Would there ever be a world in which the Halo TV show was actually good? This is a question I've been asking myself ever since I got on a plane last week and watched the first disastrous episode, and the answer is no. ” I came to the conclusion that. A TV show that explores the world of Halo, like Andor in Star Wars, might work, but at what point does it stop being a Halo TV show and stop having the famous IP on the poster? Will it transition to more general science fiction?
At the moment, after the massive success of The Last of Us' TV adaptation, every game and its mother is getting the green light to hit the small screen. Some games, like Naughty Dog's narrative zombie two-parter, seem like a great fit for the transition. Many others don't. For example, halo. Or even the god of war.
Narrative games are an easy option. TV executives can greenlight shot-for-shot remakes of games without any of the interactivity that makes them special. This works in The Last of Us, which has a lot of incredibly emotional story beats and characters ripe for further exploration. I don't think it would work very well in God of War, for example. This is because the story is not very strong and needs to be backed up with solid action gameplay to keep the player's interest. This also means throwing away a well-known game. A single-camera trick that helps keep the story focused in God of War.
This also applies to Halo. The story of a Halo game is secondary to the feel of his assault rifle in the hand or the serotonin of clearing out a Banished camp. Halo games have clever level design and most have inventive multiplayer modes to keep things interesting and exciting. What's the story of Halo Infinite? No, I don't even know.
TV executives need to stop and think before they start producing any more video game TV shows. You have to ask yourself, “Will this really work?” And think about how.
It's not just about choosing a narrative game. I'm sure Final Fantasy 7 would make a great TV show, and so would Celeste. Rather than recreating intense platforming on screen, we want viewers to feel the tension of an exhausting climb in a way that only television can. We want the protagonist to slip on crumbling scaffolding, long shots of pebbles falling hundreds of meters below. Let's up the stakes. A ghostly personification of Madeline's doubts and fears, Celeste is easily expressed through intense monologues and cutting-edge special effects. A Celeste TV show will happen, but it's not about platforming.
This is where Halo went wrong. We thought it had to be a first-person shooter TV show. In the first episode, the Master repeatedly switches to a first-person perspective from his chief's helmet with his annoying HUD. Doom said he tried to avoid mentioning it in 2005, but 20 years later, has he done the same thing more than once?
TV program about war work. Band of Brothers, Sharp, and even Dad's Army are all good examples of this. But do you know what none of them do? Let's attach a camera to the main character's helmet and recreate the first-person shooter game. Just because the source material comes from a video game doesn't mean the resulting adaptation has to look like a video game.
The success of The Last of Us will no doubt have TV executives foaming at the mouth, ready to turn a mediocre gaming IP into a high-end show. But that's not all there is to it. The Last of Us may be the only video game in the world to work with such a 1:1 adaptation. Halo deserves a different treatment, perhaps akin to Edge of Tomorrow or Star Trek, where the Master Chief is on a mission of exploration rather than a front-line force in a series of never-ending wars. After all, Band of Brothers Adversity doesn't work very well when the main characters are supersoldiers.
God of War has the potential to work. At least it has strong characters, but I'd love to see Kratos in a fresh story made specifically for TV. I just hope it's more like Vikings than the third-person action RPG original.
