Halo Wars is a real-time strategy (RTS) video game created by Ensemble Studios and released by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 console. It was first sold in Australia on February 26, 2009; in Europe on February 27, 2009; and in North America on March 3, 2009. The game takes place in the science fiction world of the Halo series, during the year 2531, which is 21 years before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. In the game, players control human soldiers on the warship Spirit of Fire as they try to prevent an ancient fleet of ships from being captured by the violent alien group known as the Covenant.
Halo Wars was first shown at the X06 Xbox event in 2006. Ensemble Studios designed the game to work well with the Xbox 360 controller, aiming to fix problems that had appeared in earlier console RTS games. Before the game was released, Microsoft shut down Ensemble Studios. However, many former Ensemble employees later started a new company called Robot Entertainment, which continued to support Halo Wars by adding updates and extra content.
Halo Wars received mostly positive reviews. Critics praised the game’s pre-recorded movie scenes, the detailed way it recreated the Halo universe, and its easy-to-use controls. Some complaints included the lack of a choice to play as the Covenant faction during the main story and limited strategic options during gameplay. Reviewers from GameSpot and USA Today noted that experienced RTS players might find the game’s strategy elements too simple. By March 2009, the game had sold one million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling console RTS game at that time. A newer version of the game, called Halo Wars: Definitive Edition, was developed by 343 Industries and released for Windows and Xbox One in December 2016. A sequel, Halo Wars 2, was created by 343 Industries and Creative Assembly and released in February 2017.
Gameplay
Halo Wars is a real-time strategy (RTS) video game made only for the Xbox 360 console. Players control armies from a high view of the battlefield. The game focuses on military battles but includes simpler resource management and base building. It was designed for the Xbox 360 controller. For example, the A button is used to select units. Pressing the A button once selects one unit, and pressing it twice selects all units of the same type. The d-pad lets players move between battles and switch between bases. The right analog stick changes the camera angle. A circular menu is used to build bases.
The game includes a story-based campaign that can be played alone or with others through Xbox Live. There is also a multiplayer mode called "skirmish," where players compete against human or computer opponents. Two factions are available: the human United Nations Space Command (UNSC), with leaders like Captain Cutter, Sergeant Forge, or Professor Anders, and the alien Covenant, with leaders such as the Prophet of Regret, the Arbiter, or an unnamed Brute Chieftain. Each faction has different units, strengths, and special abilities. Players choose one of three leaders for each side. The chosen leader allows access to specific units and upgrades. Covenant leaders appear on the battlefield as units, while human leaders do not.
Combat uses a "rock-paper-scissors" system. Ground vehicles are strong against infantry, infantry are strong against aircraft, and aircraft are strong against vehicles. Most units have unique abilities. For example, human Marines throw grenades, and the "Warthog" vehicle can crush enemies. Humans can use their ship, the Spirit of Fire, which has a powerful weapon called a M.A.C. (Magnetic Accelerator Cannon). Covenant units are generally weaker than UNSC units but can use cheap, strong shield generators to protect their bases. Players build and expand bases to train units and research upgrades. Each map has limited base locations, so protecting bases is important. A player loses if all their bases are destroyed and either their army is destroyed or 60 seconds pass without building a new base.
Resources called "supplies" are used to train units, upgrade buildings, and activate special abilities. Players can find supplies on the battlefield or build supply structures at bases to generate them. More supply structures produce more supplies. Some buildings and upgrades become available only after reaching a certain "tech level." The UNSC builds reactors to reach multiple tech levels, with some actions requiring level four. The Covenant builds one temple that allows three tech level upgrades. The Covenant has one fewer tech level, and each upgrade is more expensive. Destroying the temple removes all tech progress until the temple is rebuilt. Each base has limited space, so players must balance supply buildings with other structures, like those that create military units. The number of units a player can use is limited, but some upgrades reduce this limit.
Synopsis
Halo Wars is set in the science fiction universe of the Halo series during the 26th century. In 2525, a group of alien races called the Covenant attacked humanity, claiming humans were disrespectful to their gods, the Forerunners. The game takes place in 2531, about 20 years before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. Years after the Covenant invaded the colony of Harvest, human UNSC forces continue fighting on the planet.
The commander of the UNSC warship Spirit of Fire is Captain James Cutter, a strong leader who has earned respect from his crew. Cutter does not seek higher ranks because he is not interested in politics. Under Cutter is Sergeant John Forge, a tough Marine who has been jailed twice for disobeying orders and causing trouble. Joining the Spirit of Fire is Professor Ellen Anders, a scientist studying ancient Forerunner ruins. The ship is operated with help from Serina, a highly intelligent artificial intelligence (AI) with a sarcastic sense of humor. Leading the Covenant’s search for Forerunner technology is the Arbiter, a holy warrior assigned by the Covenant’s leaders, the Prophet Hierarchs, to oversee humanity’s destruction.
The Spirit of Fire is sent to the ruined planet Harvest to investigate Covenant activity. There, Cutter learns the Covenant has uncovered something at the planet’s northern pole. When the UNSC’s main outpost on Harvest is captured, Cutter orders Forge to retake it. Later, Forge scouts the Covenant excavation and discovers they, under the Arbiter’s direction, have found a Forerunner facility. Forge’s troops defeat the Covenant forces before they can destroy the installation, and Anders arrives. She identifies the facility as an interstellar map and recognizes coordinates pointing to the human colony of Arcadia.
After escaping the facility, the Spirit of Fire travels to Arcadia, where the Covenant has attacked cities and killed civilians. Forge contacts local Spartan special forces and helps with evacuations. UNSC forces discover the Covenant has built a giant energy shield to hide the construction of a massive Scarab super-weapon and their search of nearby Forerunner ruins. The UNSC uses experimental equipment to break through the shield and destroy the Scarab. The Arbiter kidnaps Anders during a salvage mission and escapes the planet, with the Spirit of Fire in pursuit.
The Spirit of Fire follows Anders’ signal to an uncharted planet in another star system. The planet’s surface is covered by the parasitic Flood, which attack and absorb any sentient life they encounter. The Spirit of Fire accidentally activates a Forerunner docking station and enters the planet’s interior, revealing it is a Forerunner installation with a hollow, habitable interior and a miniature sun at its core. The Covenant’s plan is to activate a dormant fleet of advanced Forerunner starships inside the installation and use them to destroy humanity.
While the Forerunner ships are being activated, Anders escapes using a teleportation device and is rescued. Cutter decides to destroy the Forerunner fleet instead of letting the Covenant use it. Anders devises a plan to detonate the ship’s faster-than-light drive in the planet’s sun, causing a supernova. Before they can prepare the reactor, Forge and the Spartans are attacked by the Arbiter and his Elites. The Spartans defeat the aliens, and Forge kills the Arbiter. The reactor is damaged during the fight, requiring manual detonation. Forge volunteers for the dangerous task, telling the Spartans they will need to fight in the future. The Spirit of Fire escapes just as Forge overloads the reactor, destroying the fleet and the Forerunner world. Without its faster-than-light drive, the Spirit of Fire drifts in space. The crew enters cryonic sleep for long-term storage as Cutter looks at Forge’s empty cryonic tube. If the game is completed on the "Legendary" difficulty mode, Serina wakes Cutter and tells him, "something has happened."
Development
Computer game developer Bungie first planned Halo: Combat Evolved as a real-time strategy game where players would control groups of soldiers and vehicles in a 3D environment. In 2000, Microsoft bought Bungie, and the game was changed into a first-person shooter. It became a very popular game for the Xbox console. Bungie later made two more Halo games, Halo 2 in 2004 and Halo 3 in 2007, before leaving Microsoft to become an independent company again. Even though Bungie is now free to make new games, Microsoft still owns the rights to the Halo series. Shane Kim, who leads Microsoft Game Studios, said during the split that Microsoft plans to continue supporting and growing the Halo series.
In 2004, Microsoft-owned Ensemble Studios, known for creating the Age of Empires strategy games, began working on a new project that would later become Halo Wars. In April 2006, the studio confirmed it was making a console-based real-time strategy game. Ensemble’s CEO, Tony Goodman, said the team was trying to figure out how to make strategy games work on consoles. He explained that they spent a year testing how players could control units using a gamepad instead of a keyboard and mouse. The team did not reveal the game’s name at first but described it as shorter and more intense than their previous projects.
At first, Halo Wars was not part of the Halo series. Ensemble spent 12 to 18 months designing controls for the game using the Age of Mythology engine. They tested ideas by modifying an expansion pack of Age of Mythology called The Titans. However, they found that managing resources, units, and buildings on a console was too hard with the controller. Jason Pace, a producer at Microsoft, said the challenge was not just changing controls but redesigning the game’s core mechanics to fit console input. The team kept some control ideas but started over to build a strategy game that worked well on consoles. To make the game easier, they simplified mechanics, such as using a single resource type that players could collect from bases instead of managing multiple resources.
After testing controls, Ensemble shared the project with Microsoft, who suggested turning it into a Halo game. Bungie reportedly disliked this idea. Tony Goodman, Ensemble’s founder, later said Bungie saw the move as “the whoring out of our franchise.” Although Ensemble had to recreate Halo’s assets from scratch, they used reference material from a Halo movie adaptation and art from earlier Halo games. Because Halo Wars uses a top-down view instead of a first-person perspective, the team adjusted unit designs to make them recognizable. For example, the Warthog Jeep was made to jump higher and move faster than in earlier games. To keep Halo’s visual style, Ensemble created guidelines for artists, such as keeping the Covenant’s organic look and the UNSC’s geometric shapes.
Developers faced the challenge of making Halo Wars appeal to both Halo fans and strategy game fans. Microsoft’s Jason Pace said the game needed to capture Halo’s themes, like heroic action and intense battles. Early playtests showed that fans expected the game to feel like a Halo game, so the team added special abilities to enhance the experience. They considered making the Flood a playable race but decided against it because it would not balance well with other factions.
The Spartans, a key unit in Halo, were designed to be the strongest and most impressive units in the game. Lead designer Dave Pottinger said the team focused on making Spartans stand out by giving them abilities like hijacking enemy vehicles. Each Spartan in the campaign had a name, while other units remained unnamed. The Spartans’ design reflected their inexperience and the game’s setting, which takes place before the main Halo trilogy.
Ensemble added new units to give players more options, such as the Gorgon, a bipedal mech that used Needlers to destroy aircraft. However, they later changed the Gorgon’s design because it broke a rule about infantry units. Instead, they added a new aircraft called the Vampire. The UNSC also needed a melee unit to match the Covenant’s hand-to-hand combat, so they created the Cyclops, a heavy unit inspired by Age of Mythology.
Time limits and budget constraints limited some features. For example, a fatality system where Spartans or Covenant leaders could cause large-scale damage was cut because it did not fit the game’s fast-paced combat. Other ideas based on Halo fiction, like a Covenant campaign, were not completed due to lack of resources.
Halo Wars was officially announced on September 27, 2006, during Microsoft’s X06 media event. A pre-rendered trailer by Blur Studio showed Warthog vehicles searching for missing soldiers, followed by a battle with Covenant Elites.
Release
The pre-release playable demo for Halo Wars was first mentioned in the October 2007 issue of Official Xbox Magazine. It became available for download on February 5, 2009, and redemption codes for early access were given starting January 29. Microsoft reported that the game demo was downloaded by more than 2 million Xbox Live Gold members in the first five days, setting a record for the most demo downloads on the service.
In addition to the standard retail version, a Limited Collector's Edition of Halo Wars was available. To attract Halo 3 players, Microsoft included early access to the Mythic Map Pack, which contained three Halo 3 multiplayer maps, with the collector's edition. A 48-page, half-size hardcover graphic novel titled Halo Wars: Genesis was also included. The graphic novel was created by Phil Noto, Graeme Devine, and Eric Nylund and explored the background stories of Anders, the Arbiter, Forge, and Cutter. Other bonuses included a unique in-game vehicle, trading cards, and a Spirit of Fire patch. Players who pre-ordered the game from certain retailers received a special in-game Warthog vehicle with flame decals. GameStop announced that on February 28, 2009, 1,000 stores in the United States would hold Halo Wars tournaments, and 2,000 GameStop stores held midnight releases for the game. European markets sold a "Best of Halo" bundle that included Halo Wars, Halo 3, and an Xbox 360.
At release, Halo Wars reached second place on the United Kingdom weekly sales charts, behind Killzone 2. Halo Wars achieved 16.7% of Halo 3’s first-week sales but sold three times more than Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, making it the fastest-selling console strategy game. The following week, Halo Wars’ sales were ranked fifth. In Australia, Halo Wars’ weekly sales ranked highest, ahead of Killzone 2. By March 12, the limited edition and standard version were ranked second and third, respectively, on the United States Xbox 360 sales charts, behind Call of Duty: World at War. Gamasutra attributed the increase in Halo 3 sales to the release of Halo Wars; Halo 3 was fourth in the United States and second in Australia in sales of Xbox 360 games and reappeared on the list of top 20 United States console games for February.
Before the game’s release, industry analyst Michael Pachter estimated Halo Wars would sell 2 million units. On March 19, 2009, Microsoft announced that the game had sold 1 million units and that players had spent 118 total years of time in online skirmish matches. According to NPD Group’s March sales figures, Halo Wars sold 639,000 copies in the U.S. through March, making it the third best-selling game in the market.
In June 2016, Microsoft announced Halo Wars: Definitive Edition—an enhanced version of the game—for Windows and Xbox One. Development of the Definitive Edition was handled by 343 Industries, with Behaviour Interactive responsible for the Windows port. It was made available on December 20, 2016, as part of the Ultimate Edition version of Halo Wars 2.
Downloadable content
After Ensemble closed, Robot Entertainment announced it was creating downloadable content (DLC) for Halo Wars. Pottinger explained that support for the game would continue over time, not just a single effort, and compared it to Bungie's updates for Halo 3 after its release. He also mentioned that Robot would fix game balance problems, software bugs, and other updates.
The first DLC package, called Strategic Options, added three new multiplayer modes. "Keepaway" is like capture the flag; players try to capture and hold Forerunner units. In "Tug-of-war," players earn points by using large armies to destroy enemy units. In "Reinforcement," players receive units as reinforcements instead of training them at bases. The number of resources and reactors available determines which units can be used and what upgrades they can earn. Strategic Options was released on May 19, 2009, after a patch that fixed software bugs and balance issues. The update received criticism for being small (2 megabytes) and expensive (800 Microsoft Points). Pottinger explained on the Halo Wars forums that the game modes were small downloads "because they are rules. There is some new content, but it's obviously a different type of content compared to a map."
Robot Entertainment released a second DLC package on July 21, 2009. This DLC, named "Historic Battles," includes four new maps and four additional Xbox Live achievements.
Reception
Halo Wars received mostly positive reviews. The game has an average score of 82 out of 100 on Metacritic, a website that collects reviews. Critics had different opinions about whether Halo Wars successfully brought the real-time strategy (RTS) genre to consoles. GameSpy’s Allen Rausch compared Halo Wars to Halo: Combat Evolved, which showed that first-person shooters could work on consoles, and said Halo Wars proved that RTS games could also work on consoles. Tom Price of TeamXbox said gamers had been waiting for a good console RTS game, and Halo Wars met their expectations. Reviewers for Official Xbox Magazine said the game felt natural on consoles, not like a poorly adapted version of a PC game with hard-to-use controls. Thierry Nguyen of 1UP said the game was a good start for a strong console RTS. Scott Steinberg of Digital Trends said the game showed that RTS games could be successful on consoles. However, Peter Hartlaub of the San Francisco Chronicle said the game was basic and lacked innovation compared to other Halo games.
Reviewers mostly liked the game’s controls. Darren Zenko of the Toronto Star, who had less experience with RTS games, said the controls made the game easier to play. In contrast, Luke Anderson of GameSpot said the game lacked depth for more experienced players. Some critics were upset about missing features, such as the ability to group units, use hotkeys, or set rally points. Thierry Nguyen said some actions were harder than they should be. Brett Molina of USA Today said the game was simple but good for new players and Halo fans. Reviewers from GameSpy, G4TV, and Eurogamer said the controls worked well because the developers simplified the game, such as limiting where players could build structures to make the game easier to manage.
Reviewers said the game’s factions were balanced. Kieron Gillen of Eurogamer said the Covenant was harder to learn, as the game taught players about the UNSC but not the Covenant. However, he said both sides had unique challenges. Nick Cowen of The Daily Telegraph wished the Flood were a playable faction, while Ryan Geddes of IGN said it was good that the Flood was not included. Will Porter of IGN UK said the game used a rock-paper-scissors system, where different units had strengths and weaknesses, but players had to learn through trial and error.
Reviewers praised the game’s story and visuals. Ryan Geddes said the story was good but not as strong as Bungie’s Halo games, and some characters were not very interesting. Critics said the campaign was short, with only 15 missions. Jon Wilcox of Total Video Games said the game had a mix of long and short missions, which made it engaging. He also said earning medals added replay value. Tom Price said the story was standard but the missions felt more meaningful than in other RTS games. Critics said the lack of a Covenant campaign was a missed opportunity.
Reviewers said the multiplayer mode was well done. Jon Wilcox said the multiplayer added nothing new but was still a good experience. Adam Biessener of Game Informer said the game was better with human players because the AI was weak. Kevin Lynch of The Mirror said the variety of game modes was limited.
Reviewers agreed that Ensemble, the game’s developers, recreated the Halo universe well. Kieron Gillen said knowing the Halo universe helped players understand the game better. Thierry Nguyen said the game felt like a generic science-fiction title because of some units. Luke Anderson said the game’s visuals and environments made it fit with the rest of the Halo series. Jon Wilcox said the game’s menu and music reminded players that it was a Halo game. Overall, Halo Wars was seen as a fitting final game for Ensemble.
At the 13th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Halo Wars for "Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year."
Sequel
On August 4, 2015, Microsoft announced the game Halo Wars 2. The game was created by Creative Assembly with help from 343 Industries. It was released on February 21, 2017, for the Xbox One and Windows 10.