IGN Presents: The History of Halo

A quarter of the way into Halo 2, Staten wrote the story through the third game. Production started soon after middle chapter shipped in 2004, but neither Microsoft nor Bungie made anything official until May 9, 2006, at Microsoft's Pre-E3 conference. A trailer opened with a blinding white screen, a stark piano key, a broken holographic message, and the Master Chief walking through the wasteland of a conquered Earth.

Fans marinated in Halo 2's cliffhanger for another year. Cortana remained trapped on High Charity as Gravemind's prisoner. Aborting Delta Halo put the whole network on active standby, awaiting a remote command from "the Ark" to trigger Armageddon. Truth and a Covenant armada encircled Earth. The gravity around Halo 3 felt so intense that wild speculation around the Master Chief sacrificing himself for the cause sounded entirely plausible.

For their conclusion to the saga, Bungie threw in the kitchen sink. All the weapons from previous installments made it in, plus the flamethrower, the minigun, and the Forge level creator from a decade before. Spartan lasers, bubble shields, and man cannons added to the giddy excess.

And this time, gamers would absolutely play as the Master Chief full-time, fighting on Earth to save humanity from extinction.

That meant stopping Truth from activating the massive Forerunner artifact buried outside New Mombasa -- finishing the job the Prophet of Regret started. Despite partnering with the Arbiter (playable with a co-op wingman; 4-player online co-op filled out the squad with two more Elites) and clearing out Brute opposition, the clock ran out before the Chief could seal the deal. The artifact opened a slipspace portal in the African sky, and Truth’s fleet went through it on a direct course for the Ark...simultaneously opening the door for Gravemind and the Flood to invade Earth.

The Chief’s new Elite allies only stopped a minor Flood contagion by sterilizing half the continent. But a desperate message from Cortana -- decoded by the newly arrived and penitent 343 Guilty Spark -- promised a permanent solution on the Ark. A combined human/Elite force went through the portal to finish the fight.

What they found staggered imagination. The Ark represented the height of Forerunner technology, a colossal installation that busily constructed a new Halo to replace the one the Master Chief destroyed. Firing that unfinished Halo would obliterate the Ark, the ring itself, Gravemind, and the Flood in one fells swoop, but they needed an index key to trigger it. Cortana, trapped aboard the Flood-controlled High Charity, had one.

Gravemind again offered a brief truce, giving the Arbiter an opening to assassinate the Prophet of Truth and shut down the Halo network’s firing sequence for good. Finally safe from the only weapon it feared, Gravemind turned on them, rapidly absorbing every living thing on the Ark. The Master Chief used that distraction to shoot his way onto High Charity and bring Cortana out in a sequence that quickly eclipsed (or at least equaled) the first game’s Flood-centric Library as the most-hated level in the entire series.

But beyond the Flood, one enemy remained. 343 Guilty Spark objected to the plan, killing Johnson to protect “his” ring. The Master Chief soon returned the favor, shredding the pithy robot using the biggest gun in the game...a bit of long-delayed wish fulfillment for players who’d wanted to kill Sparky for years. With the ring lit, the Chief and Arbiter made a heart-stopping run for the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn as Halo tore itself apart around them. A last-ditch jump got them aboard, but the ring’s detonation sheared the frigate in half. The Arbiter made it back through the portal. The Master Chief and Cortana didn’t.

While the survivors memorialized them on Earth, the Chief finally stowed his weapon and sealed himself back into a cryo capsule. His war was over.

But his echo wasn’t about to fade. With the game barely out the door, Bungie personnel headed for New Zealand to meet with Peter Jackson (“The Lord of the Rings”), executive producer on the planned Halo movie, to discuss collaborating on a series of episodic games called Halo: Chronicles. Meanwhile, back home, Halo 3 shattered the first-day sales records set by Halo 2. A million people dove into its multiplayer in the first 24 hours alone.

Less than a week later, Bungie announced their decision to split from Microsoft.