about how Halo is limited in its storytelling opportunities in the games. With the TV show, there is an opportunity to widen the franchise and look at more characters and plot points.
“In a first-person shooter, there is only so much of a character journey because of that wanting to maintain some of that character for people to pour into him or her,” she said. “So TV gives us a long form ability to really focus on character and story in a way that’s harder to relay in a first-person game.”
“The hope is you can play the game and you can have this sense of who this character is, and you can love that, and then you can stop and put that aside and enjoy this other experience and get taken on adifferent journey,” Wolfkill added. “And see that character in a different way without feeling like it’s impeding on the character you already have in your heart around the game.”
The Halo TV show stars Orange is the New Black’s Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief, with Californication’s Natascha McElhone as Dr. Halsey. Jen Taylor, who voices Cortana in the video games, will voice the character on the TV show as well.
Wolfkill also spoke about the responsibility she feels for delivering a compelling product for Halo fans with the TV show. Furthermore, she spoke about her own process and how she doesn’t have time to panic about things potentially going wrong.
“For me, what gets me through it is focusing on where we need to get to, and focusing on what we want to be able to deliver and why,” she explained. “The why of it is really important. For the television series, we want to be able to do something new in Halo and we want people to be able to experience it differently, and there is such a responsibility. And there is the person drive of wanting to create something amazing. You bring all those things together and there is no room to panic. At the end of the day it’s energy management. The energy needs to be towards getting to the finish line with something great.
The Halo TV show will premiere in 2022 on Paramount+. As for the game series, Halo Infinite launches later this year on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. The game’s first public beta test was conducted at the end of July, and you can check out our impressions in the video above.
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