Video game 'Halo' spins off books, action figures and more
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Halo 3: ODST, rated M for mature audiences, centers on Orbital Drop Shock Troopers deployed to New Mombasa.
Microsoft Game Studios
Halo 3: ODST, rated M for mature audiences, centers on Orbital Drop Shock Troopers deployed to New Mombasa.
With the Halo video games, game developer Bungie created a space-opera mythology for the Microsoft Xbox game systems to rival Star Wars. Now it appears the franchise is aiming to emulate George Lucas' expanded universe.

About 2.5 million people have bought the latest Halo 3: ODST game ($60, for Xbox 360) since it was released two weeks ago, a nice reception for a game that doesn't star Halo main man, the Master Chief. Instead, players control a squad of futuristic special forces known as Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (ODSTs) deployed to fight off the enemy forces of The Covenant attacking Earth.

Already Halo 3: ODST has generated more than $125 million in sales, continuing the success of the franchise that had sold more than 27 million so far. "That's pretty good for a game that most called an 'expansion pack,' " says analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities.

But that's not the only activity in the Halo universe. Several projects are in development, set in motion by the 2001 blockbuster video-game release, Halo.

Video games
Another game, Halo: Reach is in production by Bungie and due next year. "It's a prequel to Halo 1," says Frank O'Connor, creative director for 343 Industries, a division of Microsoft that handles all things Halo.

A first-person shooter with an additional multiplayer mode, Halo: Reach "is a chronological prequel but it is not a prequel in the directions the Star Wars prequels were to the (original) movies," says O'Connor, a co-writer on 2007's Halo 3. says. "It will cover events in and around the planet Reach," where the invading Covenant first attacked humankind in the Halo story line.

Comics
The five-issue Marvel Comics series Halo: Helljumper hit its midpoint with Issue 3 having just arrived in stores. (Issue 4 arrives Oct. 28.) It follows two of Halo 3: ODST's characters, Dutch and Romeo, on an earlier mission. "You get a little back story on those guys," O'Connor says, "and you also get to follow them in action a way that you cannot in the video game because you are often playing as the Rookie."

A new series, Halo: Blood Line, beginning Dec. 23, is about super-secret operations conducted by superhuman cybernetic Spartan soldiers. Could the Master Chief, a Spartan, be involved? "The Spartans in that series are only identified by number to keep and maintain secrecy so there's no way to find out because they wear helmets and identify each other by numbers," O'Connor says.

Videos
Halo Legends, out on home video next year, is a collection of seven animé episodes created by five of Japan's top studios. Episodes will be previewed this fall on the Halo Waypoint channel on the Xbox Live network (halo.xbox.com).

Halo Waypoint will be a hub for Halo content, including video, audio, podcasts and screenshots, O'Connor says. "If you think about Halo Wars, Halo 3 and ODST and eventually Halo: Reach, we will be able to cross-pollinate some of the career aspects of those games."

Books
Out next month from Tor Books is Halo: Evolutions, a collection of stories from Eric Nylund (Halo: The Fall of Reach), Tobias Buckell (Halo: The Cole Protocol), Robert McLees (Halo 3) and Karen Traviss (Gears of War: Jacinto's Remnant). In the works: a trilogy from Greg Bear (Quantico), with the first volume out next year. "It is set in the Forerunner part of the canon, which is literally a prehistoric civilization that spans the galaxy and is responsible for all the mysterious artifacts in the Halo universe," O'Connor says.

Action figures
McFarlane Toys has a sixth wave of Halo action figures out this month (prices $10-$13), including "The Rookie" from Halo 3: ODST.

Still, some bigger Halo questions loom. What about the Halo movie?

A big-screen theatrical mission, originally planned with director Peter Jackson, is on hold. "We're being very careful to pick the right time and the right partner," O'Connor says.

As for Master Chief, odds are he will be seen again. "I think that (his) fate, Cortana's fate and the identity of that giant, dark planet at the ending (on the game's hardest skill level) — that's a spoiler — are probably big mysteries that would be irritating if they were just cliffhangers," O'Connor says.

"We do have a plan that goes out at least six years," he says. "Eventually, it will become very apparent that there is a plan for the way the canon all ties together and the way the comic books and the novels all tie together."

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