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.”
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.
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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 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.
Halo Infinite is killing its seasonal model in 2024. Three years after its initial launch, the live-service multiplayer shooter is shifting toward more bite-sized, 20-level battle passes arriving every four to six weeks. Developer 343 industries announced the content change in its January update stream on January 19, along with several other major features, cosmetics, and more that are set to arrive on the FPS this year
Take A Tour Through Halo Infinite’s Newest Arena Maps
This guide will take you through everything you need to know about Halo Infinite in 2024—and it’s all looking rather exciting.
Halo Infinite in 2024: Goodbye Seasons, hello Operations
343 Industries didn’t mince words regarding the future of Halo Infinite’s content releases. As community director Brian Jarrard said during the stream, “we’re shifting away from seasons.” Seasons would arrive every few months, usually with some kind of theme and 100-tiers of unlockables through the battle pass. Instead, you can now look forward to regular “Operations,” starting with “Spirit of Fire” on January 30. Each Operation will have 20 levels of rewards to chew through, so while they’re not called “seasons” any more, things should still feel somewhat similar.
Operation Spirit of Fire isn’t the only thing arriving on January 30, however. You can look forward to the following additions once this update arrives:
Mark IV armor core (free for all players)
The ability to swap shoulders across different armor cores
A new 4v4 arena map named “Illusion”
Get hyped for Halo Infinite’s new map, “Illusion”
The new map, “Illusion” will have a symmetrical layout, making it great for competitive play as it ensures more even starts for each team. There’s even a super-narrow corridor running straight through the center with an uninterrupted sightline between opposing enemy bases, which will likely be a magnet for some serious carnage. If you’ve ever played Husky Raid, which has teams of Spartans face off against one another in a simple corridor, you know how deadly hallways can get in Halo. There’s also a lot of variable elevation from what we saw in the stream.
This new map is looking really promising and should be an excellent addition to the map rotation across various playlists.
Gif: 343 Industries / Kotaku
But that’s not all! Remember that corridor running straight through the map? Well, if you step in there, you go invisible. Objective based games like capture the flag or even king of the hill ought to see some interesting plays with a stealthy option like that so readily available.
The possibility that future maps might contain interesting augmentations like readily accessible invisibility or unique power weapons sounds like a welcome change from the usual rollout of standard arena maps that recycle the same guns and traversal methods.
Halo Infinite is leaning into nostalgia
Though there have been a few variations on Halo’s iconic assault rifle in Infinite, the stock assault rifle is reminiscent of the one that appeared in 2010’s Halo Reach. Joining this will be a new skin for the assault rifle that makes it look just like the assault rifle from Halo Combat Evolved, the game that started it all. As it’s just a skin, it won’t come with any change in stats (sorry, no 60-round magazine). The skin will be a part of the paid version of the January 30 operation.
Screenshot: 343 Industries / Kotaku
And the new Mark IV armor core, which is from the 2009 RTS spinoff Halo Wars, will also drop as a free cosmetic for all players.
Finally, in what seems like a cosmetic element pulled from the new “Illusion” map, there’s a square-shaped overshield that looks straight out of Halo Combat Evolved. It’s little things like this which help sell Halo as a cohesive world—and given the amount of stylistic changes the series has gone through, these unifying features are more than welcome.
Forge and playlist updates are on the way
If you’re into Forge creations, there’s some other fun headed your way on January 30, including Covenant-themed items in a nod to the series’ main antagonists and lovers of all things purple. Extra color customization options will also be available on January 30, which will add even more color options to choose from across the wide variety of in-game objects in Forge. Finally, “script brains,” which is a fancy term for code that lets complex objects t behave in unique ways, can be saved to game modes and used on multiple maps—previously script brains were inherently tied to a specific map.
Screenshot: 343 Industries / Kotaku
There’re also Flood-themed items coming to Forge, as well. Based on Halo’s undead enemy faction, these assets look particularly gnarly. Brian Jarrard referred to them as “moist” on stream. You’re welcome.
Finally, Big Team Battle will get three community maps added into the rotation in February, as well as refreshes to Husky Raid, Squad Battle, and Firefight. But most importantly, a new way of selecting matches is expected to arrive sometime in 2024 that is similar to Halo: The Master Chief Collection’s “Match Composer,” which lets you search across broad categories like player count, game type, and more (instead of mode-specific playlists).If you’re sick of playlists locking you into the same game modes over and over again, this should be a great way to customize what games you want to play. It works wonderfully in The Master Chief Collection.
If you’re looking to get some more time in with Halo Infinite, 2024 is shaping up to be a very good year for the iconic shooter franchise.
Though Halo Infinite might be drawing folks back with its expanding map diversity and new customization options, the in-game cosmetics shop is still rubbing fans the wrong way. A recent skin intended to be a tribute to the very first Halo game, 2001’s Halo: Combat Evolved, is drawing a bit of attention not for its looks, but because it’s currently twice the cost of the entirety of Halo: Combat Evolved (see on Amazon).
Take A Tour Through Halo Infinite’s Newest Arena Maps
Though The Master Chief Collection played around with free, live-service quirks like seasons and battle passes, Halo Infinite marked the series’ first full shift, with a free-to-play multiplayer augmented by microtransactions and season passes, to a live service title. That shift, among other things, hasn’t been very popular with the community, particularly where it concerns pricing of in-game cosmetics. That discomfort continues with the Mark V Halo: Combat Evolved skin, which feature Master Chief’s original armor design and colors.
“For half of the price of the new bundle” a Reddit thread on r/Halo starts, “you can buy the entirety of [Halo: Combat Evolved], the game it’s from, on Steam.” The bundle costs 2,200 in-game credits. That boils down to about $20. As you can buy Halo: CE for just $10 a la carte on Steam, that’s more than double the cost of Master Chief’s premiere game.
So in theory you could buy two copies of Halo: Combat Evolved on Steam, one for you and another for a friend to play cooperatively in one of the most influential first-person shooters of the 21st century. I assure you, that’ll be a lot more fun than a skin.
But the price isn’t the only thing that’s annoying. Were it so easy.
In Halo Infinite, player skins are divided up into “cores,” each core representing a certain style of armor from the Halo universe; the “Mark V [B],” for example, is based on the design from 2010’s Halo Reach. Each core has its own set of helmets, chest plates, shoulders, armor colors (referred to as armor “coatings” in-game), and more.
Frustratingly, you can’t customize the individual parts across different cores. That changed a little bit with season five; you can now use helmets, visor colors, and some coatings across different cores. The problem is that the Mark V suit isn’t a core, but rather an armor “kit” for the Mark VII core; you’re far more restricted in how you can customize the set. You can’t even stick the helmet on other designs. The gold visor is cross-core compatible though, as well as green coating—though about that…
While the Mark V’s specific armor coating is usable across cores, some players are pointing out that the certain shade of green is almost identical to the free green coating that comes with the game. Yes, the “Cadet Sage” armor is ever so slightly darker, but at the pace of action Halo Infinite usually goes, it’s not like this looks wildly different during gameplay.
So yeah, go play Halo: Combat Evolved if you haven’t. The gameplay is aging a bit, but it’s an essential first-person shooter campaign of the modern era if there ever was one.
