The first trailer for the Halo: The Fall of Reach animated series was revealed today at SDCC, finally giving us further information regarding the storyline for the show. From the trailer, it appears that ‘Halo: The Fall of Reach’ will follow the events of the original novel, written by Eric Nylund in 2001. The story acts as a prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved, describing the events before the game, explaining the origins of the Master Chief, and the Spartan II program. The series will focus on Blue Team and retelling their backstory for Halo 5 players who may have not read the books.
The series will be in the style of motion comics, which is a similar technique to that used for the Halo terminals, and the cutscenes for the mobile games, Halo: Spartan Assault and Halo: Spartan Strike. Although this may not as technically advanced, this unique art style still uses full movement and easily portrays personalities and characters. If a similar style to Halo 2: Anniversary’s cutscenes was to be used, this may have captured a wider audience, however would be extremely expensive to make.
Halo: The Fall of Reach will launch alongside Halo 5: Guardians on October 27th. The animated series will be included for those who purchase any of the three special editions, however like most Halo releases, it is possible a disc release will follow at a later date. For those who receive the series via Halo 5: Guardians, the content will be accessible through the Halo Channel app, streamed over Xbox Live. It is unclear whether this will also be on the mobile application. The series will come in three installments.
Watch the trailer here:
Matt was a regular ICXM contributor in 2015, publishing 110 articles across game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news. Their work focused on hands-on reviews, platform commentary, and breaking-news reporting during the Xbox One’s first full year of post-launch coverage, including the early days of Backwards Compatibility and Windows 10 gaming. They post on X as @RTEnvi.