Halo TV Show Showrunner Says They Didn't Look at The Game

Steven Kane, the showrunner of the Halo TV show premiering this week, revealed that the creative team behind the upcoming Paramount+ sci-fi series didn't look at the video games that inspired it.

In a recent interview with Variety, Kane discussed the FPS game's influence's on the live-action show. "We didn't look at the game. We didn't talk about the game. We talked about the characters and the world. So I never felt limited by it being a game," he explained.

Credit: Paramount+

Nevertheless, the cast and crew of the Halo TV series benefitted from their source material's well-developed backstory, according to actor Pablo Schreiber, who plays Halo's protgaonist Master Chief. "The richness and the depth of the universe was immediately kind of mind-boggling," Schreiber said. "And incredibly exciting, because what it means as a storyteller is that there’s already been a huge amount of preparation and groundwork. "

In recent months, Paramount's upcoming series has come under fire due to changes it has made to the canon of the video games and other related media. One of the most notable controversies is Cortana's redesign. Jen Taylor, who provided the voice of Cortana in the mainline Halo games, reprises her role as the AI companion for the upcoming TV show. However, some fans criticized the redesign, and , Kiki Wolfkill, a studio head at 343 and Halo's executive producer, defended the decision.

"It's so funny, because we change her design for every game. And a lot of that is driven by technology," Wolfkill told GamesRadar+. "A lot of the design changes as we progress[ed] through the game generations was because we had access to better graphics, technology, more pixels, and more effects. And so it's always been about adapting Cortana to the environment.

"In this situation, it's so very different from the games in that she has to feel real," Wolfkill added. "And by that, I don't mean feel like a real human. She has to feel like a real AI, a real hologram, and be a character that real people are acting against… That was really the impetus in designing her – how do we make her feel very tangible in this Halo world?"

Another controversy was the show's confirmation that Master Chief will remove his helmet in the show --fully revealing the Halo protagonist's face for the first time in the history of the franchise. At the time this news came out, Wolfkill defended the decision, explaining, "With the television series, we want to take you on [Master Chief's] journey and let you experience, as a viewer, his story and evolution from an external, subjective viewpoint; for that, it felt important to see [Master Chief] outside of his armor."

Paramount+'s 9-episode Halo TV series is set to premiere on March 24, and you can watch the new trailer above. You can read more details in everything we know about the Halo TV series here.