Halo Wars 2

Halo Wars 2 takes place in the science fiction universe of the Halo series. The game is set in 2559, 28 years after the events of Halo Wars and shortly after the events of Halo 5: Guardians.[14] Halo Wars closes with the crew of the human United Nations Space Command (UNSC) warship Spirit of Fire entering cryosleep and drifting in uncharted space. During the interim, the war between humanity and the alien alliance known as the Covenant has ended, and Spirit of Fire has been declared lost with all hands.[4] While Spirit of Fire is adrift in space, the ship's artificial intelligence (AI) Serina (Courtenay Taylor) terminates herself before succumbing to rampancy, a terminal state.[14][15] Captain James Cutter (Gideon Emery), Professor Anders (Faye Kingslee),[8] and the rest of the crew wake from cryonic sleep at the Ark, a Forerunner installation capable of manufacturing large ringworlds known as Halos.[4][16] Isabel (Erika Soto) is a UNSC logistics AI operating at a research facility on the Ark when an alien faction called the Banished invades.[17] The Banished are led by the Brute warlord Atriox (John DiMaggio) and rose to power following the Covenant's demise.[15][4] Serving under Atriox are the Brute general Decimus and the Elite Shipmaster Let 'Volir (Darin De Paul).[18][15]

Arriving at the Ark, Spirit of Fire's crew receives a UNSC signal from the surface of the installation. Spartan Red Team—composed of supersoldiers Alice, Jerome, and Douglas—is deployed to investigate the signal. They recover Isabel from a UNSC base but are attacked by the Banished during exfiltration. Back on Spirit of Fire, Isabel reveals to Captain Cutter how Atriox and the Banished invaded the Ark. Despite Isabel believing resistance hopeless, Cutter declares his intent to confront the Banished. A strike team manages to set up a forward base and defeat Banished forces under the control of Decimus. In the wreckage of Decimus' base, Isabel discovers information about the Ark's Cartographer, a map of key systems and weapons.

The strike team secures the Cartographer, coming under attack by autonomous Forerunner machines known as Sentinels. Anders discovers that Atriox has hijacked the Ark's teleportation network, allowing him to transport troops across the whole structure. The UNSC forces defeat Decimus and disable the portal network. The Spirit of Fire comes under attack from a Banished carrier Enduring Conviction. The attacking carrier is destroyed when Isabel and Jerome hijack its weapon systems to prompt the Sentinels stationed on the Ark to shatter it in two.

Anders suggests that they create a Halo ring using the Ark's foundry to transport the crew away from the Ark and back into UNSC-controlled space. The new Halo is released but UNSC forces face resistance from the Banished. On the Ark, Alice and Douglas prevent Banished reinforcements, including Atriox, from getting to the Halo. Anders is escorted to the ring's control room where the firing system of the structure is deactivated and a signal beacon is set. Taking control of the ring's gravity systems, Anders releases part of the landmass containing the Banished forces into space, killing them. Having defeated the Banished forces on the ring, ground forces return to the Spirit of Fire but Anders and the Halo enter slipspace as they cannot halt the jump's countdown. Before the Halo jumps, Anders promises to get help from the UNSC as soon as possible. Cutter and Atriox prepare for their next engagement. In a post-credits scene, Anders' Halo drops out of slipspace prematurely, only to encounter a Forerunner Guardian.

The Operation SPEARBREAKER missions take place one month following the launch of the Halo Ring. The Spirit of Fire and the Banished are still fighting for control of the Ark. A UNSC Squad, Sunray 1-1, stumble upon a Banished operation to repair a Forerunner ship and destroy the Spirit of Fire with it. Fighting though hordes of Banished forces and Sentinels, Sunray 1-1 is able to narrowly destroy the Forerunner ship before it can launch.

The Awakening the Nightmare campaign takes place five months after Operation SPEARBREAKER. The war between UNSC and Banished has reached a stalemate. Desperate for more supplies, Atriox orders the brothers Voridus and Pavium to search near the ruins of the former Covenant holy city of High Charity for salvage. Atriox warns them not to enter High Charity, believing in the stories of the city having been consumed by the parasitic Flood. The headstrong Voridus ignores the warnings, deactivating the Sentinel defenses and breaching the shield surrounding the city. His rash decision results in the Flood's escape and assimilation of many Banished into the Flood's ranks.

Rather than contact Atriox for assistance and risk his wrath, Voridus claims he can reactivate the Sentinel defenses from another location. The pair activate a drill to propagate natural disasters and hold the Flood at bay temporarily while Voridus leads a handful of troops into a Sentinel base to reactivate the defense network. Voridus succeeds in reactivating the defenses, but the brothers learn that Atriox has learned of their actions and is coming. Atriox warns that he will kill them if they fail to clean up their mess by the time he arrives. Pushing the Flood back to the area surrounding High Charity, the brothers discover that the Flood is rapidly developing a coordinating intelligence, a Proto-Gravemind—if it finishes growing, the Flood on the Ark will be unstoppable. The Banished are able to destroy the Proto-Gravemind just as Atriox arrives. He scolds the two brothers and orders them to clean up their mess, but spares their lives. Sentinels flood into the area to deal with the Flood threat along with the Banished, containing the Flood in High Charity once more.

Creative Assembly's studio director Tim Heaton said the gameplay of Halo Wars 2 would not be similar to their Total War series. Their approach was to build upon the foundation established with Halo Wars.[26] With Halo Wars 2, the development team hoped to introduce new players to the strategy game genre while appeasing experienced gamers by including a range of multiplayer modes that a wide spectrum of players could enjoy. They also wanted to extend the purpose of leader units and their abilities by giving each of them a more defining role in the style of play they represent.[3] Creative Assembly thought the game needed more artillery units capable of performing long range attacks, however there were currently no suitable vehicles in the Halo universe. So they created two new vehicles for the role and checked they did not feel out of place using reference material supplied by 343 Industries.[28] Creative director Alistair Hope viewed staying true to the source material as an important factor for all of Creative Assembly's games, but stated that the team were given more freedom to explore and expand the Halo universe than they had anticipated.[25] Hope praised the control scheme used in Halo Wars and aimed to enhance the system by ensuring Halo Wars 2 would be intuitive to play on a console.[3] One common control feature included in many PC RTS games but absent from the original Halo Wars is control groups, which lets sets of units be manually assigned to a key.[29][28] As Halo Wars 2 was developed for console and PC, the designers were keen to include the feature for both versions of the game.[29] 343 Industries had initially considered supporting cross-platform play between Windows and Xbox One devices but the feature was ultimately excluded from the game at launch.[23]

The Blitz game mode resulted from experimenting with ideas for a fast-paced and accessible variation of RTS gameplay. The development team wanted to streamline mechanics, such as base building and resource management, which players typically viewed as being complex and intimidating. The initial design of Blitz involved players having an army roster, like in tabletop war games. After playtesting this version, they realized that the scale of battles would shrink and become less appealing over the course of the match. They revised the mode by implementing a card-and-deck system for unit deployment and introducing randomly spawning resources on the maps.[13] Blitz was influenced by the Warzone game mode from Halo 5: Guardians and Blizzard Entertainment's collectible card game Hearthstone, taking design cues from the card collecting and deck building systems.[6] 343 Industries' head of strategy games Dan Ayoub cited multiplayer online battle arena games as impactful on the design of Blitz, since they replaced resource management with individual unit combat.[3]

Halo franchise development director Frank O'Connor explained that Halo Wars 2 would be more integrated with other fiction in the universe than its predecessor. The story of the first Halo Wars is set 20 years before Halo: Combat Evolved and is largely isolated from other games within the series. This was to prevent it from interfering with other projects (Halo 3 and Halo: Reach) that were also in development at the time.[4] Consequently, Halo Wars 2 is set in the contemporary fictional timeline following the events of Halo 5: Guardians,[30] and is said to have a "sense of scale" that the first game was missing.[4] This decision also opened a narrative thread in Halo Wars 2, in which the returning characters are placed in an unfamiliar universe with outdated technology.[30] Narrative director Kevin Grace said they took most of their inspiration for the game's tone from Halo: Combat Evolved.[17][4]

The narrative team wanted to establish a new villain who was both powerful and intelligent, which led to the introduction of the Brute warlord Atriox.[16] Grace cited the Arbiter as a great example of a character who was unique within his species; he noted that this trait was applied to the Brutes with the creation of Atriox.[31] To subvert the notion that Brutes are just the "dumb muscle" of the Covenant, they wanted to present him as a smart commander who takes advantage of the alliance's collapse.[4][12][31] Inspiration for the character was drawn from folklore legends such as Excalibur and stories of an underling rising to power.[12][31] While the Banished have been referenced in previous Halo media, Halo Wars 2 marks their debut as the primary enemy faction.[4] Real-world events and historical mercenary groups were a creative source for designing the Banished.[31] From the beginning, Isabel was designed to exhibit flawed behavior to distinguish her from other AI characters in the series. Ellen Ripley in the 1986 film Aliens was a particular influence for her characterization.[32]

Art director Jeremy Cook thought maintaining readability and clarity of the units and combat space was the highest priority of the game's art direction. He also wanted to make sure the visual style remained consistent with the Halo universe, by preserving the recognizable traits of the units and structures. The Banished's art style was designed to contrast visually with the UNSC. Cook wanted the Banished to be reminiscent of the Covenant but with a greater emphasis on the aesthetic of the Brute species.[33] Existing Brute vehicles and weapons helped influence the design changes and creation of new technology in the Banished's arsenal.[34]

The in-game cutscenes for Halo Wars 2 were created by animation company Blur Studio;[10] they previously created cutscenes for some Halo games, including the original Halo Wars.[35] The scenes were directed by Dave Wilson, who was the visual effects supervisor on the Halo Wars cutscenes.[17] 343 Industries explained that alterations to the appearance of returning characters were a result of upgraded technology, the use of performance capture, and casting new actors.[8] Wilson said advances in technology allowed the animation team to capture body motion, facial motion, and audio simultaneously for Halo Wars 2, unlike during the development of Halo Wars where each of these performances was recorded separately and later combined.[36]

Two open multiplayer betas ran during the production of Halo Wars 2 so the development team could gather data and make adjustments based on community feedback.[37][38] The first ran on Xbox One from June 13–23, 2016,[39] and included the Deathmatch and Domination game modes.[10] A second beta featuring the Blitz mode ran from January 20–30, 2017, on Windows and Xbox One.[37] Players earned rewards for Halo 5: Guardians for participating in the first beta and Blitz card packs for participating in the second beta.[10][37] Changes made to game following the betas included resolving connectivity issues, tuning the gameplay, and adjusting the control scheme and user interface.[38][40]

Paul Lipson served as audio director on Halo Wars 2. The game's soundtrack was composed by Gordy Haab, Brian Lee White and Brian Trifon.[41] White and Trifon had collaborated with Lipson on the music of previous Halo projects, such as Halo: The Master Chief Collection and the Halo Channel application.[41][42] The composers analyzed design documents, artwork, and early versions of the game to learn about the story and motivations of characters. This research helped them to determine the emotional tone and instrumental choices for the music. They wanted to incorporate the customary components of Halo scores such as the use of a large orchestra, a choir, and electronic music, while also taking the music in a new direction.[41] As Halo Wars 2 was considered a spin-off to the core Halo games, the composers were not as beholden to Martin O'Donnell's established sound of the series. This gave them the opportunity to experiment with the soundtrack and introduce elements like brass instruments to the music.[42]

The opening track of Halo Wars 2's soundtrack, "Recommissioned", is an adaption of the "Spirit of Fire" theme from the original Halo Wars soundtrack. The composers wanted to put their own style on this existing theme.[43] Specific melodies were written for each of the game's main characters to reflect their personalities.[41][42] For example, the track "Run Little Demons" made use of tribal drums, electronic percussion, and heavy brass to capture the dread and terror induced by Atriox and the Banished.[42] To generate an array of emotional effects, different instruments were used to create variations of the character themes.[41] One goal was to have the music dynamically interact with dialogue and gameplay.[42] The composers created music of different intensity levels to correspond with the player's actions in the game. For example, low intensity, ambient music would play during base construction and more percussive, thematic music would play during battles. A system was designed to adapt the score based on events occurring during gameplay and to prevent the music from becoming repetitive.[41] The composers worked closely with Lipson and Creative Assembly's audio lead, Sam Cooper, on the implementation of the interactive audio.[43] The live orchestra was recorded at the Newman Scoring Stage at 20th Century Fox's studio in Los Angeles.[42] The Halo Wars 2 Original Game Soundtrack, featuring 21 tracks, was released in retail stores on February 17, 2017, and digitally on February 21, 2017.[44]