The Halo Games Finally Have a TV Show, Here’s What Newbies Need to Know

The Halo Games Finally Have a TV Show, Here’s What Newbies Need to Know

Halo has been a constant for Xbox gamers ever since the franchise began in 2001. Now, over 20 years later, Halo will be available for everyone – on your television screens. Yes, the long-promised Halo TV show has finally arrived.

Here’s everything you need to know about the Halo show’s cast, trailers and release date in Australia.

Halo backstory: What do you need to know?

halo
Image: Microsoft

First up, if you’ve never played a Halo game or come across the series, what on Earth is it?

Halo is a sci-fi shooter game set amongst a futuristic war between humans and an alien alliance named The Covenant. The series has a deeply rich history and lore which can get confusing, but we’ll do our best to summarise some of the main points for you.

The Precursors were a race of ancient beings that created new life, including humans and the Forerunners. The Forerunners were charged with protecting the universe but eventually moved to dominate it and destroyed the Precursors. They subsequently became infected with a parasitic force known as the Flood – as did many other lifeforms.

To battle the Flood, the Forerunners created the Halo Arrays, a series of ring-shaped megastructures that could destroy all sentient lifeforms, leaving nothing for the Flood to infect. Upon activating these arrays, the Forerunners disappeared but left seeds to repopulate the galaxy.

Thousands of years after this, humanity evolved and lived on Earth. Another group, known as the Prophets – aka the leaders of The Covenant, also emerged and became obsessed with reigniting the Halo Arrays in order to reach the Forerunners.

War began with high tech super soldiers known as Spartans fighting for humanity’s United Nations Space Command against the threat of the Covenant. And that’s not even half of what’s gone on in Halo since.

Halo’s lore definitely has the perfect foundations for an epic space-faring TV show, which we’re finally getting.

Halo TV Show: What’s the story?

Hollywood has been trying to bring Halo to the big screen for what feels like forever. This latest attempt has been in the works for years, and it’s finally here.

HALO (which is persistently all caps for some reason) will follow the adventures of Master Chief, the main protagonist of the games. Alongside Master Chief is his trusty and advanced AI, Cortana, who may hold the key to the survival of the human race.

The synopsis for the show simply reads:

Dramatizing an epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant, Halo the series will weave deeply drawn personal stories with action, adventure and a richly imagined vision of the future.

Given that incredible backstory and the many games that there are to draw from, we can expect things to get a lot more complicated than that.

Who is in the cast?

halo tv show
Image: Paramount+

Headlining the cast of Halo is Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief aka Spartan-117. The original voice of Cortana from the games is also making an appearance with Jen Taylor on board for the series.

Alongside them is Natascha McElhone as Dr Halsey, the creator of the Spartan super soldiers. Making up the rest of the cast is Bokeem Woodbine, Shabana Azmi, Natasha Culzac, Olive Gray, Yerin Ha, Bentley Kalu, Kate Kennedy, Charlie Murphy and Danny Sapani. Ryan McParland, Burn Gorman and Fiona O’Shaughnessy will also play original characters in the series.

Show me the trailer

After years with nothing, we finally have a proper look at the Halo TV show.

The proper trailer that was released alongside the AFC championship game gives us more to go off.

If you need even more HALO action you can check out the last official trailer before diving into the series.

Is it worth watching?

After all these years of anticipation, does the Halo TV show live up to expectations?

The series currently has a 62% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 29 reviews.

Reviews are fairly split acorss the board. Entertainment Weekly’s review said the show was “as thrilling as a meeting.” Yikes.

Other reviews saw it more favourably. Collider said Halo “attempts to strike a balance between the new and the old, ending up finding a pulpy science fiction core that is a solid adaptation even as it is frequently scattered.”

It sounds like one of those shows audiences will have to judge for themselves. Which leads us to…

Halo TV Show Release Date?

halo tv show
Image: Paramount+

The Halo TV show has had a few different homes. A long time ago it was once scheduled to appear on Stan. But after the show was acquired by Paramount+ in the U.S that’s also where we’ll find it here in Australia.

Aussie gaming fans will be able to watch Halo on Paramount+ with the rest of the world on March 24, with new episodes dropping each Thursday. Expect to find it streaming around 6:00 pm AEDT. 


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