Microsoft wants its Halo show to be like Game of Thrones, minus the incest

There are a lot of big splashy genre shows angling to pick up the crown recently left behind by Game of Thrones — Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show, Netflix’s Witcher series, HBO’s own Game of Thrones prequel…One dark horse candidate is Showtime’s upcoming series based on Microsoft’s hugely successful Halo video game series, starring Pablo Schreiber (Pornstache from Orange Is The New Black) as the ever-helmeted Master Chief.

AUSTIN, TEXAS – MARCH 10: Pablo Schreiber attends American Gods & Now Apocalypse Live Viewing Party At #TwitterHouse at Lustre Pearl on March 10, 2019 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Robin Marchant/Getty Images for Starz)

One imagines that Master Chief will talk a little more in the show than he does in the games, but that’ll be up to the creative team at Showtime, and to Kiki Wolfkill at 343 Industries, the developer now behind the series. “It’s not because you can’t [make a good movie or TV show based on a video game], it’s because it’s a really hard challenge, and everyone is still trying to figure it out,” she said on the AIAS Game Maker’s Notebook podcast. “There isn’t something inherent in the format of video games that makes it impossible to adapt; it’s just a hard challenge. Literally day to day we are making decisions on what can change, what shouldn’t change, what we can we bend.”

Okay, before we go any further, let’s address the elephant in the room: yes, Kiki Wolfkill is her real name and it’s the coolest name ever and I want it.

Anyway, Wolfkill is the transmedia boss at 343 Industries, meaning she’s responsible for managing the Halo property as it expands beyond games. She’s involved in the Showtime series, although much of the day-to-day will be left to people at the network and director Otto Bathurst. Wolfkill has faith that they’ll make the right calls, although she’s still had discussions about the basic direction of the show.

"It’s hard to find an analog. We talk about Game of Thrones a lot in terms of scope and scale and complexity of relationships…A lot of the background of Halo is this sort of political drama. It’s something that [is touched on] really lightly in the games and you see more of in some of the other mediums. Some of that [Game of Thrones-style] complexity is interesting."

Full disclosure: I have not played a lot of Halo, and what I did play mostly involved exploding people, so I’ll take it on faith that there are politics involved in there somewhere.

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There’s one way the Halo won’t resemble Thrones, though: “No incest planned at all for this show, I’ll say that. If you’re looking for that, you won’t find it here.” Well, then what’s the point?

But seriously, I don’t know what to expect out of a Halo series. Wolfkill is right that video game movies and TV shows don’t have the best reputation, although Detective Pikachu seemed to go over pretty well. Maybe the tide is turning?

Then again, maybe Detective Pikachu isn’t the touchstone you want for a gritty political drama. In any case, the first season of the Halo show is scheduled to go into production this year.

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h/t Gamespot