Master Chief’s future may depend on whether Microsoft can close the $68.7 billion deal for Activision Blizzard King.

Bungie launched Halo on Microsoft’s Xbox console in 2001, and at the time, it was not the case that the console and PC versions of the game were released simultaneously. There was a 1-2-year wait for ports of both the first and second installments, and the third’s PC version wasn’t even made then. Back then, Master Chief was a real draw for the Xbox brand, and many people played Halo 3 from 2007 on Xbox 360, for example. It found its place among the first-person shooters, even though the franchise was slowly going downhill after Halo 4 (2012).

One of Activision Blizzard King’s trump cards is Call of Duty, which took over the blockbuster FPS tag from Halo. It’s a name that almost everyone knows, and it’s no coincidence that the franchise tops the charts in game sales every year. Microsoft wants to buy its publisher. It has a side effect. With this transaction (if the US trade commission, the FTC, eventually agrees, but they are currently running an antitrust suit against Microsoft), the Redmond-based company will gain access to a lot of IP (Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Crash Bandicoot, Call of Duty…). One can then legitimately ask: what will happen to the older IP?

Halo could thus become irrelevant for Microsoft because it would not have the same appeal as Call of Duty (especially if the multiplayer aspect is taken into account), and since Halo Infinite, released at the end of 2021, did not expand in terms of content after its release as Microsoft would have expected, the management of 343 Industries, the studio that developed the game, has been replaced.

So if Microsoft’s transaction can go through, the future of Master Chief will stand or fall on the next part of Halo. If there is demand, the Spartan soldier will survive. If not… he’ll likely suffer a fatal wound in combat.

Source: GameRant