14 DAY TRIAL // 343 Industries, the developer of the Halo series for Microsoft, has shared some of its plans in terms of story for the upcoming Halo 5: Guardians, confirming that the Forerunners will play a bigger role and that it won't kill off that many characters, as it doesn't want to be like the Game of Thrones TV show.
Halo 4 rolled out a new trilogy of games focusing on protagonist Master Chief and now, on the Xbox One, Microsoft is starting a Halo journey with this fall's Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which includes Halo 1, 2, 3, and 4, all remastered for the new console.
The Halo journey will also include TV content from producers like Ridley Scott or Steven Spielberg, not to mention books and comics that go in-depth about other characters in the series.
While talking about secondary heroes besides Master Chief, 343 Industries' Bonnie Ross told Eurogamer that her team isn't trying to copy Game of Thrones in terms of killing off major characters.
"We also had a tendency to kill all of our characters besides Master Chief. We are not Game of Thrones, and we actually want to make sure going forward we have a larger cast of characters with which to tell stories."
Ross also emphasized that the stories in the different Halo properties, whether they're games, TV shows, or books, need to make the universe simple for newcomers and not require lots of previous knowledge from fans.
"Stories need to stand alone, whether they're books, in the game, different animation and live action. The game has to stand alone and each of the stories has to stand alone. They are better together, but we're never making fans do the homework to make sure they understand all of these."
The 343 Industries developer also revealed that, with Halo 4, it tried to go a bit more in-depth about the Forerunners, even if the main enemies were another race of beings called Prometheans. Apparently, the Forerunners will play a bigger role in Halo 5: Guardians and in the future installments of the franchise.
"We decided to do a little bit more detail on the Forerunners," she explained. "We wanted to bring a new enemy class into Halo, so we spent a lot more time mapping out exactly what that culture is. It does play a big role in Halo 5 and beyond."
Halo: The Master Chief Collection debuts this fall, while Halo 5: Guardians and the TV content will appear in 2015.