Halo (franchise)
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_logo.svg){kind=logo} Logo used since Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary | |
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| First release | Halo: Combat Evolved November 15, 2001 |
| Latest release | Halo: Campaign Evolved July 28, 2026 |
Halo is an American military science fiction video game series and media franchise, originally developed by Bungie and currently managed and developed by Activision and Halo Studios (previously 343 Industries), part of Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios. The series launched in November 2001 with the first-person shooter video game Halo: Combat Evolved and its tie-in novel, The Fall of Reach. The latest installment, Halo: Campaign Evolved, a remake of the original Combat Evolved campaign newly powered by Unreal Engine 5, was released in July 2026. Spinoffs include real-time strategy and twin-stick shooter games.
Bungie began as a developer of computer games for the Macintosh platform, making games including Marathon 2: Durandal (1995). After the company was acquired by Microsoft in 2000, their in-progress game, which started life as a real-time strategy game, became Halo: Combat Evolved, a first-person shooter and exclusive launch title for Microsoft's Xbox video game console. Following the success of Halo, Bungie developed additional Halo sequels before and after regaining its independence from Microsoft in 2007. Microsoft established 343 Industries to oversee Halo going forward, producing games itself and in partnership with other studios.
The developer was restructured and rebranded as Halo Studios in 2024, in conjunction with shifting the series away from being developed on proprietary game technology and multiplatform availability. Following the release of the remake Halo: Campaign Evolved in 2026, Xbox announced that Activision would produce Halo games, with Halo Studios supporting released titles.
Halo: Combat Evolved was the Xbox's flagship "killer app" and cemented Microsoft as a major competitor in the video game console space, and its sequels pioneered online matchmaking, social features, and video game marketing. The games have sold more than 81 million copies worldwide, with several titles being listed among the greatest video games of all time. With more than $6 billion in franchise sales, Halo is among the highest-grossing media franchises of all time, spanning novels, graphic novels, comic books, short films, animated films, feature films, fan-made short machinima animations and other licensed products.
Story
[edit]Millions of years ago, the Precursors, a powerful intergalactic species, seeded the Milky Way with life. One of their created races, the Forerunners, attacked their former masters and drove the Precursors into near extinction. A few Precursors transformed themselves into dust, intending to regenerate themselves in the future. This dust became defective over time, and began infecting and contorting organisms throughout the galaxy. The resulting corruption created a new parasitic species, connected by a powerful hivemind: the Flood. Spacefaring ancient humanity, fighting the Flood, also came into conflict with the Forerunners. After defeating humanity, the Forerunners reduced humanity's technology and species to a primitive level, while they concentrated on the threat of the Flood. The Forerunners conceived the Halo Array—ring-shaped megastructures and neural eradication weapons of last resort that would destroy all sentient life in the galaxy to stop the Flood's spread by starving it of biomass. The array could be activated from the Ark, a repository of sentient life outside the range of the Halos. Exhausting all other options, the Array was activated, ending the Flood outbreak. The surviving Forerunners reseeded life and left the Milky Way galaxy.
