Master Chief (Halo)
Encyclopedia
Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 is a fictional character and protagonist of the Halo
Halo (series)
Halo is a multi-million dollar science fiction video game franchise created by Bungie and now managed by 343 Industries and owned by Microsoft Studios. The series centers on an interstellar war between humanity and a theocratic alliance of aliens known as the Covenant...

fictional universe
Fictional universe
A fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm ....

, created by Bungie
Bungie
Bungie, Inc is an American video game developer currently located in Bellevue, Washington, USA. The company was established in May 1991 by University of Chicago undergraduate student Alex Seropian, who later brought in programmer Jason Jones after publishing Jones' game Minotaur: The Labyrinths of...

. Master Chief is a player character
Player character
A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...

 in the trilogy of science fiction first-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...

 video games Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo: Combat Evolved, frequently referred to as Halo: CE, or Halo 1, is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The first game of the Halo franchise, it was released on November 15, 2001 as a launch title for the Xbox gaming system, and is...

, Halo 2
Halo 2
Halo 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie Studios. Released for the Xbox video game console on November 9, 2004, the game is the second installment in the Halo franchise and the sequel to 2001's critically acclaimed Halo: Combat Evolved...

, and Halo 3
Halo 3
Halo 3 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the Halo franchise, the game concludes the story arc begun in Halo: Combat Evolved and continued in Halo 2...

and will appear in the upcoming Halo 4
Halo 4
Halo 4 is an upcoming video game and the eighth installment in the Halo franchise. Halo 4 is intended to be the first of a new trilogy of Halo series games, named the "Reclaimer Trilogy". Whereas the previous Halo games were developed by Bungie, Halo 4 will be developed by 343 Industries...

. Outside of video games, the character appears in novels - Halo: The Fall of Reach
Halo: The Fall of Reach
Halo: The Fall of Reach is a 2001 science fiction novel by Eric Nylund based on the Halo series of video games and acts as a prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved, the first game in the series. It is set in the fictional Halo universe, taking place in the 26th century across several planets and locations...

, Halo: The Flood
Halo: The Flood
Halo: The Flood is a 2003 novel based on the 2001 Xbox video game Halo: Combat Evolved written by William C. Dietz. Closely depicting the events of the video game, The Flood begins with the escape of a human ship Pillar of Autumn from enemy aliens known as the Covenant...

, Halo: First Strike
Halo: First Strike
Halo: First Strike is the third novel in the Halo series and the second Halo novel written by Eric Nylund. Published in 2003, it serves as a bridge between the events of the video games Halo: Combat Evolved and its 2004 sequel Halo 2...

, and Halo: Uprising
Halo: Uprising
Halo: Uprising is a four-issue American comic book limited series set in the Halo universe. The series was written by Brian Michael Bendis, illustrated by Alex Maleev, and published by Marvel Comics...

- and has cameos in other Halo media, including Halo: Reach
Halo: Reach
Halo: Reach is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 console. Reach was released in North America, Australia, and Europe on September 14, 2010. The game takes place in the year 2552, where humanity is locked in a war with the...

, Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
Ghosts of Onyx is a novel by Eric Nylund, set in the universe of the Halo video game series and released on October 31, 2006. Ghosts of Onyx was the fourth Halo novel published, and Nylund's third contribution to the series...

, The Halo Graphic Novel and Halo Legends
Halo Legends
Halo Legends is a collection of seven short anime films set in the Halo science-fiction universe. Financed by Halo franchise overseer 343 Industries, the stories were created by six Japanese production houses: Bones, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Studio 4°C, and Toei Animation...

. He is voiced by Chicago disc jockey
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...

 Steve Downes
Steve Downes
Steve Downes is an American DJ and voice actor. He is best known for his work as the voice of Master Chief in the popular Halo video game series. He worked as a disc jockey at Los Angeles, California, Album-oriented Rock radio stations KWST , KEZY-AM and KLSX , but is best remembered working...

 in the video games in which he appears.

The Master Chief is one of the most visible symbols of the Halo series. Originally designed by Bungie artists including Marcus Lehto, Rob McLees, and Shi Kai Wang, the character is a towering and faceless cybernetically
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...

-enhanced supersoldier; he is never seen without his green-colored armor or helmet. Downes built his personification of the Chief off a character description which called for a Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...

-type character of few words.

The Master Chief is a video game icon, a relative newcomer among more established franchise characters, such as Mario
Mario
is a fictional character in his video game series, created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Serving as Nintendo's mascot and the main protagonist of the series, Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his creation...

, Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog (character)
, trademarked Sonic The Hedgehog, is a video game character and the main protagonist of the Sonic video game series released by Sega, as well as in numerous spin-off comics, cartoons, and a feature film. The first game was released on June 23, 1991, to provide Sega with a mascot to rival Nintendo's...

, and Lara Croft
Lara Croft
Lara Croft is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Square Enix video game series Tomb Raider. She is presented as a beautiful, intelligent, and athletic British archaeologist-adventurer who ventures into ancient, hazardous tombs and ruins around the world...

. The character has received mixed reception. Reviewers such as Kotaku
Kotaku
Kotaku is a video games-focused blog. It is part of Gawker Media's "Gawker" network of sites, which also includes Gizmodo, Deadspin, Lifehacker, io9 and Jezebel. Named to CNET News' Blog 100, Kotaku is consistently listed in the top 40 of Technorati's Top 100...

 have pointed to the Chief's silent and faceless nature as a weakness to the character, while other publications said this attribute allows players to better assume the role of the Master Chief. Gaming magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly
Electronic Gaming Monthly
Electronic Gaming Monthly is a bimonthly American video game magazine. It has been published by EGM Media, LLC. since relaunching in April of 2010. Its previous run, which ended in January 2009, was published by Ziff Davis...

named the Master Chief as the eighth greatest video game character ever.

Character design

The task of developing the Master Chief for the character's first appearance in Halo: Combat Evolved fell on Rob McLees and the project's Art Director, Marcus Lehto. Eventually, Shi Kai Wang was hired for conceptual art. One of Wang's sketches was accepted and became the basis for the Master Chief; however, after Wang's version was converted to a 3-D model, it was decided the character looked too slender, "almost effeminate". The Master Chief was subsequently bulked up to the version currently found in the games. Similarly, the Chief's armor went through various changes, such as the addition of an antenna, which was removed later in development, and a green tint.

In an interview on creating believable video game characters, Bungie's Joseph Staten
Joseph Staten
Joseph Staten is a bestselling American writer born in San Francisco, California. The son of a theologian, Staten originally planned on becoming an actor, but dropped the idea in college...

 noted that, "Master Chief is really what kicked off the creativity," he said, "in terms of how people react to him. He's a space Marine in really cool green armor." The character's perspective changed as the game itself changed from a real-time strategy
Real-time strategy
Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....

 game to a first-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...

, but the Chief was always intended to be a soldier in the last part of a long and bitter war. For much of the game's development, the character had no name. The developers spent time considering what rank and branch of the armed forces the Chief would belong to—naval ranks grabbed them as "different" from ones the developers had heard of before. "Master Chief" was intended to be a placeholder while a real name was finalized, but the moniker stuck.

Downes, who voices the Master Chief, is a disc jockey and voice actor who had never played video games before Halo. Downes' only previous experience with video game voice work was a small part for Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator. During production of Halo, Martin O'Donnell
Martin O'Donnell
Martin "Marty" O'Donnell is an American composer known for his work on video game developer Bungie's series, such as Myth, Oni, and Halo...

, Bungie's music director, recommended Downes for the part of the Chief based on his experience working on Septerra. Downes never interviewed for the part, describing his acceptance as "a phone call". For years Downes never appeared at Bungie or Microsoft events, and believes that the Master Chief is left masked because "[the character's identity] is really in the eye of the player".

Personality

Downes said that his voicing for Master Chief was based entirely on Bungie's written character description provided, which specified a character similar to Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...

 and of few words. In a podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...

 interview, the actor noted that, during the recording, he was given a fair amount of creative leeway to develop the Chief's personality. In the games, the Master Chief never speaks during player-controlled gameplay, making him an almost silent protagonist. Even during cutscenes, the character generally speaks sparingly. Bungie Studios' Frank O'Connor has described the Chief as "so quiet and so invisible, literally, that the player gets to pretend they're the Chief. The player gets to inhabit those shoes [and] apply their own personality." Bungie concept artist Eddie Smith described the Master Chief as "pretty much the consummate professional. He does his job, walks off, doesn't even get the girl, he's that cool he doesn't need her." Although the Master Chief is usually depicted as calm, quiet, and wryly cynical, some reviewers stated that Eric Nylund's portrayal of the character in Halo: The Fall of Reach deviates significantly from the treatment found in the games and other media. Alternatively, William C. Dietz
William C. Dietz
William C. Dietz is the best-selling author of more than thirty novels some of which have been translated into German, French, Russian, Korean and Japanese...

's portrayal of the Chief in Halo: The Flood was occasionally blasted by fans as too radical a departure from Nylund's template.

Despite the Master Chief's excellent combat record, many in the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), the military unit to which he belongs, are shown to distrust him. Antonio Silva, a UNSC trooper, exemplifies this attitude, and considers the Master Chief the freak product of an experiment that should never be repeated. Although the Chief resents Silva's dishonor to his fallen comrades' memory, he is also loyal to the chain of command, and remains quiet. Despite these explorations of the character's personality, O'Connor said in an interview that revealing the face of the Chief is not as important as revealing the events going on around the character.

The Master Chief has a close relationship with the artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...

 construct Cortana
Cortana
Cortana is a fictional artificially intelligent character in Bungie's Halo video game series. Voiced by Jen Taylor, she appears in Halo: Combat Evolved and its sequels, Halo 2 and Halo 3, in the prequel and epilogue of Halo: Reach, as well the novels Halo: The Flood, Halo: The Fall of Reach, ...

, who he meets just prior to the fall of the human colony Reach before the events of Combat Evolved. Cortana was created as a game design requirement to guide the character as the Chief throughout the game world, but she became an important aspect of revealing the Chief's humanity. "Over time, Cortana became a fully realized character—a friend and companion to the Chief, not to mention the only person to poke revealing holes in his tough-guy exterior," Staten recalled. The game designers also crafted the player experience of the first game to focus on abandonment and loneliness in many levels, as it reinforced the plot point that many of the Chief's friends were killed before the game began.

Outward appearance

In the video games, the Master Chief is never seen without his armor. In-game cutscenes tease the character's face, but never reveal it; for example, at the end of Halo: Combat Evolved, the Chief removes his helmet, but camera movement hides his head. Bungie did this to help the player bond with the character. The only physical description of the Master Chief comes from the novels. During a briefing scene in Halo: The Flood, the Chief is described as tall with short hair, serious eyes, and strong features. His skin is "too white", a consequence of spending most of his time in his armor. The Master Chief stands about seven feet (2.13 m) tall and weighs 1,000 pounds (450 kg) in armor; without it, he stands six feet, seven inches (2 m) tall and weighs 287 pounds (130 kg).

Halo: The Fall of Reach

The Master Chief's backstory is never explained in the games. A prequel of Halo: Combat Evolved, the 2001 novel The Fall of Reach, reveals much of the character's history and was released as a companion to the game. The Master Chief, originally named John, was born in 2511 and first lived with his family on the human colony planet Eridanus II. Large for his six years of age, and approximately a foot above his school peers, he is described as a typical boy with brown hair, freckles and a gap between his two front teeth. In 2517, John and dozens of children his age are covertly taken from their homes and replaced with clones to hide the kidnapping. The original children are brought to the planet Reach, one of the UNSC's bastions, to begin intense physical and psychological training to become "Spartan-II" supersoldiers. They are assigned new identification numbers instead of last names; John becomes known as John-117. Approximately eight years later, John and the other children are biologically and cybernetically augmented and enhanced. These procedures have substantial risks; only John and thirty-two other Spartans survive.

After the Spartans' first successful operation, John-117 is briefed on the threat posed by the Covenant
Covenant (Halo)
The Covenant are a fictional theocratic military alliance of alien races who serve as the main antagonists in the Halo video game series. They are composed of a variety of diverse species, united under the religious worship of the enigmatic Forerunners and their belief that Forerunner ringworlds...

, a theocratic alliance of alien races, and witnesses the utter devastation wrought by a single ship. In 2552, the Chief and Spartans return to Reach, where the UNSC High Command has developed a last-ditch plan to capture a Covenant High Prophet, who they hope could be used in order to barter a truce. The Master Chief's armor is upgraded, and he first encounters the artificial intelligence (AI) Cortana
Cortana
Cortana is a fictional artificially intelligent character in Bungie's Halo video game series. Voiced by Jen Taylor, she appears in Halo: Combat Evolved and its sequels, Halo 2 and Halo 3, in the prequel and epilogue of Halo: Reach, as well the novels Halo: The Flood, Halo: The Fall of Reach, ...

 during a training mission. The Covenant arrives and invade, despite the best efforts of the Spartans and other UNSC forces. Aboard the spaceship Pillar of Autumn, Cortana plots a random course of escape. Seemingly the last Spartan alive, the Master Chief enters cryonic sleep
Suspended animation
Suspended animation is the slowing of life processes by external means without termination. Breathing, heartbeat, and other involuntary functions may still occur, but they can only be detected by artificial means. Extreme cold can be used to precipitate the slowing of an individual's functions; use...

 along with the Pillar of Autumns crew.

Halo: Combat Evolved

The Master Chief first appears in the games as the protagonist of Halo: Combat Evolved and the 2003 novelization, Halo: The Flood. During the opening cinematic of Halo: Combat Evolved, the Chief is awakened from cryonic sleep. Upon exiting slipspace, the Pillar of Autumn is attacked by the Covenant and crash lands on Halo
Halo (megastructure)
Halos are fictional megastructures and superweapons in the Halo video game series. They are referred to as "Installations" by their AI monitors, and are collectively referred to as "the Array" by the installations' creators, the Forerunners...

, a ring-shaped megastructure. Master Chief escapes the ship via escape pod. Upon landing on Halo, his first task is to find other survivors. While fighting the Covenant, the Master Chief and Cortana learn that Halo was created by an ancient race, the Forerunners, as a last line of defense against an alien parasite called the Flood. The Covenant accidentally releases the Flood, which begins to spread across the ring. At the request of the installation's resident AI 343 Guilty Spark, the Master Chief retrieves the Index, a device used to activate Halo's defenses and eliminate the Flood. However, Guilty Spark neglects to inform the Master Chief that Halo would accomplish this by destroying all sentient life in a vast radius, essentially starving the Flood to death. Cortana intervenes to prevent the activation of Halo. She and the Master Chief destroy it by detonating the Pillar of Autumns fusion reactor core. The Master Chief and Cortana escape in a Longsword, believing they are the only survivors.

First Strike and Halo 2

Halo: First Strike, the 2003 novel by Eric Nylund, follows the Master Chief after the events of Halo: Combat Evolved and bridges the events of Halo and Halo 2. Floating in Halo's debris field, Cortana and the Chief discover that there are in fact other human survivors. The Master Chief and these soldiers capture the Covenant flagship Ascendant Justice, and return to Reach to save any UNSC survivors on the planet. At Reach, the Master Chief discovers that the Covenant had not destroyed the planet's biosphere
Biosphere
The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be called the zone of life on Earth, a closed and self-regulating system...

 in the usual manner, and that a few other Spartans survive. The Chief retrieves Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, the creative genius behind the SPARTAN-II Project, and his fellow soldiers. The Spartans then attack a massive Covenant command station, the Unyielding Hierophant, thus delaying a Covenant assault on Earth.

The Master Chief returns as one of two playable characters in Halo 2, the 2004 sequel to Halo: Combat Evolved. Returning to Earth with heavily damaged armor, the Master Chief receives an upgrade. Aboard Cairo Station in space, he attends a brief awards ceremony, which is interrupted by a Covenant invasion. Master Chief is commanded to protect the station. The Covenant is repelled, and the Master Chief joins the ship In Amber Clad to fight the Covenant on Earth's surface, in New Mombasa. As the Covenant departs via slipspace
Slipstream (science fiction)
"Slipstream" is a science fiction term for a fictional method of faster-than-light space travel, similar to hyperspace travel, warp drive, or "transfer points" from David Brin's Uplift series.-Usage in Star Trek:...

, the In Amber Clad follows them to Installation 05, another Halo. The Master Chief lands on this Halo and subsequently assassinates
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...

 the Covenant High Prophet of Regret. Emerging from a structure, the Master Chief is attacked by orbiting Covenant forces, but is rescued by the Gravemind
Gravemind
The Gravemind is a parasitic intelligence in the Halo universe. While only one Gravemind is ever seen in the games, the title is given to the final stage of Flood evolution. The Flood is a highly-infectious parasite which is released several times during Halos story...

, an intelligence of Flood origin. The Gravemind sends him to High Charity to search for Delta Halo's Index. Subsequently, the Master Chief boards a Forerunner ship bound for Earth, intending to "finish the fight".

Halo 3

Back on Earth, the Master Chief helps to repel hostile Covenant forces from Mombasa
Mombasa
Mombasa is the second-largest city in Kenya. Lying next to the Indian Ocean, it has a major port and an international airport. The city also serves as the centre of the coastal tourism industry....

, Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

 and Voi
Voi
Voi is a market town in southern Kenya, lying on the edge of the Tsavo National Park. It lies at the junction of the railway lines from Nairobi to Mombasa and Taveta. Also the Voi Sisal Estates are located near the town. Voi is also located near some Taita villages like, Ikanga and...

. With the Arbiter
Arbiter (Halo)
Arbiter is a fictional ceremonial, religious, and political rank bestowed upon alien Covenant Elites in the Halo science fiction universe. In the 2004 video game Halo 2, the rank is given to a disgraced commander as a way to atone for his failures...

 (a Covenant Elite who has sided with humanity) and fellow allies, the Chief leads the assault on a Forerunner artifact that the Covenant Prophet of Truth is attempting to activate. Soon after Truth escapes Earth through the slipspace portal opened by the artifact, the Flood lands on Earth. After helping to control the infestation, the Master Chief follows Truth to the Ark, an immense constructed world more than 262,144 light-year
Light-year
A light-year, also light year or lightyear is a unit of length, equal to just under 10 trillion kilometres...

s from the center of the Milky Way
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...

 galaxy
Galaxy
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...

 and well beyond the range of any Halo. There, all the Halos can be remotely activated, thus killing all sentient life that could be infested by the Flood. It is discovered that a new Halo is being constructed to replace the one that the Master Chief destroyed in Halo: Combat Evolved. The Flood follow the Chief to the Ark, bringing High Charity through the slipspace portal to escape the range of the six original Halos. The allied Elites and humans decide to activate the new Halo in order to kill the Flood outside the galaxy, and thus preserve life there. 343 Guilty Spark opposes the premature activation of the incomplete installation and attempts to stop it. Master Chief destroys him, activates the ring, and escapes with Cortana and the Arbiter on the UNSC frigate Forward Unto Dawn. During the escape, the collapsing slipspace portal severs the Dawn in two, stranding Cortana and the Master Chief deep in space. While the Arbiter returns to Earth, Cortana activates a distress beacon, knowing that rescue could take years; the Master Chief enters cryonic sleep, telling Cortana, "Wake me, when you need me." If the player finishes the last level on Legendary difficulty, a cutscene shows the severed half of the ship floating near an unknown planet.

Halo 4

The Master Chief did not appear in the real-time strategy
Real-time strategy
Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....

 game Halo Wars
Halo Wars
Halo Wars is a real-time strategy video game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 video game console. It was released in Japan and Australia on February 26, 2009, in PAL territories on February 27, and in North America on March 3...

- although fellow Spartans are player-controllable - or in Halo 3: ODST; he has a cameo-appearance in Halo: Reach
Halo: Reach
Halo: Reach is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 console. Reach was released in North America, Australia, and Europe on September 14, 2010. The game takes place in the year 2552, where humanity is locked in a war with the...

. Speaking about the future of the franchise in 2009, O'Connor told USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...

, "I doubt we have seen the last of Master Chief," noting that his fate at the end of Halo 3 was a mystery that "would be irritating" if it were only a cliffhanger. The Chief will return as the main protagonist in the upcoming Halo 4, which will reveal his fate after Halo 3.

Other appearances

The Master Chief has appeared or has been referenced several times in non-canon media. He is mentioned several times in Rooster Teeth Productions
Rooster Teeth Productions
Rooster Teeth Productions is a production group from Austin, Texas that specializes in the creation of live action shorts, animated peices and machinima, or films created using real-time, interactive engines from computer and video games. The name Rooster Teeth is a euphemism for Cockbite, an...

' Halo-based machinima
Machinima
Machinima is the use of real-time 3D computer graphics rendering engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation...

 parody series Red vs. Blue
Red vs. Blue
Red vs. Blue, often abbreviated as RvB, is a set of related comic science fiction video series created by Rooster Teeth Productions and distributed through the Internet and on DVD...

. In the first episode of the series, Grif, talking to teammate , says: "I signed up to fight some aliens. Next thing I know, Master Chief blows up the whole Covenant Armada, and I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere, fighting ." In the Halo Zune exclusive video titled "Turn On, Tune In, Zune Out", Doc has a segment on his radio broadcast called "You're not Master Chief, and that's okay". Team Ninja approached Bungie Studios and asked to use the Master Chief in their 2006 video game Dead or Alive 4
Dead or Alive 4
Dead or Alive 4 has received generally positive reviews. IGN gave the game 9.0/10, calling it "a move in the right direction for the series", and praised the fighting system as "deeper and more sophisticated". GameSpot awarded the game a score of 8.8/10, with one of its only negative comments going...

. Although the Chief could not be used due to storyline restrictions, Bungie's interest in the idea resulted in the development of Nicole (Spartan-458).

Marketing for Halo 3 focused heavily on the character of the Master Chief, including "The Museum", and appears in the subsequent video as part of a special advertisement series for Halo 3 entitled "Believe in a Hero". The character appears outside Halo fandom and associated works; a medieval variation of the Master Chief's MJOLNIR armour appears in Fable II, as the suit of armour worn by a legendary hero named "Hal". Hal's Armour only appears as downloadable content.

Peter David
Peter David
Peter Allen David , often abbreviated PAD, is an American writer of comic books, novels, television, movies and video games...

's graphic novel Helljumpers contains a cameo by the Master Chief "before he actually was [the Chief]." The Master Chief appears as a main character in Marvel's limited series
Limited series
A limited series is a comic book series with a set number of installments. A limited series differs from an ongoing series in that the number of issues is determined before production and it differs from a one shot in that it is composed of multiple issues....

 Halo: Uprising, which ties together the events of Halo 2 and Halo 3. The Master Chief appears in four episodes of the 2010 anime collection Halo Legends
Halo Legends
Halo Legends is a collection of seven short anime films set in the Halo science-fiction universe. Financed by Halo franchise overseer 343 Industries, the stories were created by six Japanese production houses: Bones, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Studio 4°C, and Toei Animation...

: "The Package", "Origins", "Homecoming" and "Odd One Out".

Master Chief can be seen briefly at the end of the Halo: Reach
Halo: Reach
Halo: Reach is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 console. Reach was released in North America, Australia, and Europe on September 14, 2010. The game takes place in the year 2552, where humanity is locked in a war with the...

campaign. When moving the right analog stick at the proper time during a cutscene, he can be seen in his cryo-tube, ready to be revived at the beginning of Combat Evolved.

Influences and analysis

IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...

 saw in the Master Chief elements of Jon 6725416, a character in Christopher Rowley
Christopher Rowley
Christopher Rowley is an American writer of both science fiction and fantasy novels.Rowley was born in 1948 in Lynn, Massachusetts to an American mother and an English father. Educated for the most part at Brentwood School, Essex, England, he became a London-based journalist in the 1970s...

's novel Starhammer. Other reviewers have suggested that the name John-117 could be a Biblical reference. Michael Nitsche of the Georgia Institute of Technology
Georgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States...

 found similarity to Gordon Freeman
Gordon Freeman
Gordon Freeman is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Half-Life video game series. He is a theoretical physicist who finds himself thrust into a battle for survival against both alien and human forces. Throughout the series, Gordon must prevail in hostile situations despite...

, the protagonist of Valve Corporation
Valve Corporation
Valve Corporation is an American video game development and digital distribution company based in Bellevue, Washington, United States...

's Half-Life series
Half-Life (series)
The Half-Life series of video games share a science fiction alternate history. Nearly all of the games are first-person shooters on the GoldSource or Source engines, and most are linear, narrative, single-player titles....

 of FPS video games: "[Both characters] are the independent, individualistic, and often lonely heroes that gain admiration by constantly proving their superiority ... in technology-driven, hostile, often closed spaces".

Roger Travis, associate professor of classics at the University of Connecticut
University of Connecticut
The admission rate to the University of Connecticut is about 50% and has been steadily decreasing, with about 28,000 prospective students applying for admission to the freshman class in recent years. Approximately 40,000 prospective students tour the main campus in Storrs annually...

, compared the Master Chief to the epic hero Aeneas
Aeneas
Aeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...

, in that both superhuman characters save a civilization by defeating strong enemies in a martial setting. The audience is intended to identify with the protagonist similarly in both stories.

Matthew Stover
Matthew Stover
Matthew Woodring Stover is an American fantasy and science fiction novelist. He is perhaps best known for his four Star Wars novels, including the novelization of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. He has also written several fantasy novels, including Iron Dawn and Jericho Moon...

 compared Halo to the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...

, saying that both stories share the meta-theme that "war is the crucible of character". As military science fiction
Military science fiction
Military science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction in which the principal characters are members of a military service and an armed conflict is taking place, normally in space, or on a planet other than Earth...

, Halo further raises the issue of being human. Stover argued that, since players are to imagine themselves as the Master Chief, the character is correctly presented as a cyborg
Cyborg
A cyborg is a being with both biological and artificial parts. The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. D. S...

, neither a flawless machine nor fully human. Players would be unable to empathize with the former, and the latter would be too specifically developed. This immersion has facilitated the use of the Halo series' multiplayer mode for live digital puppetry
Digital puppetry
Digital puppetry is the manipulation and performance of digitally animated 2D or 3D figures and objects in a virtual environment that are rendered in real-time by computers...

, as in Chris Burke's machinima
Machinima
Machinima is the use of real-time 3D computer graphics rendering engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation...

 talk show This Spartan Life
This Spartan Life
This Spartan Life is an award-winning talk show created by Bong + Dern Productions and produced and directed by Chris Burke, who hosts the show under the pseudonym Damian Lacedaemion...

.

Cultural impact

Merchandise

BusinessWeek
BusinessWeek
Bloomberg Businessweek, commonly and formerly known as BusinessWeek, is a weekly business magazine published by Bloomberg L.P. It is currently headquartered in New York City.- History :...

listed the Master Chief among several video game characters who have been branded beyond their respective video games, "helping them transcend the very medium in the process". The Master Chief has been used in marketing on a variety of products, from 7-Eleven
7-Eleven
7-Eleven is part of an international chain of convenience stores, operating under Seven-Eleven Japan Co. Ltd, which in turn is owned by Seven & I Holdings Co...

 Slurpee
Slurpee
A Slurpee is a flavored frozen drink sold by 7-Eleven. In 1967, 7-Eleven licensed the product from the ICEE Company, and began selling it as the Slurpee.-Slurpee history:Machines to make frozen beverages were invented by Omar Knedlik in the late 1950s...

s to T-shirts, Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...

 controllers, and Mountain Dew
Mountain Dew
Mountain Dew is a citrus-flavored carbonated soft drink brand produced and owned by PepsiCo. The original formula was invented in the 1940s by Tennessee beverage bottlers Barney and Ally Hartman and was first marketed in Marion, VA, Knoxville and Johnson City, Tennessee. A revised formula was...

.

Several action figure
Action figure
An action figure is a posable character figurine, made of plastic or other materials, and often based upon characters from a film, comic book, video game, or television program. These action figures are usually marketed towards boys and male collectors...

s of the character have been created to market of the Halo series; the most recent were manufactured by McFarlane. One2One collectibles produced 1:2 scale busts of the Master Chief. These actions have been called necessary to the game franchise; Ed Ventura, director of Xbox's worldwide marketing, said, "We want to be in the hearts and minds of our fans as much as we can."

Critical reception

In an article in Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

, Lev Grossman
Lev Grossman
Lev Grossman is an American novelist and journalist, notably the author of the novels Warp , Codex , The Magicians and The Magician King...

 stated that the Master Chief represents a "new kind of celebrity for a new and profoundly weird millennium" and is a symbol of the increasing legitimacy of video games as an art form. The Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper's Sunday counterpart, The...

simply described the Chief as "iconic". Electronic Gaming Monthly and Empire
Empire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...

wrote that the Master Chief had become the de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...

symbol for the Xbox
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...

 and for a new generation of gamers to boot. The recognition of the Master Chief has spread to mainstream culture; Madame Tussauds
Madame Tussauds
Madame Tussauds is a wax museum in London with branches in a number of major cities. It was founded by wax sculptor Marie Tussaud and was formerly known as "Madame Tussaud's", but the apostrophe is no longer used...

 in Las Vegas
Las Vegas Strip
The Las Vegas Strip is an approximately stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard in Clark County, Nevada; adjacent to, but outside the city limits of Las Vegas proper. The Strip lies within the unincorporated townships of Paradise and Winchester...

 has developed a wax sculpture of the Chief. At the ceremony, Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy
Fall Out Boy
Fall Out Boy is an American rock band from Wilmette, Illinois, formed in 2001. The band consists of vocalist, guitarist and composer Patrick Stump, bassist and lyricist Pete Wentz, guitarist Joe Trohman, and drummer Andy Hurley. The band released five studio albums from 2003–2008...

 said that "the Master Chief is as much of a hero today as characters like Spider-Man
Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...

, Frodo
Frodo Baggins
Frodo Baggins is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium.He is the main protagonist of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. He was a hobbit of the Shire who inherited Sauron's Ring from Bilbo Baggins and undertook the quest to destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom...

, and Luke Skywalker
Luke Skywalker
Luke Skywalker is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the original film trilogy of the Star Wars franchise, where he is portrayed by Mark Hamill. He is introduced in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, in which he is forced to leave home, and finds himself apprenticed to the Jedi master...

 were for previous generations." Downes only realized his character was such a huge hit after children lined up around the block for his autograph about a year after the game shipped.

Reaction to the Master Chief as a character is generally mixed. Some reviewers see the character's silent nature as a strength; others have said that this quality leaves him insufficiently developed and not believable. GameDaily
GameDaily
GameDaily was a video game journalism website based in the United States. Launched in 1995 by entrepreneur Mark Friedler under the name Gigex and focused on free game demo downloads, The site changed its business model from a flat fee per download CDN distributed service network to an...

 listed the "strong and silent type" as one of their top 25 video game archetypes, using Master Chief as an example. Ranking reader's top choices for most overrated video game characters, IGN placed the Master Chief first on the list, suggesting that the real appeal of the games was not their protagonists but the multiplayer mode. In another listing of the top 10 video game characters that needed to die, IGN editor Colin Moriarty suggested that the dramatic death of the character could be one of the most powerful events in gaming. UGO
UGO
UGO Entertainment, Inc. is a website providing coverage of online media in entertainment targeting males age 18–34. The company is currently based in New York, New York, United States. On July 24, 2007 it was announced that Hearst Corporation would acquire UGO Entertainment...

 instead ranked the Master Chief at #8 on its list of "Top 100 Heroes of All Time", ahead of fellow video game characters Samus Aran
Samus Aran
is the protagonist of the Metroid video game series. Introduced in the 1986 video game Metroid, Samus is a female ex-army soldier bounty hunter usually fitted with a powered armor suit with weapons that include beams and missiles...

, Link, and Gordon Freeman
Gordon Freeman
Gordon Freeman is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Half-Life video game series. He is a theoretical physicist who finds himself thrust into a battle for survival against both alien and human forces. Throughout the series, Gordon must prevail in hostile situations despite...

. He was rated number 8 in Empire's list of the 50 Greatest Video Game Characters. Neill Blomkamp
Neill Blomkamp
Neill Blomkamp is an Afrikaner-Canadian film and advertisement writer and director. Blomkamp employs a documentary-style, hand-held, cinéma vérité technique, blending naturalistic and photo-realistic computer-generated effects. He is best known as the co-writer and director of critically acclaimed...

, director of the stalled Halo film, said the movie would have depicted the character as "the most important supporting cast member" because of his faceless nature. Instead, "other characters around him [...] did most of the emotional heavy lifting", with their story exploring their perception of the Chief. UGO.com listed Master Chief twenty-ninth on their list of "The Coolest Helmets and Headgear in Video Games", stating "Master Chief wouldn’t be Master Chief without his trademark olive green helmet with gold visor."

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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