After years of enthusiasts hypothesizing otherwise, Halo Wars‘ principal designer has disclosed that the absence of a prominent franchise protagonist from the 2009 spinoff wasn’t Bungie‘s responsibility after all.
“We didn’t intend to utilize Master Chief,” Ensemble Studios’ Dave Pottinger shares with the VideoGamer Podcast regarding their decision to exclude the character from the RTS, as the game “needed you to connect with everyone else. We believed once Master Chief arrives, that’s what everyone will [focus on],” he elaborates. This suggests that speculations of Bungie snubbing Ensemble by withholding the Master Chief license – and that the creator opposed the game’s very existence – aren’t accurate after all.
Launching a franchise renowned for delivering some of the greatest first-person shooters in history, Pottinger emphasized how the gameplay mechanics necessitated players to maintain an open perspective in Halo Wars, and how lacking Master Chief made fans less likely to automatically favor the Spartans. Nonetheless, the choice to exclude him completely was not made lightly. Ensemble “engaged in serious discussions with individuals both internally and externally,” noted Pottinger, which left the studio with a new question to contemplate: “How can this be an RTS? Obviously, Spartans are the premier unit. Our task is to ensure Spartans aren’t the premier unit, but rather making them a viable option [in comparison to] the other units. That’s the essence of a strategy game.”
Having a Halo title missing Master Chief may seem like a miscalculation at first glance, but when Pottinger frames it this way, it becomes entirely logical. Considering the cult following the modest RTS has garnered…