Halo Trailer: Master Chief Suits Up For The Galaxy's Greatest Battle

"Halo" is finally coming to live-action, with us viewers at the front lines. The incredibly popular franchise, which began with the (literally) game-changing "Combat Evolved" in 2001 and ended with "Halo 4" (okay, that's a blatant lie because we can't ignore "Halo 5: Guardians" or the upcoming "Halo: Infinite," but let me pretend anyway!), has made its lasting mark on the medium of video games and continues to add to its legacy all these years later. Few character designs are as instantly recognizable as the imposing figure of John-117, aka the Master Chief, the permanently helmeted super-soldier who singlehandedly staved off humanity's destruction at the hands of the extraterrestrial Covenant legions (and even greater and more ancient forces too) on multiple occasions. Now, eager fans will get the chance to relive his adventures on the small screen, as this new "Halo" series arrives on the Paramount+ streaming service.

So far, the very brief amounts of footage we've seen to this point has mostly just set the tone and general atmosphere for the series, keeping specific details of the story close to the vest. That finally changes with this latest trailer, which gives us our biggest and boldest look yet. Check it out below!

No matter your preconceptions about this "Halo" production, it's difficult to say that none of this feels like "Halo." The footage might as well be taken straight from gameplay of anyone playing through the campaign of one of the next-gen games, though rendered even more cinematically with all the budget that this series had at its disposal. The show comes with built-in credibility from the casting of Pablo Schreiber ("American Gods," "Orange Is the New Black") as the mysterious protagonist Master Chief, who previously spoke about his task to "crack the veneer" of the faceless hero. As he put it:

"It takes place very much in the universe that the video games created, but it's a TV show. We get to expand that universe and create stories in it. There's going to be some new characters that are introduced, there's going to be a lot of familiar characters that everyone will know from the game."

If that's not enough to convince you that John-117 is in safe hands, he's also joined by a familiar face (or, rather, voice) in the form of Jen Taylor as Cortana, who previously voiced the helpful artificial intelligence throughout every game of the video game franchise. The rest of the cast includes Natascha McElhone as Dr. Catherine Halsey, Yerin Ha as Quan Ah, Bokeem Woodbine as fellow super-soldier Soren-066, Shabana Azmi as Admiral Margaret Parangosky (a figure only tangentially related to the games, but who receives far more background in the extensive "Halo" novels), Danny Sapani as Captain Jacob Keyes, and Olive Gray as his daughter Miranda.

The series appears set to dive deep into the origins of John and his background as a child stolen away and whisked into the government's top-secret military program, creating a generation of super-soldiers in the most unethical way possible. We can also expect to see the beginnings of the Human-Covenant war, the battle on the first Halo ring (as shown in, you guessed it, "Halo: Combat Evolved"), and many more surprises to come. 

Paramount's "Halo" series is scheduled to arrive exclusively on Paramount+ on March 24, 2022.

In its adaptation for Paramount+, HALO will take place in the universe that first came to be in 2001 with the launch of Xbox®'s first "Halo" game. Dramatizing an epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant, HALO the series will weave deeply drawn personal stories with action, adventure and a richly imagined vision of the future.