Over 15 years after its original release, Halo Wars' lead designer, Dave Pottinger, has explained why Master Chief never made an appearance in the game. Master Chief is the iconic mascot of the Halo series, but does not show up anywhere near Ensemble Studios' RTS, Halo Wars.
Originally released in 2009 as an Xbox 360 exclusive, Halo Wars put a twist on the typical Halo formula. Instead of being an FPS, like other Halo games, Halo Wars was a real-time strategy game, allowing players to fight the Human-Covenant War on a grander scale. The game was set 21 years before Halo: Combat Evolved, so it was able to tell a new story without existing series favorites. Because of its exclusivity on the Xbox 360, it had to work entirely on a controller, which had typically been a struggle for RTS games in the past. However, Halo Wars did a solid job in bringing the complexity of the real-time strategy genre to consoles, and stands the test of time to this day.
Phil Spencer has confirmed that an Xbox handheld console is in development, and when it drops it could be the perfect platform for the Halo franchise....
