User:Famous Hobo/sandbox

File:Peter Jackson SDCC 2014.jpg's game studio Wingnut Interactive.]]

Halo Chronicles was intended to be an narrative-driven episodic game about a human character who slowly merges with alien technology.{{cite web|last=Haske|first=Steve|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-complete-untold-history-of-halo-an-oral-history/#ulf-1|title=The Complete, Untold History of Halo|website=Vice|date=May 30, 2017|accessdate=May 4, 2025}} By the end of the story, the character body would have been completely altered into a Promethean, an alien race that would eventually be introduced in Halo 4. Bungie partnered with filmmaker Peter Jackson to produce Halo Chronicles, and development would have been handled primarily by Jackson's recently formed game studio Wingnut Interactive.{{cite web|last=Argüello|first=Diego Nicolás|url=https://www.polygon.com/features/22808131/canceled-halo-games-halo-mmo-peter-jackson-halo-ds|title=The Halo Games That Weren't|website=Polygon|date=November 29, 2021|accessdate=May 4, 2025}} Jackson was interested in the narrative capabilities of video games, and when Halo Chronicles was announced at the 2006 X trade show, he described it as "not quite a game, not quite a film ... Instead of making a film, we [will] make a form of entertainment that you can watch and enjoy like you would a film."{{cite web|last=Makuch|first=Eddie|url=https://www.gamespot.com/articles/halo-co-creator-talks-about-canceled-game-with-lord-of-the-rings-director-peter-jackson/1100-6494104/|title=Halo Co-Creator Talks About Canceled Game With Lord Of The Rings Director Peter Jackson|website=GameSpot|date=July 19, 2021|accessdate=May 4, 2025}}

The origins of Halo Chronicles date to 2005, when Jackson first visited Bungie. At the time, Bungie was busy with the development of Halo 3 and preliminary work on Halo 4, and as a result, the only developers that routinely communicated with Jackson and Wingnut were Joseph Staten and Paul Bertone. Staten pitched a story that revolved around the premise "be the bullet". Bertone remarked, "We wanted to take the player on this emotional and gameplay journey from just being human to being a modified human. Not modified in the sense that you just put on power armor, but where there's biological shit actually happening to you." At one point in the story, the player would end up in orbit and could destroy alien spacecraft by turning themselves into a missile. Gameplay would have differed significantly from mainline Halo games, as it would have focused on melee combat instead of gunfights. According to Bertone, the player could only deal damage with a powerful melee attack. The player was given access to weapons that would push enemies away and stun them. Additionally, they could double jump and dash midair. Due to the weaker main character, Bertone and developer Damian Isla reworked the enemy artificial intelligence (AI) so that the player would only deal with a few enemies at a time as opposed to an entire group. Isla called this system "kung-fu", and reworked it for Halo 3: ODST.

Around this period, the Halo film that Jackson was producing was indefinitely postponed when 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures dropped out of the project.{{cite web|author=Anon.|url=https://www.ign.com/articles/2006/10/31/halo-holding|title=Halo Holding|website=IGN|date=October 31, 2006|accessdate=May 4, 2025}} Staten noted that although Halo Chronicles was not immediately affected by the postponement of the Halo film, it was likely the game would follow the same fate. Bungie and Wingnut were unable to coalesce their ideas for the game, and Halo Chronicles was abandoned without an official announcement. Bertone noted that although gameplay prototypes were developed, he was unable to design any levels since the story had yet to be finalized. In 2009 Microsoft effectively confirmed the cancelation of the game, when they stated that the game's developers had been moved onto other projects like Halo 3: ODST, Halo: Reach, and Halo Legends.{{cite web|last=Gilbert|first=Ben|url=http://www.joystiq.com/2009/07/28/microsoft-says-halo-chroncicles-is-on-hold-doesnt-use-the-c/|title=Microsoft says Halo Chronicles is 'on hold' - doesn't use the 'C' word|website=Joystiq|date=July 28, 2009|accessdate=May 4, 2025|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150127211332/http://www.joystiq.com/2009/07/28/microsoft-says-halo-chroncicles-is-on-hold-doesnt-use-the-c/|archivedate=January 27, 2015|url-status=dead}}

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