Oh, what could’ve been. Now that Activision is handling development of the next Halo game and Halo Studios has been reduced to a support studio for existing releases, we can only imagine what the next installment in Master Chief’s adventures would’ve looked like from that team. A selection of concept art provides some insight into their vision for Halo 7, and it points towards an intriguing game.
Alex Wakeford, a franchise writer at Halo Studios, published what’s now believed to be the final issue of Canon Fodder, a newsletter dedicated to updates on the property. This one contains snippets of ideas for what the seventh mainline Halo game, set on Zeta Halo, was intended to look like.
Several locations get brief descriptions alongside adjoining imagery. One such spot is the Containment Facility, a place “overseen by the submonitor known as Adjutant Repose,” who has to initiate lockdown when it’s visited by Reclaimers and those dratted Flood start running amok.
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“Like many facilities on Zeta Halo, timelock technology is utilized based on the Forerunners’ own knowledge of advanced higher dimensional engineering,” reads the description, “and information gleaned from study of the Ancestor-San’Shyuum alliance’s ‘time bolt’ feature applied to the cage of an ancient, terrible creature that once held dominion over the ring when it was designated Gyre 11.”
I would like to know more about this “ancient, terrible creature,” but alas. Between that and Fireteam Crimson having to hand over the slipcase artifact after they’re redirected, it seems like Halo 7 would’ve had a lot going on.
One particular image I enjoy is of a Promethean Knight, standing on a cliff above ground on Zeta Halo, after escaping the labs underneath the surface. It’s unknown what they’re looking at, but the vibes are pure Halo – an open field, primed for waves of combat, and a soldier ready to dive right in.
“The battle for Zeta Halo encompasses much of the ring’s surface,” reads another snippet, attached to images of several locales, running from a deep first to a snowy base, “taking place in vast fields of snow and ice, deep jungles with Banished steel embedded into mighty trees looming over the wetlands, sand-blasted ruins that were once home to the Tudejsa.”
Those pictures have real Return of the Jedi vibes to them. It seems like whatever Halo Studios was working on could’ve been quite a lot of fun. Whatever Activision makes, it better be big, epic, and have at least one scene of some alien dude hanging out on a mountain.
