MASTER CHIEF IS BACK, AND THIS TIME IS NOT A VIDEO GAME!
Just as we were all still slowly getting back to work after Christmas Holidays, Mantic Games decided to start 2024 in the best possible way by announcing their partnership with 343 Industries to create a new tabletop game based on “Halo” universe. As you likely know, Halo is an amazing military science fiction media franchise launched in 2001 that includes video games (mostly first-person shooters), novels, boardgames, and uncountable collectibles and promotional items.
The announced new tabletop game will be the third miniature game set in the Halo Universe joining “Halo: Fleet Battles” and “Halo: Ground Command”. The first one focused on space battles among opposing fleets while the second was a large scale tabletop war-game using 15 mm-scale models. The upcoming one is instead expected to use 28/40 mm miniature exploiting the ability and experience of Mantic Games’ that we all appreciated in amazing games like “Kings of War”, “Hellboy: The board Game” and “Walking Dead: All Out War”. All these games are quite well known for the very good quality (and price) of the models as well as the intuitive and easy-to-learn rules, thus I am pretty excited to see how the new game will look.
Unfortunately, Mantic Games and 343 Industries joint announcement is scarce of details and many features are yet to be uncovered. So far, it seems the new game is planned to go straight into retail without a crowdfunding campaign and has been designed for “tabletop newcomers and veterans alike”. Most important, it appears that the game will be a multiplayer combat game that should allow players to take control of a team of Spartans recreating the tense and exciting gameplay of the video-games. I can already hear Laurette Agryna saying “A Spartan is a symbol... In times of darkness, we are hope. And together... we are unstoppable!”.
If ever (or whenever) players will see the release of other factions like the Covenant, the Flood, or the Prometheans, it is still to be understood but I think we are very excited to see what the future holds for us. In the meantime, we will all looking forward to the preview in March 2024 and to start gearing up for the full release in September 2024.