It may come as a surprise to some that Halo actually has a single-player component. Thousands of Halo fans play the games solely for the competitive multiplayer and will buy the game with no intention of ever playing through the game's main story.
Frankly, that's a shame: Halo boasts a surprisingly strong story, and the teams at Bungie and 343 Industries have crafted one of the most detailed science fiction universes out there. Sure, there are a few elements of the story that ape other sci-fi properties, but for a game that started out as nothing more than "man in green armor kills everything," Halo has a surprisingly rich lore. Seeing as how Halo 5: Guardians is set to continue the saga later on this year, we thought it'd be a good time to look back at the adventures of the Master Chief.
For the sake of brevity, we'll only be looking at the events of the main games in the series: trying to catalog everything about the Halo Expanded Universe would require its own encyclopedia. If you've been wondering about what's going on in the games, or simply want to brush up on what you've already played through, here's everything you need to know about the story of Halo.
The Characters
Master Chief
The Chief and Cortana followed the Didact back to Earth and were able to infiltrate his ship. A grueling battle followed — one that seemingly took Cortana's life. The Chief managed to finally confront the Didact, though the Forerunner's strength was far more than he could withstand. For a moment, it seemed as if the Chief would lose — until a fully-rampant Cortana restrained the Didact just long enough for the Master Chief to attach a grenade to the villain's armor. The grenade incapacitated the Forerunner long enough for the Chief to destroy the ship and its weapons, saving humanity yet again.
However, victory had come at an extremely high cost: Cortana had used the last of her energy protecting the Chief from the ship's destruction. With a final goodbye, Cortana succumbed to her Rampancy and slowly faded away. It wasn't long before the Chief was rescued, but something had changed: Cortana had been his only to link to any real sense of humanity, and she was gone. All that was left was an empty shell.
As far as the games are concerned, no one knows what happened to the Master Chief after Cortana "died." The Halo 2: Anniversary campaign showed that the humans are working with the Arbiter and his troops, and promotional materials have shown that the Chief and Spartan Locke are at odds with one another, but ... what exactly is the Master Chief up to?
It'll still be a while before fans find out: Halo 5: Guardians is set to launch on Oct. 27.
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