Steve Downes, the longtime voice actor of Halo protagonist Master Chief, has called on fans not to use generative AI to replicate his voice.
In a YouTube AMA, Downes admitted that he’s seen videos online where his voice has been recreated using the controversial technology. While he generally considers voice cloning to be “harmless,” he acknowledged that it could easily backslide and “deprive an actor of [their] work.”
As such, he would prefer “it not be done [to me]. There’s a lot of fan projects that are really cool and done just from the heart. But when you get to the AI part and deceiving somebody that these are lines I actually spoke…that’s where we cross a line that gets into an area I’m uncomfortable with.”
Recent years have seen voice actors express concern about the use of generative AI in VO. Last year, a leaked Sony test demo featured a test bot that had the voice of Aloy, the lead of the Horizon games, that was made with genAI. Aloy’s actor Ashly Burch then released a video saying she’d been informed that the Aloy bot was purely for demonstrative purposes and wasn’t made using her face or voice data. Even so, she said she was “worried” about the art form of game performances and how this technology could affect voice actors below her.
Halo is owned by Xbox, whose parent company Microsoft has been gradually going all-in on generative AI in its production pipeline and products. It’s partnered with generative AI companies to create tools meant to assist with facets of game development, which has garnered criticism among developers and players. It’s been murky whether the upcoming Halo: Campaign Evolved was made with genAI: last year, an insider alleged it was, but Halo Studios has been somewhat evasive, instead saying there was no requirement to use technology some of its staff consider “a tool in a toolbox.”
Game-mode: enabled. Xbox and Crocs have teamed up to release an exclusive collection.
Ready up with this controller-meets-clog design that reimagines the iconic Xbox controller with fixed buttons and joysticks into the perfect shoe for couch co-op and kicking back – complete with cushioned footbeds adorned with Player Left and Player Right, which give expert-level comfort to support your next session.
It’s been over a year since Microsoft shut down the Xbox 360’s digital store, effectively putting the final nail in the beloved console’s coffin. While it’s a shame that the decades-old console’s marketplace is gone, it doesn’t take away from the Xbox 360’s legacy as a popular, innovative, and weird machine that paved the way for the current era of gaming.
For better and for worse, when Microsoft’s Xbox 360 launched in 2005 it changed video games forever. And now seems like a perfect time to take a look back at the best and worst parts of its run.
This article was originally published on Jul 31, 2024. We’re re-posting it today in honor of the Xbox 360’s 20th anniversary.
After nearly 25 years, there’s one new world for Haloto travel to: the PlayStation 5.
During Friday’s Halo World Championships, developer Halo Studios unveiled Campaign Evolved, a remake of the first game’s single-player story. Like in the original game, players will take on Master Chief after he and his UNSC allies crash-land on a ring world teeming with the alien Covenant and parasitic Flood. Beyond being the first Halo game made in Unreal Engine—reliably used across the industry—this new version features three prequel missions centered on Chief and his friend Sgt. Johnson set before the events of the first game that are said to include new characters, gameplay, and environments.
That’s not the only change on the horizon. In recreating the campaign from scratch, the developers are “modernizing areas that could better match today’s expectations for pacing and clarity,” and specifically namedropping “The Library,” one of the most-disliked levels in the series’ history. That particular mission now has “reevaluated pacing and enhanced environmental storytelling,” said creative director Max Szlagor.
And there’s that whole PS5 thing. Over the years, Microsoft has gradually loosened its grip on first-party Xbox titles being exclusive to its platform, with the Ori games, Gears of War, and more jumping to Sony’s console and the Nintendo Switch.
After Gearsand Forza, Halo was the last holdout of major Xbox franchises, and this won’t be a one-off: studio community lead Brian Jarrard said during the reveal that the series would be on PlayStation “going forward.”
Confirmed: Halo will be on PlayStation “going forward” starting with the Combat Evolved remake. pic.twitter.com/y23v1B3mfV
“[Our] community is super excited to welcome in their friends. This means more Halo for everyone, and it’s a new era,” he continued. To that end, Campaign Evolved will have four-player online co-op between PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S via crossplay when the game launches in 2026.
Master Chief is re-enlisting for a new tour of duty, this time in a whole new setting. Microsoft released the trailer for Halo: Campaign Evolved, a remake of series originator Halo: Combat Evolved — and for the first time ever, for the PlayStation. For decades, the Halo franchise has been a Xbox/PC ‘sclusie. It was one of the last holdouts of the console war, when PlayStation and Xbox fought over who had the sickest graphics and rumbliest packs. And Nintendo was also there. “It’s really a new era—Halo is on PlayStation going forward,” Halo Studios community director Brian Jarrard said on a livestream, per PC Gamer. Halo’s Xbox exclusivity made Master Chief a default mascot for the entire platform. Now he and Sonic will have to split a pint in Tapper and reminisce about how they used to be big shots.
But there is one snag in the HaloxXbox love fest: unlike the OG Halo, there is no multiplayer mode. The anniversary edition of Combat Evolved had online multiplayer capability. And back in the day there was at least LAN. Remember LAN parties? Halo: Campaign Evolved comes to all platforms in 2026.
Today, Microsoft and Halo Studios announced they’re remaking the original Halo again as Halo: Campaign Evolved. The remake is sprucing up the shooter’s campaign, adding three new prequel levels, and will support up to four-player cooperative runs. The biggest news out of the announcement, however, is that the game is also coming to PlayStation 5, and it sounds like Master Chief’s adventures will also be coming to PlayStation for the foreseeable future.
This was confirmed on a livestream from the Halo World Championship after the remake’s announcement. Halo Studios community director Brian “ske7ch” Jarrard said that Halo is a multiplatform series “going forward.” The remake supports crossplay between platforms, so if you want to get your old co-op buddies together after 25 years, you can do that no matter what system they’re playing on. And it sounds like that will be the case with future games, as well.
Confirmed: Halo will be on PlayStation “going forward” starting with the Combat Evolved remake. pic.twitter.com/y23v1B3mfV
In a post on the PlayStation Blog, Jarrad teased that Halo Studios may have more Halo announcements for PlayStation 5 owners in the future, saying, “As the Master Chief once said: ‘I think we’re just getting started.’” If the series is coming to a new audience this many entries in, I wouldn’t be surprised if we also see the Master Chief Collection on PlayStation in the coming years. The compilation includes all the Halo games up to 5: Guardians, including the spin-offs Reach and 3: ODST, which don’t follow Master Chief but instead tell separate stories in Bungie and Halo Studios’ sci-fi universe. This would also be as good a time as any to bring Guardians and Infinite, the two most recent games in the series which aren’t included in the collection, to PlayStation 5 as well.
Halo: Campaign Evolved is a full remake of the Halo: Combat Evolved campaign, coming in 2026 to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, Steam, PlayStation 5, supports Xbox Cloud Gaming and Xbox Play Anywhere and arrives day one with Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass.
This fully-rebuilt campaign will introduce remastered 4K visuals, beloved Halo weapons and vehicles, plus brand-new story content.
We spoke to key leads at Halo Studios about how the team is utilizing 25 years of community feedback and technology to build on what makes Halo timeless.
It’s official; Halo marks the next chapter for the franchise with Halo: Campaign Evolved, a complete Unreal Engine 5 remake of the original campaign from Halo: Combat Evolved, including some brand-new surprises.
The original Halo: Combat Evolved is a stalwart of gaming history, a cultural icon that helped define the first-person shooter experience. For Halo Studios, bottling the impact of that original campaign and all of its special moments is the ultimate goal – for new players and long-time fans alike.
Halo: Campaign Evolved is a modern evolution of that iconic story, thoughtfully brought to life in Unreal Engine 5 with stunning new 4K visuals, updated animations, remastered music, and re-recorded voice lines. Halo Studios is also bringing in a roster of beloved weapons and vehicles from later Halo titles, and adding three new bonus campaign missions, all designed to expand and celebrate the adventure that started it all.
Halo’s legacy of cooperative play continues here, supporting the original two-player local split screen experience on console, and, for the first time, up to four players in online co-op across Xbox, PC, and PlayStation 5.
Ahead of announce, I was able to speak to several key leads at Halo Studios, and gathered up some unique insight on how the team seeks to capture the tone and feel of the original game for a new generation, all the new lore and gameplay additions, and ultimately, while staying true to what has always made Halo special at its core.
Back to Where It All Began
Halo: Combat Evolved is where it all began, and for the team at Halo Studios – who have gone through an evolution of their own – there was no better place to start building this new generation of Halo. As Executive Producer Damon Conn puts it, remaking the very first campaign from the ground up was a perfect opportunity to craft an ideal entry point for new players and modernize areas that could better match today’s expectations for pacing and clarity (yes, we mean The Library, and we’ll get to that shortly).
“We wanted to start where it all began, with the original campaign that defined Halo,” Conn explains. “Starting here means people that have never played the game before will be able to understand the story from the very beginning, and that can help us chart a course forward with new Halo stories.”
“Focusing on the campaign experience means we can concentrate fully on really capturing the atmosphere, tone – the emotional impact of what made the first campaign so special and iconic.”
How Will Campaign Evolved Preserve the ‘Halo Spirit’?
Keeping that classic Halo “feel” is of course of prime importance, and capturing that took the team all the way back to the source material – the original Combat Evolved campaign as it was first presented in 2001. TThe goal was to understand how modern updates to systems and environments could complement, not replace, the essence of the original experience – to make it feel just as players remember, only smoother and more seamless than ever before.
“The campaign has been rebuilt to feel handcrafted and immersive, true to what players remember, not just visually, but emotionally,” adds Conn.
How Will Campaign Evolved Update Existing Missions?
Preserving the Halo spirit means the team has taken great care to not modernize for the sake of modernization. It’s not about rebuilding Halo: Combat Evolved’s story and spaces to ‘fit in’ with a roster of today’s games, but to ensure that its original feel has evolved to suit modern players. Every change has been shaped by the same question: Does this still feel like Halo?
“Because this is a remake, we’ve been able to carefully rebuild almost every level and every encounter with more fidelity,” says Max Szlagor, Creative Director. “As we’re building the technology for this game, we’ve had to do it piece by piece, which included reevaluating all of the individual elements as we’re revisiting them in the original game.”
“And now the campaign supports up to four-player co-op, we had to think about how all of the original encounters and spaces can scale to accommodate that many players.”
The Library is a perfect example to demonstrate how the team is thoughtfully enhancing existing spaces in an authentic way. Halo: Combat Evolved’s seventh campaign mission is a key example of where it felt right to make tweaks to several areas to create a new experience that balances nostalgia with the expectations of today’s gamers.
“We learned from Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary that there was still an appetite for things like better wayfinding, navigation, and diversity in enemy encounters,” Szlagor says. “In The Library specifically, which features several Flood encounters, we wanted to reevaluate the pacing and enhance the environmental storytelling. We’ve added new lines to Guilty Spark, which guide players through the level, and there’s new dialogue that gives more insight into the narrative as it plays out.”
“We’re not changing the stories, it’s about refining and adding context to this moment, and other levels like it, so players can stay on track.”
What New Elements are Halo Studios Adding to the Original?
In Halo: Campaign Evolved, you’ll be able to wield nine additional iconic weapons from across the Halo series inside the Halo: Combat Evolved campaign, including the Energy Sword, Battle Rifle and Needle Rifle, giving you more ways to approach every encounter.
“Some of the weapons we’re bringing in could be used against you in Halo: Combat Evolved by the enemy, but you weren’t able to pick them up yourself.” Szlagor says. “Now, you can, and it feels natural because of how you can do that in other Halo games, it reflects the evolution of the series.”
Players can also look forward to two firsts for the campaign — you can now hijack vehicles and even pilot the Covenant Wraith tank for the first time in Halo: Combat Evolved.
For challenge seekers, Halo Studios is also featuring the most Skulls ever in a Halo campaign, for even more ways to modify the campaign experience.
And perhaps most exciting, the team has added three brand-new prequel missions set before the events of the Halo: Combat Evolved campaign, which introduce entirely new environments, characters and enemies, which we’ll find out more about very soon.
Oh – and you can sprint now, if you’d like, or disable it if you don’t.
How Are Halo Studios Using Unreal Engine 5?
The Halo spirit is not just about the debut’s impact – the studio is effectively incorporating 25 years of player feedback and technological advancement into Halo: Campaign Evolved. The latter is supported by the team’s pivot to Unreal Engine 5, which, with the foundation of Halo’s legacy code, will support the game’s development. It’s not an entirely new ecosystem for Halo Studios – they’ve dabbled quietly with Unreal projects in the past – and that has only reinforced that the tools on offer, combined with original resources, are what Halo needs to futureproof itself for the generations to come.
“Given that Halo: Campaign Evolved is a remake, it is critical that we deliver gameplay that is 100% authentically Halo at its core, ” says Greg Hermann, Game Director on Halo: Campaign Evolved.
All of the new content created in Unreal Engine 5 is layered on top of code and systems carried directly over from the original games. That legacy code is instrumental in maintaining that authentic “Halo feel” within gameplay. It means that Halo Studios can achieve the desired visual goal with Unreal’s photorealistic rendering capabilities, with the simulation systems of Halo living and breathing beneath it, Hermann adds.
“For future titles, we will continue to push the boundaries of technology while ensuring the core Halo gameplay for that game can be seen, felt, heard, and evolved where needed.”
How are Halo Studios Balancing Serving New and Core Players?
While the team knows its tools best, it’s the Halo community that plays a fundamental role in how Halo Studios moves forward.
“Our player-first approach has informed so many decisions for the better,” Szlagor adds. “When we introduce new features or make creative choices, we’re constantly checking in with players through our user research studies and our Halo Insider program. Their feedback helps us stay grounded in what feels authentic to Halo.
That commitment to player input also extends beyond the studio walls. Halo: Campaign Evolved will be playable for the first time at the Halo World Championships, giving our players an early hands-on look at how the game is coming along. Halo: Campaign Evolved doesn’t seek to replace the original game, but instead, offer a modern experience that can stand proudly beside it. When new players launch the game for the first time, it must recapture the indescribable feel of picking up Halo for the first time 25 years ago on the original Xbox. That’s the moment we all remember so fondly, a moment that the Halo team recalls as “transformative”, that it wants to share with as many players as possible.
“We’re so excited about bringing Halo to those who may not have had chance to play it in the past,” Conn adds. “At its heart, Halo is about connection, we’re thrilled to meet a new generation of players on their platforms of choice to fall in love with Halo the same way we did. We’re not trying to rewrite Halo’s legacy – we’re trying to immerse you in it like never before.”
“This is Halo for everyone.”
Halo: Campaign Evolved is coming in 2026 to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, Steam, PlayStation 5, supports Xbox Cloud Gaming and Xbox Play Anywhere and arrives day one with Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass.
Halo: Campaign Evolved
Xbox Game Studios
☆☆☆☆☆
★★★★★
Experience Where the Legend Begins
Halo: Campaign Evolved is a faithful yet modernized remake of Halo: Combat Evolved’s campaign. Experience the original story rebuilt with high-definition visuals, updated cinematics, and refined controls, plus three brand-new prequel missions featuring the Master Chief and Sgt. Johnson. A broader arsenal of weapons, vehicles, enemies, and gameplay-modifying “Skulls” – optional modifiers that change combat in fun and challenging ways – add fresh tactics and endless replayability.
Play it your way: solo, in 2-player split-screen co-op (console only), or up to 4-player online co-op with full crossplay and cross-progression support. Whether you’re discovering Halo for the first time or returning to the ring after 25 years, Halo: Campaign Evolved delivers an adventure that feels both timeless and brand new.
Discover the Ringworld
After crash landing on a mysterious ringworld known as Halo, the Master Chief is tasked with helping the remaining humans survive against overwhelming Covenant forces. Alongside his AI companion Cortana, he uncovers Halo’s dark secrets and fights to avert the annihilation of all life in the galaxy.
Key Features
The Complete Campaign, Rebuilt
Battle through the original missions, newly rebuilt with enhanced level design, updated cinematics, and improved wayfinding, refined to keep the pace moving without losing the wonder, tension, or heroism of the original.
Cinematics and Audio Overhauled
Iconic vistas, alien architecture, and sci-fi wonders are reborn with all-new visuals, cinematics, and animations. The soundtrack has been remastered, the sound design updated for greater immersion, and new voice performances recorded with the primary cast.
Combat and Weapons Expanded
Classic Halo combat feels instantly familiar yet sharper than ever. Sprint, aim, and engage with refined precision. For the first time in Halo: CE, you can wield 9 additional iconic weapons from across the series, including the Energy Sword, Battle Rifle, and Needle Rifle, giving you more ways to approach every fight.
Three New Prequel Missions
Join the Master Chief and Sgt. Johnson in a brand-new arc set before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved, featuring new environments, gameplay, characters, and enemies.
Play Solo or with Friends
Experience the full campaign in 2-player split-screen co-op (console only) or 4-player online co-op, complete with crossplay and shared progression across console and PC.
Drive, Hijack, Wreak Havoc
Whether you’re racing across the map in a Warthog or flipping it over with friends, vehicles have always been at the heart of Halo’s fun. Now they go even further: for the first time in Halo: CE, you can hijack enemy rides and pilot a fully drivable Wraith, creating unforgettable chaos.
Remix Your Campaign for Endless Replayability
Use the campaign remix feature to return to any mission and remix the experience with the most gameplay-modifying “Skulls” ever in a Halo campaign. These optional modifiers add challenge and variety with randomized weapons, enemies, and environments.
Nearly four years after the release of Halo: Infinite, the sixth installment in the franchise has failed to live up to its name. Instead, the studio behind the sci-fi series may be working on a “live service, long-term updating multiplayer” Halo game that could do just that. According to YouTuber Rebs Gaming, a source claimed that Halo Studios, previously known as 343 Industries, is working on a multiplayer Halo title that could borrow Fortnite‘s model of constantly pushing out content updates. The report also noted that there aren’t any mentions of Fortnite‘s battle royale style for the upcoming game.
While live service games are becoming the norm, veterans of the Halo franchise may not have much faith in Halo Studios after failing to deliver on Halo: Infinite‘s longevity. Back in March, another report revealed that Halo: Infinite was meant to be supported with a 10-year plan of consistent updates, but this roadmap was scrapped following leadership issues and a switch to Unreal Engine. While Halo: Infinite‘s multiplayer mode has received notable updates since its initial release, the game still sits at a Mixed rating on Steam.
Along with this upcoming live service Halo title, the report claimed that the studio is working on a remake of the first game in the series, Halo: Combat Evolved. According to John Junyszek, the senior community manager at Halo Studios, we could hear more about either project during the Halo World Championship that takes place from October 24 to 26.
Classic titles may get a lot of flack, but their designs were second to none, so we’ve decided to rank them! These posters highlight some of the best classic titles out there – along with some beautifully recreated and original illustrations.
For the sake of transparency, ‘retro’ has been defined here as anything that was released before the eighth console generation. So, before the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch’s release.
It might sound scary, but some of your favorite titles might be just considered ‘old-school’!
Image Source: 2K
Image Source: 2K
Image Source: 2K
The success of the Borderlands series is reason enough to pick up a copy of any of its titles. However, the consistently awe-inspiring key art used in its box cover and promotional marketing is a very close second.
Borderlands‘ success has rested on the amazing gunplay, witty dialogue, and excellent character designs of its cast of heroes (and villains!)
As such, it makes sense that if posters were to be made to symbolize the whole series, then who better to place front and center than a Psycho. The Psycho enemy has become the face of the series in some respects – having appeared on almost all the games’ cover art in one way or another.
Using the iconic, provocative imagery from the games’ cover art for the title, marketing for all of 2K’s Borderlands has received heavy backlash. However, the visually striking use of color and instantly recognizable design of the series has since become synonymous with the franchise.
Image Source: Sega
Image Source: Sega
Image Source: Sega
Releasing in arcades in 1994, and being ported to Sega’s own Saturn system in 1995, Virtua Fighter and its much-beloved sequel were a graphical tour de force.
Hailing from a time when titles couldn’t hide with flashy, pre-rendered cinematics, these titles laid everything bare. Sega was sure that the visuals it had to deliver were of that high a standard.
Posters like this one by AudricDemers project that same self-confidence, consisting of minimal background design and characters in action poses. Simple, effective, and impressive.
As one Reddit user fondly remembers;
‘The graphics were god-tier at the time that I could just sit there at the arcade and watch the demo for hours on end’
The Metal Slug series is renowned for crazy arcade action, and sleek and beautiful pixel-art sprite work. Wow, that’s a lot to fit onto a poster!
As such, the best posters of the Metal Slug franchise choose to encapsulate all of these aspects in a single image. For example, this one which uses the cover art for Metal Slug X.
The series’ hyper-stylized designs, along with the eponymous tank, are depicted in loving detail. Redbubble designer Mysteriosshop has arranged the game’s artwork and produced a highly collectible poster.
Image Source: SEGA
Image Source: SEGA
Image Source: SEGA
Sonic the Hedgehog is a beloved video game character; running beyond his games to television shows, highly-successful movies, and merchandising since his original title. However, he has gone through many design alterations since his 1991 game debut.
Sega landed on a classic look recently that has pleased old and new fans alike. While the lanky-legged, smart-talking design of ‘modern’ Sonic still exists, this ‘classic’ design has curried favor with many long-time fans.
Referencing Sonic the Hedgehog’s blazing speed and classic 90s design, posters like this minimal yet explosive artwork will surely please Sonic fans from any stage of the blue blur’s gaming career.
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
While it seems like we were waiting for years for a return to form for Crash Bandicoot, the recent resurgence in Crash Bandicoot’s popularity can be seen with the release of Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time.
Regardless if it’s playing the original titles or the newest in the series, it feels good to be back in control of everyone’s favorite orange video game mammal (sorry, Daxter!)
This modern interpretation of the classic cover art for the PS1 title Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back showcases the classic title, while embracing the aesthetic of the newer art style. As such, you can enjoy it on posters and other themed merchandise.
Perhaps that is why it’s so endearing. The seamless blending of the original title with one which a new generation of fans has become familiar with. This is especially potent considering the continued success of the series’ recent remasters.
After the success of the North American box art for Grand Theft Auto III after an impromptu last-minute change, Rockstar consolidated their key art under one style. They proceeded to use Bliss’ stylings as cover art, loading scenes, and promotional work for the title from that point on.
Posters like this stylish one from mattilynn succeeds on the merit that it places Bliss’ artwork front and center.
Image Source: Nintendo
Image Source: Nintendo
Image Source: Nintendo
If there’s one thing The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is, it’s unusual. Its dark tone and unnerving visuals confounded gamers at the time, alongside Nintendo’s macabre twist of the Zelda formula.
This poster by orioto continues this trend by emphasizing the darkness of the setting along with the scale of the game’s moon. The starlight and falling meteors in the background of the poster also highlight the shadows of the clock tower and surrounding mountains.
As such, the scale of the task given to you in Majora’s Mask is made apparent. Beyond that, the repercussions if you don’t succeed are put into perspective.
The title has been included on the company’s Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pass service. As a result, more people are playing classic Zelda titles than ever. Whether you’re new to the perils of Termina or have saved the world time and time again, this illustrated poster is sure to delight you.
Image Source: Atari
Image Source: Atari
Image Source: Atari
Centipede is a game that needs no introduction. Published by Atari in 1981, the arcade title is one of the formative titles for the entire video game industry.
Even 40 years ago, the appeal for this title was obvious. Many marketing and promotional works were commissioned to broadcast this latest Atari title. As a result, many gamers were inducted into spending as much as they could in the arcades.
Posters like this retro metal decoration highlight the original arcade cabinet’s aesthetic through its presentation of the illustrated centipede design.
It could be argued that George Opperman alone could be credited with the centipede design. However, as stated in Video Games magazine, June of 1983: ‘It is his responsibility, along with a 12-person staff, to create and produce all artwork for Atari’s arcade games’.
The poster design has had such a lasting impact that American rock band The Strokes incorporated it well beyond its 1981 release. In 2003, they released their hit song ‘Reptilia’ – which has a familiar insect emblazoned on its single artwork.
Image Source: Nintendo
Image Source: Nintendo
Image Source: Nintendo
When decorating a room with videogame paraphernalia, you only want to represent the best of the best.
As such, it’s no surprise that a stylish poster of Super Mario Bros. 3 is no doubt high on your list. One of the best Mario games of all time, even 36 years after its original release, Super Mario Bros. 3 revolutionized the series in the eighties.
From all-new power-ups, a connected series of levels on a world map, and incredible graphical power for the Nintendo Entertainment System – Super Mario Bros. 3 amazed.
In 1988 players all around the world thought that game developers had maximized the potential of what the NES hardware. Then Super Mario Bros. 3 released.
Matthew Carmosino & Nicholas Limon, ‘The Best Super Mario Bros. Games: All 20 Ranked’
Who wouldn’t want a poster of the platforming plumber after all that? Luckily, the cover art for Super Mario Bros. is as simple and stylish as it was back in 1988.
With that in mind, many still hold a special Pokemon-shaped place in their heart for the original titles and Nintendo is very aware of this.
The original Pokemon creature designs are referenced and revered in almost every aspect of Pokemon media – ensuring that every Pokemon fan knows them all by name!
As such, this Pokemon poster is an excellent decision for those who love the original 151 pocket monsters or are just fans of the series overall. Featuring artwork from the series’ original artist Ken Sugimori, this Kanto-based poster is a league above the rest.
Image Source: Microsoft
Image Source: Microsoft
Image Source: Microsoft
When excited gamers in 2007 picked up their copies of Microsoft’s latest installment in the Halo franchise, they were met with a beloved added extra.
The much-appreciated miniature poster, featuring artwork from artist Ashley Wood, was bundled into all early copies of the title – with the controller layout on the reverse side. Posting on his blog on September 25, the day of Halo 3’s release, he proclaimed: ‘I was lucky to be part of the legend in a very small way’.
This piece, while small, has continued to be adored by fans new and old. So much so that it was celebrated with a limited print-run of the artwork being recreated through Displate, last year.
Redbubble user pharaoh618, has elegantly formatted Wood’s original piece and has made it more readily available through this poster.
Image Source: Bethesda Softworks
Image Source: Bethesda Softworks
Image Source: Bethesda Softworks
Incorporated into the title’s promotional work and even used as the game’s box art, Doom is a classic retro poster design if there ever was one.
Designed by the prolific science fiction and contemporary artist Don Ivan Punchatz, his mastery of the craft is generally acknowledged even by those outside of the video game industry.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is the memorable sequel to the much-beloved original Metal Gear Solid title on the PlayStation 1. Where Sons of Liberty diverges from the original is in its controversial sidelining of the first game’s protagonist in place of the new character, Raiden.
Many fans have since come around to Raiden’s inclusion and the superb quality of Sons of Liberty as a sequel. As such, we have been able to appreciate posters like this one.
The minimalist poster – arranged by PFCpatrickC – features the original artwork for the title from series illustrator Yoji Shinkawa.
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Paramount+ announced today that it has canceled Xbox’s Halo TV show after its second season. The team behind the show is reportedly looking to shop the sci-fi adaption around to other places in an effort to continue the series.
Take A Tour Through Halo Infinite’s Newest Arena Maps
On July 18, Paramount confirmed with The Hollywood Reporter that the Halo TV show will not receive a third season on its streaming platform. In March, the show—based on the popular Xbox video game franchise—ended its second season with fans hopeful that there was more to come following an uptick in quality. But that isn’t going to happen, or at least not at Paramount+.
“We are extremely proud of this ambitious series,” said Paramount+ in a statement confirming the news. “And would like to thank our partners at Xbox, 343 Industries, and Amblin Television, along with showrunner and executive producer David Wiener, his fellow executive producers, the entire cast led by Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief, and the amazing crew for all their outstanding work. We wish everyone the best going forward.”
The Hollywood Reporter says that its sources have confirmed that Xbox, 343 Industries, and Amblin are all interested in continuing the live-action series somewhere else. It’s reported that Paramount is supportive of this plan.
Xbox / Paramount
“We deeply appreciate the millions of fans who propelled the Halo series to be a global success, and we remain committed to broadening the Halo universe in different ways in the future,” said 343 Industries in a statement. “We are grateful to Amblin and Paramount for their partnership in bringing our expansive sci-fi universe to viewers around the world.”
The 4th of July is a day for jingoistic mythmaking and summer merriment. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate it than by grilling food, watching things explode, and ordering a bunch of cool stuff online that you totally don’t need but will still be really awesome to have.
Halo’s Joseph Morgan On Playing Nuanced Characters And The Flaws of Season 1
Commerce was a key driver of dissatisfaction with the crown when a bunch of American colonies originally told England to fuck off, so it makes sense that shopping remains a core ritual at the heart of celebrating the nation’s founding. Independence Day is a great time to buy a car or a refrigerator, but you’re not here for any of that. Instead, I’ve rounded up an eclectic mix of 4th of July gaming deals and culturally adjacent curios that happen to be discounted right now. Check them out. It’s what George Washington would have wanted.
Best Nintendo Switch Game Sales
The eShop is currently running a few sales through July 14, including the Recollection Collection Sale and Devolver Digital Summer Sale. Capcom also has a publisher sale running through July 7. There’s a wide-array of great games for cheap. Here are some of the highlights:
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy: $16 (60 percent off)
BioShock: The Collection: $10 (80 percent off)
Terra Nil: $15 (40 percent off)
Pepper Grinder: $10 (33 percent off)
Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection: $30 (50 percent off)
Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers: $20 (50 percent off)
Capcom Fighting Collection: $16 (60 percent off)
Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection: $10 (66 percent off)
The Messenger: $5 (75 percent off)
Best PS5 Game Sales
It’s been back-to-back-to-back sales on the PlayStation Store for a while now between Play Days and the Mid-Year sale. Now there’s another with the Essential Picks sale running through July 17. Many of the above Switch game deals are also available for the PlayStation versions, as well as these additional ones:
Dragon’s Dogma 2: $56 (20 percent off)
Persona 3 Reload: $49 (30 percent off)
System Shock: $28 (30 percent off)
Batman Arkham Collection: $6 (90 percent off)
Nier: Automata: $16 (60 percent off)
Castle Crashers Remastered: $3 (80 percent off)
Octopath Traveler II: $36 (40 percent off)
Like a Dragon: Ishin!: $24 (60 percent off)
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Deluxe: $45 (50 percent off)
Dead Space Deluxe: $28 (65 percent off)
Far Cry 6 Deluxe: $20 (75 percent off)
Diablo II: Resurrected: $13 (67 percent off)
Best Xbox Sales
Not to be left out, a bunch of Xbox games are currently discounted, too. Many of the Switch and PS5 game deals also apply to the Xbox versions, as well as these other cheap games worth a shout-out:
Hades: $12.50 (50 percent off)
Dead Rising 2: $5 (75 percent off)
Monster Hunter Rise: $25.50 (65 percent off)
Resident Evil Village: $20 (60 percent off)
Aragami 2: $10 (75 percent off)
Axiom Verge 1 & 2: $10.50 (70 percent off)
Flinthook: $7.50 (50 percent off)
Metro: Last Light Redux: $3 (85 percent off)
Wasteland 3: $8 (80 percent off)
Best PC Game Sales
If you haven’t already looked through our Steam Summer Sale overview you should do that, as there’s a lot of surprisingly steep discounts. So instead, I’ll take this opportunity to highlight a bunch of really good Steam Deck compatible game sales. The PC gaming handhelds themselves are 15 percent off right now. Here’s what you can play on them:
Elden Ring: $42 (30 percent off)
Cyberpunk 2077: $30 (50 percent off)
Stardew Valley: $9 (40 percent off)
Slay the Spire: $8.50 (66 percent off)
Dead Cells: $12.50 (50 percent off)
Hollow Knight: $7.50 (50 percent off)
Halo: The Master Chief Collection: $10 (75 percent off)
Marvel’s Midnight Suns: $15 (75 percent off)
Risk of Rain 2: $8.25 (67 percent off)
Vampire Survivors: $3.50 (25 percent off)
Balatro: $13.50 (10 percent off)
Best TV Sales
There are hundreds of cheap TVs to pick from, but I have two for you that should get the job done at either end of your price range. If you’re content to game and stream shows on a budget TV like I am, then Best Buy is currently selling 55-inch TCL Q5 series 4K displays for just $300 (33 percent off). If you want something more fancy, you’re also in luck. While you could spend thousands on a truly top-of the line TV with blacks as dark as an event horizon, you could also splurge on a 48-inch LG OLED. Best Buy is also selling those for just $800 (almost 50 percent off the sticker price).
Best Used Game Sales
GameStop is currently running a buy 2, get 1 free on all used games, including its (very limited) retro collection. It’s great way to catch up on bargain bin stuff you might have never gotten to (Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Watch Dogs 2, GTA V) as well as more recent stuff that hasn’t dropped in value yet. For example, you could play some of 2024’s biggest games so far like Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and Tekken 8 and save roughly $50 in the process. Have fun mixing and matching. Just make sure they actually have used copies of the games in stock.
The Best Of The Rest
Here’s where we have fun with a rapid-fire round of some other neat deals:
Screenshot: 343 Industries / Claire Jackson / Kotaku
It ain’t perfect, but damn do I love Halo Infinite. So naturally, I wasn’t all too thrilled when it suddenly kept crashing before it even reached the main menu and nothing seemed to fix it. Verifying the game’s file integrity, reinstalling it, restarting Windows, casting spells and rituals in the forest. Nothing! Turns out, the problem for me and many other players was that we were using Nvidia driver 555.99.
Long-Lost Halo Demo Comes To Life
Released on June 4, 2024, Nvidia Game Ready and Studio Driver 555.99 caused quite a bit of havoc for many fans of Halo Infinite as it rendered the game unplayable for most who had an Nvidia card and were timely with their driver updates. The workaround, of course, was to roll back to driver version 555.85. Halo developer 343 Industries acknowledged the issue early on. It released a statement via the official Halo Support X account stating that it was working with Nvidia to be sure the issue wouldn’t persist into the next driver update. Thankfully, driver version 556.12 was released on June 27 and lets Halo Infinite launch and run without issue.
How to update your Nvidia driver to play Halo Infinite
Odds are if you found your way to Nvidia driver 555.99, you probably know how to update your system to the latest version to get back into some Halo. If not, you can download the driver via Nvidia’s GeForce Experience app (which is how I prefer to manage my drivers), or by downloading the driver directly from Nvidia’s website. The latter is a handy way to locate past drivers should you run into any other issues.
While rolling back to the previous driver was the solution to playing Halo Infinite on a PC with an Nvidia card, it’s usually preferable to keep your machine’s drivers as up-to-date as possible. But now that 556.12 fixed the Halo issue, I have a can of Monster energy, an aggressively frantic metal playlist, and endless rounds of Husky Raid with my name on them.
I could talk about how Halo’s centering of humans as the bad guys behind every plot cheapens one of the few fascinating moral complexities of the Halo games and books — that the Spartans were built for fundamentally inhumane treatment of rebel fighters and then accidentally found justification in a surprise alien invasion. But it’s more fair and even more damning to talk about all of this on the Halo TV show’s own terms. And on those terms, I simply have no fucking idea why there are even aliens in this show to begin with.
In an effort to underline the badness of humanity, Halo has completely sidelined the Covenant, throwing the entire show off course and spinning wildly into space. Even the Covenant’s grand invasion of Reach in the show is just another human plot, one of a thousand ways the TV show wants to prove that the human bureaucrats are evil, something we’ve known since the earliest moments of the show’s first season.
But all this emphasis on humanity’s sins begs a critical question: Almost two full seasons into Halo, what point is it trying to make, exactly? Season 2’s seventh episode, “Thermopylae,” seems to offer some attempt at answering that question, when Makee (Charlie Murphy) pleads with Chief to stop helping humanity so that the two of them can settle Halo on their own and make it a paradise, rather than letting either side use it as a civilization-destroying weapon. Setting aside the silliness that is this version of Halo being so constantly tempted to recast Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber) as the lead of a domestic drama, Makee’s statement still leaves a gap in our understanding of what this show is doing. If the point is “war makes monsters of us all,” then shouldn’t we see that equally in both the human and Covenant factions? And even more pressingly, why won’t anyone acknowledge that the Covenant are the ones who threatened extinction first and based their whole galactic conquest on the Prophets’ lie about a Great Journey that would take them from the galaxy?
Photo: Adrienn Szabo/Paramount Plus
We’re subjected to half a dozen scenes each episode of humanity’s reckless and evil leaders making civilization-shaping choices — particularly the ongoing machinations of Admiral Margaret Parangosky (Shabana Azmi), one of the worst and least compelling characters in recent TV memory, thanks to her consistently baffling decisions and seemingly lack of strategy and communication. (Put simply: She’s here to antagonize every other character, with no real character of her own.) Meanwhile we only get to see the Covenant’s side from the point of view of Makee and the criminally underdeveloped Arbiter. Sure, we hear them say that the Prophets might be full of shit and that the Great Journey might be a lie, but it remains a complete mystery why the alien’s genuinely compelling similarity to Earth’s own corrupt and lying authorities is drawn with such a faint line. Perhaps drawing those connections more clearly would help us make sense of why Master Chief has fought more humans in Halo season 2 than he has Covenant.
Despite the moment-to-moment conflict rarely making sense, or seeming to lead anywhere, it hasn’t stopped the show from introducing more plot threads or drip-feeding longtime series fans with new bits of recognizable lore. For instance, this latest episode gave us our most meaningful look yet at the Forerunners, though they haven’t been named quite yet. It also hinted at yet another alien faction that could soon arrive, but we’ll have to wait and see if that thread goes anywhere.
All these new introductions do little to lessen the feeling of narrative cheapness that surrounds Halo, however. As more ideas and plots get introduced, it only serves to underline how little sense any of this really makes. Sure, we know the Covenant are knocking on humanity’s front door, but the sudden diversion of every character in the show now converging on a need to capture “the Halo,” as they keep calling it, feels like it came out of nowhere. Which is a pretty astounding feat of messy storytelling considering it’s the object the entire franchise is named after.
Halo season 2 is now streaming on Paramount Plus. The season finale will be released on Thursday, March 21.
Peek behind the curtains in a new X-Men ‘97 featurette. Get a look at what’s coming on Halo’s season finale. The Wynonna Earp revival movie has wrapped filming. Plus, meet Inside Out 2‘s new emotions, and Evil Dead Rise’s Lee Cronin is setting up his genre future. To me, my spoilers!
Kara Swisher on All the Nonsense in the Tech Industry
Jurassic World 4
According to a new report from The InSneider newsletter, Universal Pictures has offered Scarlett Johansson the leading role in Jurassic World 4.
The Prisoner
Additionally, Variety suggests Christopher Nolan may follow Oppenheimer with a film adaptation of the 1960’s TV series, The Prisoner—a project the outlet notes the director was formerly “attached to in 2009,” but “the sci-fi project vanished from Nolan’s dance card that same year when AMC released its own The Prisoners, a six-part miniseries led by Jim Caviezel as the ill-fated agent Number Six alongside Ian McKellen and Ruth Wilson.”
Untitled Lee Cronin Projects
THR reports Evil Dead Rise director Lee Cronin “has joined forces with frequent collaborators John Keville and Macdara Kelleher of Wild Atlantic Pictures” to launch Doppelgängers, “a new production outfit focused on genre fare” that’s already signed “a first-look deal with New Line Cinema for its feature film projects.”
Cuckoo
According to Bloody-Disgusting, Tilman Singer’s horror film Cuckoo has been rated “R” for “violence, bloody images, language and brief teen drug use.” Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens, Jessica Henwick, Marton Csókás, Greta Fernández and Jan Bluthardt star.
Inside Out 2
Disney has released character posters of Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, Disgust, Anxiety, Ennui, Envy and Embarrassment as they appear in Inside Out 2.
Wynonna Earp: Vengeance
Filming has officially wrapped on the Wynonna Earp revival movie, according to series creator Emily Andras on Instagram.
Reach has fallen in the Halo TV universe. If you know anything about the lore of the Halo games, you know that the next thing that’s supposed to happen is Master Chief escaping from Covenant forces above Reach, his ship getting attacked, and then promptly crashing onto the series’ first Halo ring. In other words, this is basically the moment where the action starts. That is not what happened in the Halo TV series. Instead, Chief (Pablo Schreiber) and his friends took a reflective excursion to a backwater planet that felt a lot more like a detour than character development.
After escaping Reach, Chief and everyone else on the escape ship with him (which is basically all of the still-living series regulars except for Kate Kennedy’s Kai), visit Aleria, a small dirt farming planet with plenty of land to spare and nearly toxic soil. After an episode as big and exciting as the Fall of Reach, this feels like a very HBO-style respite: the kind of episode dedicated to taking stock of the characters we lost and examining the new shape of the world after a big shake-up. But those shows earn those reflective episodes with consistent quality before them, and they tend to make those quiet episodes feel ever bigger and more important than the loud ones. That was certainly not the case in Halo season 2’s fifth episode.
Photo: Adrienn Szabo/Paramount Plus
In defense of the Halo series’ entire premise, it has no obligation to follow the events of the games directly. Since the show’s announcement, the creative team behind it has been careful to specify that this series takes place in the “Silver Timeline,” which is completely separate from the canon of the games. So going somewhere other than Halo after the Fall of Reach isn’t really a problem. The problem is that the show once again fails the most basic and important test of doing interesting things with those changes.
The series seems convinced that the audience loves and cares about its side characters. But they’re just not interesting. During this episode the most coherent plotline we spend time with involves Soren (the wonderful Bokeem Woodbine, trying his best as always) and his wife searching for their child. We see them question various people around the village, and even find someone they think is keeping their kid from them. But by the end of the episode, they discover that he was actually kidnapped by the UNSC — an organization we almost exclusively know at this point as the military that loves kidnapping children. It’s a bland, “no shit” reveal that feels both too obvious and totally meaningless at the same time. Another of the episode’s plotlines involves Riz, a Spartan who was introduced just a few episodes ago, deciding that she wants to be a farmer now that she is too injured to be a Spartan.
With plotlines this boring, about characters that the show never really does a good job of convincing us to care about, it’s getting awfully hard not to long for the circular perfection and alien weirdness of the Halo rings that give this franchise its name. So why aren’t we there yet?
The answer seems to lie in the Halo show’s approach to the rings in general. The series clearly recognizes one of the great strengths of the first game was that Halo was profoundly mysterious. But the show is approaching that mystery in a very different way than the original game did.
Photo: Adrienn Szabo/Paramount Plus
For the game, the mystery of Halo was in how little information you had about both the alien ring and the video game’s world. Aside from the basic premise of humanity being on the back foot in a war against aliens, almost everything else was a black box. So when you crash-land on Halo in the game’s second level (a level also called “Halo”), the path is clear for the game to slowly reveal its secrets about Forerunners, the Covenant religion, the Flood, 343 Guilty Spark, and everything else that feels commonplace in the series today. The TV series, on the other hand, decided to make Halo a destination. Instead of giving us no lore, it’s been stacking up piles and piles of lore through its first two seasons and dangling the Halo ring in front of his via characters’ prophetic visions. This path to Halo isn’t inherently bad; a well-done buildup and reveal can make for a fantastic moment in a TV show. But like the Hatch in Lost, the key is that you have to show the audience why the thing is mysterious and important — you have to really prove it to us, not just have characters bombard us with insistent dialogue that it matters. And more importantly, the characters actually have to get into it eventually.
None of this is to say that the show has run out of time to make it to Halo, or even that it can’t be good once it gets there. But it is to say that the journey there so far has felt profoundly misjudged and way too slow, and it’s starting to feel like it might not happen at all. In this episode, Makee (Charlie Murphy) tries to convince the Arbiter to go to the Halo rings because she insists that the Prophets are lying about the Great Journey, telling the rest of the Covenant fanciful stories about its importance and transcending the physical realm, but never actually planning to take them along on their trip to divinity. Now, I’m not saying that the Halo series is the Prophets and we’re the rest of the Covenant, but I am saying that our lack of a journey to a Halo ring is starting to feel a little suspicious, and they’re running out of time to convince me we’re really going.
Ben, Jessica Clemons, and Matt James discuss rumors about Xbox games appearing on PlayStation, Disney infiltrating Fortnite, and the Knuckles trailer. Then they share bite-sized reviews of Tekken 8 and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth and Matt’s takeaway from a hands-on preview of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth. Then Charles Holmes joins Ben and Jess to discuss Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and the future of live service and superhero games (28:16), before Ben and Jess give their impressions of Halo Season 2 (51:36).
Host: Ben Lindbergh Guests: Jessica Clemons, Matt James, and Charles Holmes Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal
The team behind the polarizing Halo TV series on Paramount+ really wants to change your mind in season two. In the lead up to the latest season’s debut, everyone from producer Kiki Wolfkill to new showrunner David Wiener and even Master Chief himself (Pablo Schreiber) have told us this is a new angle, not necessarily a “reset” but certainly a reevaluation. The team’s attempts to rejig the series based on the iconic first-person shooter franchise are obvious just moments into “Sanctuary,” the first episode in season two.
Take A Tour Through Halo Infinite’s Newest Arena Maps
Is it a good episode? I’d say yes. It’s even a good Halo adaptation, though a few of the first season’s problems linger. But overall, “Sanctuary” is exactly what it needs to be—a reintroduction to Master Chief and his team of Spartans, a reminder of the stakes, and a readjustment that looks to set the series on a stronger course. Let’s get into it.
Sangheili in the mist
The episode begins where it should: with the core four that is the Spartan Silver Team—consisting of Schreiber’s John-117, Kai-125 (Kate Kennedy), Riz-028 (Natasha Culzac), and Vannak-134—embedded in a “babysitting” mission on the planet Sanctuary, which is mid-evacuation. They’re pissy, because this is a mission for a team of lesser caliber than them, but they’re clearly being sidelined for a reason.
From the outset, it’s obvious that season two got a visual upgrade—an early shot of the Spartans camped on top of a mountain looks beautiful, from the striations in the sedimentary rock to the subtle sheen of their Mjolnir armor. It’s like the rework Halo Infinite’s visuals got after the first look at the campaign was met with middling reactions and the memeification of one especially Playdoh-looking brute fans nicknamed Craig.
As John and Riz run off to help the Marines diplomatically remove the planet’s citizens, we get a chance to see more of Vannak’s personality—he’s removed the emotional inhibitor chip implanted in the Spartans, which Kai and John did last season. Though he remains stoic, and acts affronted when Kai asks him how he feels, he admits that lately, he’s been enjoying watching nature documentaries in his spare time. Just a few moments later, as the team gets word of a missing Marine unit and John rushes off to investigate, Vannak compares Chief’s hesitancy to scale the rock face to the ease with which an ibex could pull off the same thing. If this season just featured Silver Team bantering while coming to terms with their personalities as full-grown adult supersoldiers, I’d give it five stars.
Image: Paramount+ / 343 Industries
Unlike the video-gamey action we saw in the first episode of season one (which featured first-person views and a HUD almost identical to the one in the Halo games), “Sanctuary” gives us straight-up, no chaser action from the jump—and it’s good. Chief, after scaling the cliff face with his grappling hook (he’s not an ibex), finds himself surrounded by soupy, dense fog. It’s blocking his comms, too, and the team is eager to extract everyone because some Covenant ships have been spotted in orbit.
John finds the Marines, and what follows is a horror-tinged, action-packed scene that hits all the right notes for live-action Halo. Some of the Marines are yanked into the dense fog by invisible attackers, who are revealed to be cloaked Elites. Kinetic, hand-to-hand combat between John and several of the big baddies ends with him victorious (of course), until we see several energy swords ignite on the horizon, followed by several more. It’s scary, and serves as a reminder that Halo is about humanity fighting against a previously unknown and terrifying alien force. It helps that the scene is set in fog, as the CGI reads much better than in the first season.
Chief gets back to the evac ship just in time for the team to leave before the Covenant glasses the planet, but he’s clearly shaken up by the ordeal. Not just because the Covenant attack was massive in scope, but because he maybe probably definitely saw Makee (the human-turned-Covenant-sympathizer and his former lover) in the mist before the alien soldiers retreated into it.
Master Chief unmasked, but not unbothered
Back on Reach, Silver Team is decompressing from the mission, which resulted in the deaths of all the Marines, save for the one John helped to the evac ship. During their debriefing, Captain Jacob Keyes (Danny Sapani) tells them that these kinds of attacks have been happening across the outer colonies, but he doesn’t seem interested in John’s questions and concerns. As his frustration grows, we get a mid-scene introduction to this season’s new bureaucratic bastard, James Ackerson (Joseph Morgan), who saunters in and takes a seat with the kind of dickish swagger Morgan has perfected (have you seen The Vampire Diaries, c’mon now). He’s here to replace Dr. Catherine Halsey (Natascha McElhone), who faked her own death last season to disappear after causing a bit of a coup.
Morgan is excellent casting here, an absolute scene-stealer, and a son-of-a-bitch to boot—any scene with him in it is better than half the ones from last season, and I’m sure that’ll be the same going forward. He grounds Silver Team, refusing to deploy them into battle until he can sign off on John’s mental status.
But then Halo starts to stumble again. Though I adore Bokeem Woodbine and love his portrayal of Spartan-turned-pirate Soren-066, his B-plot feels even more flimsy than last season. It’s hard to shift from the Spartans’ plight against the Covenant and Chief’s grappling with his emotions to really care about a man trying to maintain a hold on his pirate empire—even with all the beautiful things Woodbine does with Soren, from the brilliant way he plays guarded and hyper-aware, like a big cat on the open plains, to the softness clearly hiding behind that modded Mjolnir armor. I find my attention wandering whenever the episode swaps to Soren’s story, though it does seem that he is on a fast-track to getting wrapped up in the main plot—as he goes looking for Halsey to get the bounty on her head (and for a personal vendetta he won’t admit to) but is betrayed and kidnapped by unknown attackers.
Image: Paramount+ / 343 Industries
When Halo snaps back to John, I snap back to attention, whether it’s his back-and-forth with Ackerson about what happened on Sanctuary (Ackerson gaslights him) or the desperate moment in which he goes to, basically, a VR escort that he makes take the shape of Cortana (Jen Taylor). The nerds can continue arguing amongst themselves about whether or not John should take his mask off, because Schrieber is so good in this role, and a huge part of that is being able to see emotions play across his face.
The episode ends with John envisioning Makee (who did appear to die in the last episode of season one) warning him that he “should have stayed with [her]” while a flashback shows Kwan-Ha (Yerin Ha) telling a scary story to Soren’s son, Kessler (Tylan Bailey) in a shadowy cave. “It’s very old, the monster. Older than the light. Older than this rock. Older than your God,” she says. “It knows us. Inside and out. Smells our fear. Sees our secrets. It’s been here. All that time. Waiting.”
Covenant ships rise from the clouds of an unknown planet. Reach is coming.
The second episode of Halo season two is available now on Paramount+, review to come soon.
After becoming obsessed with the Energy Sword featured in the Halo franchise, Youtuber Plasma Channel decided to construct the next best thing: a hunting knife with a 20,000-volt plasma core that can cut, shock, and burn simultaneously. I must have one for my own knife collection. Granted, I don’t have a knife collection, but what better way to start one than with a plasma knife?
Named the FS Blade, the knife has a hilt reminiscent of a lightsaber, weighs 0.75 pounds, and measures 14 inches in total length. It uses 80W of power to generate 20,000-volt plasma in the form of ionized air particles blown between the twin blades via a fan in the hilt. Awesome, now I just need one of those real-life lightsabers to complete my once-thought-fictional laser weaponry arsenal.
Is the knife practical? Probably only at looking cool. Sure, it cuts a green pepper in the video, but it’s not exactly a chef’s knife. It also lights a couple of candles and burns the ends of damaged plant leaves, but that’s about it. Still, to be perfectly clear, that isn’t stopping me from wanting one any less.
First introduced in 2022’s Modern Warfare II, Call of Duty currently features a nonlinear battle pass themed like a geographic map. While this allows players to choose what they want to unlock from the pass instead of going through a scripted path, it can be a little confusing to newcomers used to more traditional, linear sets of unlockables. What’s more, the “token” system that CoD uses to unlock stuff from the battle pass can be a little confusing as well, especially if you’re not sure whether you should just let the pass automatically unlock itself by spending tokens for you. – Claire Jackson Read More
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