Halo: Combat Evolved is a 2001 military science fiction first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It was released as a launch title for Microsoft's Xbox video game console on November 15, 2001. Microsoft released versions of the game for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X in 2003. The game was later released as a downloadable Xbox Original for the Xbox 360. Halo is set in the twenty-sixth century, with the player assuming the role of the Master Chief, a cybernetically enhanced supersoldier. The Chief is accompanied by Cortana, an artificial intelligence. Players battle various aliens as they attempt to uncover the secrets of the eponymous Halo, a ring-shaped artificial world.
Halo is the name for a family of optical phenomena produced by sunlight interacting with ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. Halos can have many forms, ranging from colored or white rings to arcs and spots in the sky. Many of these appear near the Sun or Moon, but others occur elsewhere or even in the opposite part of the sky. Among the best known halo types are the circular halo, light pillars, and sun dogs, but many others occur; some are fairly common while others are (extremely) rare.
Halo generally refers to:
Halo 2 is a 2004 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie. Released for the Xbox video game console on November 9, 2004, the game is the second installment in the Halo franchise and the sequel to 2001's critically acclaimed Halo: Combat Evolved. A Microsoft Windows version of the game was released on May 31, 2007, developed by an internal team at Microsoft Game Studios known as Hired Gun. The game features a new game engine, as well as using the Havok physics engine; added weapons and vehicles, and new multiplayer maps. The player alternately assumes the roles of the human Master Chief and the alien Arbiter in a 26th-century conflict between the human United Nations Space Command, the genocidal Covenant, and the parasitic Flood.
The Covenant are a fictional theocratic military alliance of alien races who serve as the main antagonists in the first trilogy of the Halo video game series. They are composed of a variety of diverse species, united under the religious worship of the Forerunners and their belief that Forerunner ringworlds known as Halos will provide a path to salvation. After the Covenant leadership—the High Prophets—declare humanity an affront to their gods, claiming the extermination of humanity is the "will of the gods and [the Covenant] are [the gods'] instrument", the more advanced extraterrestrials subsequently prosecute a lengthy genocidal campaign against the technologically inferior human race.
The halo effect is a type of immediate judgement discrepancy, or cognitive bias, where a person making an initial assessment of another person, place, or thing will assume ambiguous information based upon concrete information. A simplified example of the halo effect is when an individual noticing that the person in the photograph is attractive, well groomed, and properly attired, assumes, using a mental heuristic, that the person in the photograph is a good person based upon the rules of that individual's social concept. This constant error in judgment is reflective of the individual's preferences, prejudices, ideology, aspirations, and social perception. The halo effect is an evaluation by an individual and can affect the perception of a decision, action, idea, business, person, group, entity, or other whenever concrete data is generalized or influences ambiguous information.
Halo is a fictional superheroine that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. She first appeared in a special insert in The Brave and the Bold #200, and was created by Mike W. Barr and Jim Aparo.
Halo 3 is a 2007 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the Halo franchise, the game concludes the story arc begun in 2001's Halo: Combat Evolved and continued in 2004's Halo 2. The game was released on September 25, 2007, in Australia, Brazil, India, New Zealand, North America, and Singapore; September 26, 2007, in Europe; and September 27, 2007, in Japan. Halo 3's story centers on the interstellar war between twenty-sixth century humanity, a collection of alien races known as the Covenant, and the alien parasite Flood. The player assumes the role of the Master Chief, a cybernetically enhanced supersoldier, as he battles the Covenant and the Flood. The game features vehicles, weapons, and gameplay elements not present in previous titles of the series, as well as the addition of saved gameplay films, file sharing, and the Forge map editor—a utility which allows the player to perform modifications to multiplayer levels.
Halo is a military science fiction first-person shooter video game franchise managed and developed by 343 Industries, a subsidiary of Xbox Game Studios. Halo was originally developed by Bungie Studios. The series centers on an interstellar war between humanity and an alliance of aliens known as the Covenant. The Covenant, led by their religious leaders called the Prophets, worship an ancient civilization known as the Forerunners, who perished while defeating the parasitic Flood. The central focus of the franchise builds off the experiences of Master Chief John-117, one of a group of supersoldiers codenamed Spartans, and his artificial intelligence (AI) companion, Cortana. Other characters, such as Noble Six from Halo: Reach, are also introduced in the series. The term "Halo" refers to the Halo Array: a group of immense, habitable, ring-shaped superweapons that were created by the Forerunners to destroy the Flood. They are similar to the Orbitals in Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, and to a lesser degree to author Larry Niven's Ringworld concept.
Recurring characters of the Halo multimedia franchise are organized below by their respective affiliations within the series' fictional universe. The franchise's central story revolves around conflict between humanity under the auspices of the United Nations Space Command or UNSC, and an alien alliance known as the Covenant. The artifacts left behind by an ancient race known as the Forerunner play a central role—particularly the ringworlds known as Halos, built to contain the parasitic Flood.
Halo-halo, also spelled haluhalo, is a popular Filipino cold dessert which is a concoction of crushed ice, evaporated milk and various ingredients including, among others, ube, sweetened beans, coconut julienes, sago, gulaman, pinipig rice, boiled root crops in cubes, fruit slices, flan, and topped with a scoop of ice cream.
Halo: Contact Harvest is a military science fiction novel by Joseph Staten, based on the Halo series of video games. The book was released in October 2007 and is the fifth Halo novel, following 2006's Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, written by Eric Nylund. Staten was a longtime employee of Bungie, the developer of the Halo video game series; he directed the cut scenes in the video games and is a major contributor to Halo's storyline. He set out to write a novel that appealed to gamers, as well as those who had never read a Halo novel.
Halo 4 is a first-person shooter developed by 343 Industries and published by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox 360 video game console. The seventh video game installment in the Halo franchise, the game was released in November 2012. Halo 4's story follows a cybernetically enhanced human supersoldier, Master Chief, and his artificial intelligence construct Cortana, as they encounter unknown threats while exploring an ancient civilization's planet. The player assumes the role of Master Chief, who battles remnants of the former military alliance of alien races known as the Covenant and mechanical warriors of the Forerunner empire known as the Prometheans. The game features a selection of weapons, enemies, and game modes not present in previous titles of the series.
The Halo video game and media franchise takes place in a science fiction universe, where there are four major factions players encounter or control. Halo's story has 26th century humanity, led by the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), caught in a war with an alien coalition known as the Covenant. In the 2001 video game Halo: Combat Evolved, the UNSC ship Pillar of Autumn discovers a mysterious ringworld known as "Halo". The massive installation was built by an enigmatic race known as the Forerunners, who have long since disappeared; the Covenant worship the Forerunners as gods. During the course of the game, players discover that the Halos were built as a weapon of last resort against the Flood, an extragalactic parasite which is driven to consume all sentient life. The Forerunners were forced to activate the Halo network, killing themselves and any potential Flood hosts, in an effort to starve the Flood to death. The Covenant leadership discovered Humans could interact with Forerunner technology, and decide to destroy humanity in order to suppress this fact. The Flood, meanwhile, escape the confines of Halo and threaten to spread across the galaxy again.
Halo 3: ODST is a 2009 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It is part of the Halo franchise, and was released on the Xbox 360 video game console on September 22, 2009. Players assume the roles of United Nations Space Command soldiers, known as "Orbital Drop Shock Troopers" or ODSTs, during and after the events of Halo 2. In the game's campaign mode, players explore the ruined city of New Mombasa to discover what happened to their missing teammates in the midst of an alien invasion. In the "Firefight" multiplayer option, players battle increasingly difficult waves of enemies to score points and survive as long as possible; Halo 3's multiplayer is contained on a separate disc packaged with ODST.
Halo Wars is a real-time strategy (RTS) video game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 video game console. It was released in Australia on February 26, 2009; in Europe on February 27; and in North America on March 3. The game is set in the science fiction universe of the Halo series in the year 2531, 21 years before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. The player leads human soldiers aboard the warship Spirit of Fire in an effort to stop an ancient fleet of ships from falling into the hands of the genocidal alien Covenant.
Halo: Reach is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios originally for the Xbox 360 home video game console. The sixth installment in the Halo series, and a direct prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved, Reach was released worldwide in September 2010. The game takes place in the year 2552, where humanity is locked in a war with the alien Covenant. Players control Noble Six, a member of an elite supersoldier squad, when the human world known as Reach falls under Covenant attack.
343 Industries is an American video game developer located in Redmond, Washington. Named after the Halo character 343 Guilty Spark, the company was established in 2007 by Microsoft Game Studios to oversee the development of the Halo science fiction media franchise following a split between Microsoft and Bungie. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary was the first title released by 343 Industries in which they played a lead development role. The newest release from the company was Halo: Fireteam Raven in 2018. 343 is currently developing Halo Infinite.
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is a first-person shooter video game set in the Halo universe and is an enhanced remake of Halo: Combat Evolved. Microsoft announced the game alongside Halo 4 at the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo. The game was released on November 15, 2011—the 10th anniversary of the original title's launch—for the Xbox 360 game console, and re-released as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection for the Xbox One on November 11, 2014.
Halo 5: Guardians is a first-person shooter video game developed by 343 Industries and published by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox One home video game console. The tenth installment and fifth main entry in the Halo series of video games, it was released worldwide on October 27, 2015. The game's plot follows two fireteams of human supersoldiers: Blue Team, led by Master Chief, and Fireteam Osiris, led by Spartan Locke. When the former goes absent without leave to track down the artificial intelligence construct Cortana, Master Chief's loyalty is called into question, and Fireteam Osiris is sent to retrieve him.
