History Franchise / Halo

Of course, Bungie took advantage of these unique gameplay quirks to stage intense and frantic battles, increasing the emphasis on having the right guns, using all your attacks and knowing when to retreat and recharge your shields. The gameplay style is both twitchy and cerebral, with room for the guns-blazing approach ''and'' significant tactical depth. The style has been preserved, with only a few tweaks for the sequels (DualWielding, new or rebalanced weapons, new vehicles, some power-ups, etc) throughout the franchise... not to mention [[FollowTheLeader nearly every modern shooter]] since. OnceOriginalNowOverdone is in full force, of course, but the fact that so much of it seems like a ClicheStorm, ''less than a quarter century after its release,'' gives you an idea of just ''how'' influential this franchise has been.

The core of ''Halo'' gameplay revolves around the wrinkles it presents in the FirstPersonShooter formula.

Of course, Bungie took advantage of these unique gameplay quirks to stage intense and frantic battles, increasing the emphasis on having the right guns, using all your attacks and knowing when to retreat and recharge your shields. The gameplay style is both twitchy and cerebral, with room for the guns-blazing approach ''and'' significant tactical depth. The style has been preserved, with only a few tweaks for the sequels (DualWielding, new or rebalanced weapons, new vehicles, some power-ups, etc) throughout the franchise... not to mention [[FollowTheLeader nearly every modern shooter]] since. OnceOriginalNowOverdone is in full force, of course, but the fact that so much of it seems like a ClicheStorm gives you an idea of just ''how'' influential this franchise has been.

* JustifiedTutorial: ''Halo 1'' had you going through a mandatory check-up after getting out from cryo. ''Halo 2'' had a check up to see if your new suit worked. ''Halo 3'' had a "how many fingers do I have" simple field check. Service keeps getting more [[IncrediblyLamePun spartan]] with the games. In ''ODST'', the Rookie has to look around his pod in order to break out of it. ''Reach'' has Noble Six surveying the ground below before landing in the first mission.

** ''Halo: Epitaph'' (Upcoming): A novel focusing on Ur-Didact, set after ''ComicBook/HaloEscalation''.

* DropTheHammer: The gravity hammer. A big, scary Brute melee weapon that'll knock your enemies into the next county.
** Your allies, too!

* StatOverflow: The games have the overshield pickups. Depending on the game, the pickup will give one or two layers of overshields that will multiply the player's effective health by a factor of 2-4. In the single-player campaign, overshields last until depleted by damage, but they also decay over time in multiplayer matches.

''Halo'' is a SpaceOpera and MilitaryScienceFiction franchise that began life as an UsefulNotes/{{Xbox}} exclusive FirstPersonShooter created by Creator/{{Bungie}} Studios and published by Creator/XboxGameStudios. It has since blossomed into multiple sequels, {{Gaiden Game}}s, a substantial ExpandedUniverse, and the centerpiece of Creator/XboxGameStudios.

''Halo'' is one of the best-known {{Killer App}}s. When the original UsefulNotes/{{Xbox}} was announced, there was a lot of skepticism from those who had already experienced the UsefulNotes/ConsoleWars and had no reason to believe the Xbox would go anywhere. Their reasoning wasn't inaccurate: [[FourIsDeath Three Is Death]] in the console market (at the time, mind you), which (until then) had trouble supporting even ''two'' consoles; Microsoft's collaboration with Sega from the UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast didn't turn out so well (though the Xbox essentially was a Dreamcast 2); and, as released, the Xbox didn’t (seem to) have anything worth playing. (The fact the original Xbox was an ''American-made console'' didn't help, after the then-recent disaster the UsefulNotes/AtariJaguar was and the struggles of American-made consoles in general following UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983.) But once gamers got their grubby little hands on it, ''Halo'' singlehandedly kept Microsoft in the race and the Xbox consoles were seen as impressive, despite being American-made. All of its sequels have set "biggest-opening-day" records. The franchise in October 2012 was [[http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/20536/halo-4-most-expensive-microsoft-title valued]] at a cool $3 billion.

* ''VideoGame/Halo3'' (2007): The first on the UsefulNotes/Xbox360, concluding both the original trilogy and the Covenant War.

* ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians'' (2015): The second entry in the "Reclaimer Saga" and the first on the UsefulNotes/XboxOne, involving a new threat to humanity and Master Chief going AWOL to confront it, and featuring a second protagonist hunting him down, former [[StateSec ONI agent]] Jameson Locke.

* ''Halo: The Master Chief Collection'' (2014): An Xbox One CompilationRerelease of the first four main series ''Halo'' games (plus the "Anniversary" remakes of ''Combat Evolved'' and ''2'') that has all their multiplayer modes with online play added (including a new multiplayer mode for ''Halo 2''[='s=] anniversary update), plus several more bonus features. A later update also adds the campaign from ''Halo 3: ODST''. In 2019, Microsoft announced that the collection would be released on PC that year, with a staggered release for each game in the collection (in internal chronological order), starting with the newly remastered version of ''VideoGame/HaloReach''. In 2020, the game is set to be released on the UsefulNotes/XboxSeriesXAndS one week after the launch of both consoles.

* ''Halo 2600'', a VideoGameDemake of ''Combat Evolved'' for the UsefulNotes/Atari2600 developed by Ed Fries, an ex-Microsoft employee who led the buyout of Bungie back in 2000. The game is essentially ''VideoGame/{{Adventure}}'' with a ''Halo'' skin. Amazingly, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GDZsFQ_haQ 2600 carts were actually made]].[[http://members.shaw.ca/jeffv/halo2600.html The game is playable here]].

* FalseProphet: Dasc Gevadim is a cult leader who created the religion Triad, amassing followers and then retreating to a remote planet while his believers claimed he had "ascended". He later returned a decade later claiming to have "willed" himself back into the material world, and used the emergence of the Guardians and their curious effects on planets' local gravity to fake displaying telekinetic powers.

%%* TheStinger

* StickyBomb: Plasma Grenades.

* SuicidalOverconfidence: Brutes in ''Halo 3'', making them pretty easy shotgun fodder.
** Averted with the Grunts, who will commonly break ranks and flee if you kill their more powerful allies. But sometimes in ''Halo 3'', they will get desperate and [[TakingYouWithMe grab two plasma grenades, prime them, and charge at you screaming at the top of their lungs]].

Of course, Bungie took advantage of these unique gameplay quirks to stage intense and frantic battles, increasing the emphasis on having the right guns, using all your attacks and knowing when to retreat and recharge your shields. The gameplay style is both twitchy and cerebral, with room for the guns-blazing approach ''and'' significant tactical depth. The style has been preserved, with only a few tweaks for the sequels (DualWielding, new or rebalanced weapons, new vehicles, some power-ups, etc) throughout the franchise... not to mention [[FollowTheLeader nearly every modern shooter]] since. SeinfeldIsUnfunny, of course, but the fact that so much of it seems like a ClicheStorm gives you an idea of just ''how'' influential this franchise has been.