Halo Wars cinematic trailer makes its GTTV debut

by Griffin McElroy on Oct 4th 2008 3:00PM

We were awakened last night by a terrible din -- a wailing which echoed through our streets like a funeral dirge. The sound poured from nearby houses; voices making slightly varied proclamations with a singular theme. In near-unison, they pierced the night: "WHERE IS MASTER CHIEF?", "WHY NO LASER SWORDS?", and, perplexingly, "GEOFF KEIGHLEY, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH CORTANA?"

These confused souls were reacting to the cinematic trailer for Ensemble Studios' swan song, Halo Wars, which debuted on GameTrailers TV last night. For those who were laying eyes upon the title for the first time, we can understand any resulting bewilderment. The trailer (which we've posted after the break) is excellent, though it boldly lacks the things players love about the series to date -- including any sign of returning characters, or any heinous acts of postmortem facial desecration.

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Tags: cinematic, ensemble-studios, gttv, halo-wars, trailer, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (75)

These cinematics are beautiful, and halo wars looks like its gonna be awesome, too bad M$ is closing ensemble.....

I was hoping to see age of empires 4 made by ensemble at some point...

I agree, although you seem to imply that Ensemble did the cinematics as well: it's common practice to outsource cinematics to a third-party since it's resource and time expensive (unless you're Blizzard or something).

I know they sometimes export cinematics, but being that the halo wars cinematics are this good then it would be expected the next game by ensemble would have similar, if not better, cinematics, but micro$oft is being stupid and closing ensemble after halo wars.....

If you ask me Ensemble did pretty awesome games but Age of Empires 3 what somehow disappointing compared to Age of Empires 2 and Conquerors. An age of empires 4 would be pretty much like playing Empire earth.

(Say what you want about Empire Earth but nuking cavemen was really fun and the Sci fi campaign wasn’t bad at all)

Age of Mythology wasn't bad but I never found it very interesting.

Another game that was really good until the sequel kick in was Stronghold Crusaders.

If we buy the game...like expect everyone too (It does say Halo in it) then Microsoft will see the light and probably let ensemble stay open...But they need to at least sell 2 million games or something crazy like that.

That was awesome. After Halo 3, I didn't like the look of the elites, they looked a bit more comical than ferocious. Halo wars is making them look like strong opponents noone should mess with.

what isnt that the arbitor controlling the elites

Might be, but I don't think so.

Arbiter was the general during the events on Halo 04.

This is, not only another place, Harvest, but takes place 20 years before Halo 1.

It must be the previous Arbiter the current one didn't become an Arbiter till Halo 2.

there was more than one arbiter throughout covenant history.

Remember the "Arbiter" is a position, not a person. The character in Halo 2 and 3 is merely the last in a long line of arbiters.

Come to think of it, if the humans have Spartan units, maybe the covenant has Arbiter units...

The arbiter is a position appointed by the Prophets to do their "mission impossibles". The arbiter usually dies in the process of carrying out these missions. This was probably an earlier arbiter seeing as this takes place twenty years before the Halo 2 and 3 Arbiter was appointed his position.

There is nothing in Halo history that says there is always an Arbiter. When the Arbiter is chosen in Halo 2, he could have been the first one chosen in a very long time.

The first Halo game I want to play. Wasn't a fan of the previous games but the story interests me somewhat.

Read the books. Trust me, books 1, 4 and, from what I read so far, 5 are pretty good.

Book 3 is alright, but Book 2 is pretty crap, it's just the first game with horrible writing.

If you do want to get some background reading on the Halo series, the books are decent enough. However, don't go in expecting a great literary work, as the novels are pretty poor in this regard.

Cheers for the information chaps, drinks are on me*

*limited time offer, expired by the time you read this

Seriously, Peter Jackson needs to get on these damn movies ASAP. I don't care if he can't find a studio to finance it. He has enough money, if he's so damn sure about the Halo franchise and won't give up on it, then just finance a movie yourself.

He would make millions if he made series of quality movies that have the same tone as this cinematic. Quality story, tone, characters, emotions, etc. Do all the books as movies so theres substance, just like LoTR. The first movie was slow and no action and it finished with a bang with huge battles, just like the books of Halo are. Seriously.

It truly looks awesome

That was gorgeous and really well done. It's not going to make me get the game, but still- I enjoyed that trailer.

its Ensemble, its hard to not buy it.

Flood in campaign confirmed.

One...two...three...told you so..

And that was an Arbiter controlling the Elites. A different Arbiter then Halo 2/3, but an arbiter none the less.

OK so. In the video the elites talk about the "infection" which makes me believe that they are talking about the Flood.

Humans don't find out about the flood until the events of the first game, I am curious as to how they are going to make this work.

Humans don't find OUT until Halo 1 but they never said humans haven't been in contact with the Flood before Halo 1.

Humans may see the Flood and die before they can tell anyone... that'd work.

This game takes place on Harvest, and they're not in contact with Earth, the Spirit of Fire is a colony ship.

They have no way of telling anyone about the Flood, and the Covenant already knew.

nathan drake!

Hot DAMN, this CG cinematic look slick, can't wait for the game :) gawd I wish they would just release the movie already.

Bungie...make halo 4 look like that please...not just the cinematics, but gameplay too... I think taking Halo away from the vibrant cartoony look to a more gritty/realistic look would be a welcome change.

i agree

Too bad bungie alledgedly isn't making Halo 4...

there is not halo 4, get over it!

Do you really think Bungie is gonna pass up future opportunities to make tremendous amounts of money and never come back to the franchise with a new game? Come on....

It might not come out any time soon (and by soon, i mean the next 4 years), but I'll bet you anything that another one WILL come out (probably on the next microsoft box).

hey brian, KEEP IT CLEAN

There will be no Halo 4. But that doesn't stop Bungie from making another game with Master Chief in it. The story won't revolve around a Halo though, all of the Halo's have been destroyed. To say there won't be another game wtih Master Chief in it would be moronic though, it just won't be called Halo 4.

Ahhh nooo.. Halo believes in colour. There's enough brown and grey in "mature" gaming.

I MEANT THE BUNGIE TEAM ISNT WORKING ON HALO 4 alledgedly, GearBox might....that's all i meant i didnt mean there wont be anymore halos...jeeze

“Ahhh nooo.. Halo believes in colour. There's enough brown and grey in "mature" gaming”.

Repeat that to Epitaph and Guardian, all I see in those maps are Grey, Purple, Yellow, Green and Brown.I guess is still better than just Brown and grey.

Why do people agree with Anticrawl?

*SPOILER
The Halos weren't destroyed.

@Lone Starr

All of the ring worlds were indeed destroyed and Bungie said the trilogy has ended. There will indeed be more games revolving around Master Chief and they mysterious world he lands on and some people speculated that it might have another Halo on it but it could also be the Prophet homeworld or a forerunner world or anything else.

The ark and the new alpha halo were destroyed when the new halo was fired. The others still remain. Unless the other 6 rings for some reason blow up when the Ark does. But that wouldn't make much sense.

I'm always up for enlightenment/corrections, where exactly did it say the others blew up? The trilogy being over to me means they won't be focussing on that aspect of the story anymore - not everything to do with the previous story got blown up.

Yeah I'm not entirely sure where this idea that the other 6 Halos were destroyed comes from. Maybe they're unfirable now the Ark has been destroyed?

@ Anticrawl

No, they never said they were destroyed. See the two posts above mine. Only the Ark and Halo 4 Mk. II were destroyed. Trilogy ending does not equal all Halos destroyed.

Basic comprehension people...

As an addendum,

The *local* Flood infestation was the reason for the Ark and the new Halo being destroyed. The Ark *may* not be able to produce new Halos, but that is not fully established. Honestly, which cutscene/part of Bungie lore said all the Halos were destroyed?

Oh, that's right, there weren't any. Goodness people. Do you not pay attention to the games you play?

It also consequently means there are more Flood out there. Anything in the section of the galaxy 04 was supposed to kill (would have been Earth if it wasn't destroyed) would be fine, as would the flood on the other Halos which were kept for research. Though I'm not sure how they survived on the rings. If the Forerunners were able to make "shielding" to protect against the rings firing, why didn't they do that for themselves? For that matter, why did they just disappear if at least some of them were on the Ark?

Wait. So is this game not going to be made if Ensemble is being closed? No comprendo. Was/Is this title for PC only?

The guy that voices Nathan Drake is getting a lot of work, including Halo Wars and Prince of Persia.

By the way, that's what Halo 3 would have looked like on the Playstation 3 with a company other than Bungie in charge. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

this is the last game ensemble will make.

"By the way, that's what Halo 3 would have looked like on the Playstation 3 with a company other than Bungie in charge. Just thought I'd throw that out there."

We should get Free Radical Design to do it... (Lulz.. I had to.)

The loading speeds of the ps3 would have doubled the length of Campaign!

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Halo Wars cinematic trailer makes its GTTV debut

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Posted: Oct 4th 2008 3:09PM StevenM said

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