After years of fans speculating otherwise, Halo Wars' lead designer has revealed that the lack of a certain figurehead from the 2009 spin-off wasn't Bungie's fault after all.
“We didn't want to use Master Chief,” Ensemble Studios' Dave Pottinger tells VideoGamer Podcast of his executive decision, omitting the RTS character because the game “needed you to care about everyone else. We thought that as soon as Master Chief shows up, That's all anyone is going to do. [care about]” he explains. This means that theories that Bungie snubbed Ensemble by retaining the Master Chief license, and that the publisher objected to the game's existence in the first place, aren't true after all.
Following a series renowned for delivering some of the best FPS games of all time, Pottinger emphasized how the strategy elements made it integral for players to keep an open mind in Halo Wars, and how the lack of Master Chief made it fans would be less inclined to prefer the Spartans by default. Still, the decision to leave him out completely was not made lightly. Ensemble “had serious conversations with people internally and externally,” said Pottinger, who left the studio with a new question to consider: “What can an RTS be? Clearly, the Spartans are the best unit. Our challenge is to make the Spartans are not the best unit. the best unit, but making them an equal option [weighed against] the other units. That's what a strategy game is.”
Having a Halo game without Master Chief sounds like a misstep, but when Pottinger puts it that way, it makes a lot of sense. Given the cult status the humble RTS has achieved since its initially lukewarm reception in 2009, and how its popularity sparked a sequel years later from Alien: Isolation developer Creative Assembly, it seems Ensemble's gamble paid off handsomely. You're off the hook this time, Bungie!
From Wars to Infinite, check out best halo games of the entire Xbox series.