343 Industries[]Main article:
Following the release of Halo 3, Bungie announced it was splitting off from Microsoft and becoming an independent limited liability company. While Bungie remained involved in the Halo series by developing games such as ODST and Reach, the rights to Halo remain with Microsoft. To oversee everything Halo, Microsoft created an internal division, 343 Industries, serving as "stewards" for the franchise. Frank O'Connor, formerly a Bungie employee, now serves as 343's creative director.
In announcing the formation of 343 Industries, Microsoft also announced that Xbox Live would be home to a central hub for Halo content called Halo Waypoint. Waypoint is accessed from the and offers players access to multimedia content in addition to tracking their Halo game "career". O'Connor described Waypoint as intended to be the prime destination for Halo.
The company's first new game, Halo 4, was released on November 6, 2012, to generally positive reviews.
Cultural influences[]
In 2006, in acknowledgment of the "wealth of influences adopted by the Bungie team", a list of Bungie employees' favorite science fiction material was published on the company's website. The developers acknowledged that the Halo series' use of ring-shaped followed on from concepts featured in 's Ringworldand ' (of which and were said to be particularly influential). In a retrospective article in , Bungie's Jaime Griesemer commented, "The influence of something like Ringworld isn't necessarily in the design – it's in that feeling of being somewhere else. That sense of scale and an epic story going on out there." Griesemer also explained, "One of the main sources of inspiration was [by ], in which a soldier has to constantly re-live the same war over and over again. That sense of hopelessness, a relentless battle, was influential." The Flood were influenced by the assimilating alien species in 's The Vang; it has also been speculated that the Master Chief's name "John 117" may have been a reference to a character named Jon 6725416 in Rowley'sStarhammer, or to the John Spartan character of . An IGN article exploring the literary influences present in the Halo franchise commented on similarities between Halo and 's : aspects of the and the design of the Covenant Drones are perceived as reminiscent of the super soldier program and Buggers found in the novel. Bungie has also acknowledged 's film as a strong cinematic influence.
A report written by Roger Travis and published by compares Halo with the Latin epic , written by classical Roman poet . Travis posits similarities between the plots of both works and compares the characters present in them, with the Flood and Covenant taking the role performed by the Carthaginians, and the Master Chief's role in the series to that of .
Music
Main articles: , , and
Seven Halo soundtracks have been released. The contains most of Combat Evolved 's music. Due to the varying nature of gameplay, the music present was designed to use the game's dynamic audio playback engine. The engine allows for the mood, theme, and duration of music played to change according to gameplay. To afford a more enjoyable listening experience, O'Donnell rearranged portions of the music of Halo into standalone , which follow the narrative course of the game. The soundtrack also contains music not used in the game, including a variation on the Halo theme that was first played at Halo 's debut at 1999.
For , producer and O'Donnell decided to split the music into two separate volumes. The first, Volume One, was released on November 9, 2004 and contained all the themes as well as the "inspired-by" music present in the game (featuring , ,, and ). The second release, Volume 2, contained the rest of the music, much of which was incomplete or not included in the first soundtrack, as the first soundtrack was shipped before the game was released.Halo 2, unlike its predecessor, was mixed to take full advantage of 5.1 Digital .
The was released on November 20, 2007. O'Donnell noted he wanted to bring back the themes from the original game to help tie together the end of the trilogy. The tracks are presented, similarly to the , in a suite form. Unlike previous soundtracks, where much of the music had been synthesized on computer, the soundtrack for Halo 3 was recorded using a 60-piece orchestra, along with a 24-voice chorus. The final soundtrack was recorded by the Northwest Sinfonia at Studio X in Seattle, Washington. The soundtracks were bundled and released as a box set in December 2008. A soundtrack for Halo 3: ODST was released alongside the game and included many of the tracks from the game.
For Halo Wars, the task of creating the game's music fell to . Rippy listened to O'Donnell's soundtracks for inspiration and incorporated the Halo theme into parts of his arrangements. In addition to synthesized and orchestral components, the composer focused on the choir and piano as essential elements, feeling these were important in creating the "Halo sound". Rather than use the Northwest Sinfonia, Rippy traveled to Prague and recorded with the FILMharmonic Orchestra before returning to the United States to complete the music. A standalone compact disc and digital download retail version of the soundtrack was announced in January 2009 for release on February 17.
The music of Halo 4 was composed by . The was released on October 22, 2012, followed by a two-disc Special Edition on November 6.
