![]() It is supposed to be a time of peace, but the truce between the alien Covenant forces and humanity is tenuous at best. He and his UNSC comrades are stationed on the human colonized planet Sedra. ![]() Instead of Master Chief, Halo: Nightfall introduces us to Jameson Locke of the United Nations Space Command. And it has to do so without the Halo series' legendary protagonist. In just under 30 minutes, the first episode has to establish characters, settings, motivations, adversaries, conflict - all while making viewers care enough to return for more. "You don't have to watch this, but knowing this will kind of tee you up for all the new things that are going on in Halo 5: Guardians." "We're using Halo: Nightfall to basically tell his backstory and tell his origin story," 343 Industries studio head Bonnie Ross said during a Halo-themed meeting Polygon attended at E3 2014. The first episode, which will debut next week as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, carries a lot of weight on its shoulders. Like the console it will debut on, Halo: Nightfall has two parents: a wildly successful series of video games and the entertainment offshoots born of it. Halo: Nightfall straddles two of Microsoft's grandest desires in a company in transition. By mid-2014, Microsoft was set to shut it down. Microsoft founded Xbox Entertainment Studios in early 2013 to create interactive content for the Xbox brand. But its homebrewed multimedia plans were once bolder. Microsoft still maintains as sizable video game presence, with studios like 343 Industries, which is in charge of the Halo ecosystem, and Microsoft Studios, its publishing arm. Xbox One, through Microsoft's eyes, is "the all-in-one games and entertainment system." To Microsoft, the two are intrinsically related. The company's boilerplate description of the console is telling. From the ground up, the Xbox One is designed to embrace them. Microsoft created the Xbox One in a world where consoles evolved beyond video games, thanks to services and apps like Netflix that rose to prominence after the Xbox 360 was developed. "What if it could turn on your TV and talk to all the devices in your living room?" "What if a single device could provide all your entertainment?" Mattrick asked. To introduce the console at its May 2013 reveal, former Xbox executive Don Mattrick posed questions.Ī console launch in three acts: The birth, death and rebirth of Xbox One Even the name of Microsoft's latest console is a nod to the company's desire to create a system that extends beyond video games. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Xbox One, the successor to the Xbox 360 and the console on which Halo: Nightfall will debut next Tuesday, Nov. Halo: Nightfall shows how Microsoft always wanted things to be from hardware to software and everything in between. We've seen the first episode, and it's clear that Microsoft's goals are as lofty as its original multimedia ambitions for Xbox One. Continue farther out from the sun, and you'll find the Oort cloud, where Microsoft's multimedia aspirations surround the franchise and barrel like comets into the solar system. It also travels back to Halo 2, which is getting the HD remaster treatment in Halo: The Master Chief Collection next week. Nightfall's mandate harnesses Halo 5: Guardians, the next installment in the first-person shooter series scheduled for a 2015 release on Xbox One. But Halo: Nightfall feels like a bolder experiment. Just two years ago, it released Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, an episodic web series that served as a tie-in to Halo 4. This isn't the first time Microsoft acknowledged the gravitational pull between video games and live-action entertainment. Halo: Nightfall is the star around which the future of the franchise orbits - in a solar system of Microsoft's creation.
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