The Halo franchise feels like it’s in a much happier place right now, after the release of Campaign Evolved brought the first game back in a whole new light. Though it’s not exactly the cure-all solution for the series moving forward, it showed that the appetite for new stories in the same universe is still there, well over twenty years since it first debuted.

And how much bigger that universe has become in the intervening years, with an expanded lore that spans all of the games, as well as several novelizations and other adaptations. Now, another release is on the way that’s set to bring it even further forward, and to do that, we’re going back to the very start.

Over on the official Halo Waypoint website, you should be able to find the official breakdown of many of the upcoming projects tied to the franchise. One of those is Halo: Parasite’s Wake, a new horror story that takes place during the events of Halo: CE and that’s scheduled to release later this year.

In sharing a little about the novel so fans know what to expect, the publisher posted a brief description:

“2552. As the planet Reach falls to the alien alliance known as the Covenant, a lone human ship—the UNSC Pillar of Autumn—fled into slipspace and has arrived at a place that could change the course of this decades-long war. An ancient, mysterious ringworld: Halo.

“With human forces scattered across the surface of this immense alien construct, Staff Sergeant Marvin Mobuto must now lead his fellow crewmates—survivors from the ship’s brig—back to the Autumn’s crash site to rally and regroup with their allies. Desertion, drunk and disorderly, and murder are only a few of the charges that Mobuto’s squad carries—and keeping them in line might prove to be just as difficult as surviving the zealous, entrenched Covenant warriors who believe they have found the gateway to paradise.

“But as war rages across the ring’s landscape for control of the installation’s weapons and secrets, a far more terrible threat from deep within Halo’s underworld is hellishly unleashed that transforms this conflict into a desperate battle of survival for UNSC and Covenant alike….”

A new story coming hot off the back of the events of Reach is certainly an exciting thing, and it should help fill some of the gaps between that game and CE. The focus is obviously going to be the Flood, and those initial moments where they are unleashed from the inner workings of the Halo ring world.

The next step for the Halo series seems to be the release of Halo 2 in a similar form to Campaign Evolved. The original serves as one of the best games of all-time, so the potential is certainly there, and if its a hit, we might finally be back on track in a franchise that is far too valuable to lose.

TV Show(s)

Halo

Video Game(s)

Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3 ODST, Halo Wars, Halo: Reach, Halo 4, Halo: Spartan Assault, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Halo: Spartan Strike, Halo 5: Guardians, Halo Wars 2, Halo Recruit, Halo: Fireteam Raven, Halo Infinite

Genres

Sci-Fi, Action

Cast

Steve Downes, Jen Taylor, Keith David, David Scully, Pablo Schreiber, Shabana Azmi, Olive Gray, Christina Bennington, Kate Kennedy, Natascha McElhone, Natasha Culzac, Yerin Ha

Character(s)

Master Chief, Cortana, Arbiter, Commander Jacob Keyes, 343 Guilty Spark, Miranda Keyes, Catherine Halsey

Comic Release Date

648567,648568,648569,516289

Halo is a sci-fi video game franchise set in the future where an enhanced super soldier known as Master Chief works with his AI companion Cortana to save humanity from an alien military alliance called the Covenant. The franchise has expanded into books, a TV series, comics, and more.