Bringing a franchise as popular and iconic as Halo to the small screen is no easy undertaking. The series has legions of dedicated fans and over a decade of lore to consider. In addition to that, the first-person shooter franchise also features one of the most iconic and mysterious protagonists in the modern era of gaming.

Halo fans have been wondering since the Showtimes series was announced whether or not the project would feature Master Chief in a lead role. Considering the Chief's mysterious nature, it could be very difficult to honor the franchise history by focusing on him. On the other side of the coin, some past Halo projects have proven that Halo without Master Chief just isn't really the same.

That said, Showtime apparently plans to move forward with including Master Chief as a lead character in the series. Showtime's President of Programming Gary Levine confirmed those plans in a recent interview with IGN.

Levine did also specify that Chief wouldn't be the only protagonist. It's likely that Halo will feature a larger cast of characters and Chief and his team will just be one piece of the puzzle. Levine also acknowledged the mysterious nature of Chief and says that it will be a key part of the show's focus.

He went on to describe some of the other strategies that went into forming the team and script behind the upcoming series...

"We made a conscious decision to hire a writer not known for sci-fi and not known for big battle movies, because that’s already baked into the Halo franchise and we will service that, but we also wanted to ensure that we were getting beneath the formidable armor of the Spartans and really getting inside the team drama so it felt like it belonged on Showtime... As David said, our hopes and dreams are that it will have enormous appeal to Halo fans and will also appeal to Showtime drama fans."

Everything still sounds pretty early in development, but we are excited to see what Showtime comes up with. It may take a few years before the first episode airs, but hopefully some time in 2019 the first teaser trailer will arrive.

There is currently no release date for season 1 of the Halo series, but Showtime is aiming for a 2020 premiere.

Source: IGN