The Outsize Emotional Impact of Halo
A personal essay on how I had my life's trajectory altered by the Chief
Halo Infinite came out today. Over the last couple of weeks, between work on Charter and my masters degree, I’ve been sneaking in a few cheeky sessions on Halo Infinite’s free-to-play multiplayer. As you may have heard elsewhere, it’s pretty good. I wish they’d bring back Reach’s progression system but that’s a minor gripe.
I’m not here to talk about Halo Infinite though. Don’t get me wrong, this is probably the most excited I’ve been for a new Halo title since 2010. The gameplay is solid and it feels like a real return to form in terms of the sandbox (and don’t get me started about the art style - good GOD I’m so glad it doesn’t look anything like Halo 5).
Instead, today I want to talk (somewhat counterintuitively) about the past.
Legend
We’ve just passed the 20 year anniversary of Halo: Combat Evolved’s release, which apparently was the cue for everyone to start releasing retrospectives on the series. If you couldn’t tell from most of my content, I’m a sucker for nostalgia, and Halo hits a particular sweet spot at the intersection of joyful boyhood preoccupation and formative, coming-of-age experience.
I have lived whole lives in daydreams illuminated by the light of alien suns. My feet still call the dirt of faraway planets and ringworlds home. But these things were long ago.
I’ve forgotten an entire person that I used to be, someone who was as quick on the trigger as he was incapable of talking to women. But listening to other people’s experiences of Halo growing up, hearing familiar guitar riffs and piano arrangements - Marty O’Donnell, you score my dreams and highest moments still - elicited a groundswell of emotions in me that I didn’t know was still there. Like a divine wind rushing through the stars, all it’s taken for me to remember was a little music and my hands on a controller.
And maybe a (not so) short retrospective video on Halo 2.
And so, today is not about space or startups or law or any of the other serious disciplines which I have, in my recent years, come to practice and master. Instead today I’m going to tell you how Halo changed my life, what I remember of it, and what it meant to me.
Strap in boys and girls, and throw on a little of the ol’ Mjolnir Mix - it’s time to get tactical.
Brothers in Arms
When I was a kid, everyone else had a Game Boy Color and was playing Pokemon. I didn’t grow up super wealthy so I was the only kid around without a Game Boy. When my 7th birthday came around, I asked my parents for a Game Boy.
My dad, knowing full well that I wanted to be a fighter pilot at the time and having already communicated to me that I’d need perfect vision if I wanted to qualify, asked me to think of all my friends who owned Game Boys. He pointed out that all of them wore glasses, and told me that Game Boys caused myopia, and that was the real reason why they weren’t willing to buy me the handheld device.
It was a very convincing argument. When they offered me a compromise in the form of the first generation Xbox (which actually did make economical sense), I instantly caved.
It was probably one of the best things to have ever happened to me. When I received Halo CE as an accompanying birthday gift from a family friend, I played it as often as humanly possible with my dad. I used to call him in the middle of his work day to ask him what time he’d be back, because I wanted to play co-op with him. I would read out the mission descriptions in the menu because I wanted him to get as excited about it as I was.
I also remember playing multiplayer with him, where I’d hog the scorpion tank on Blood Gulch until he started sniping me out from the driver’s seat. It took me a few games to figure out what he was doing, but eventually I learned to do it back to him.
I played through the entire Halo CE campaign with my dad. Every day, I waited for him to get back and play with me because I was too scared to go through the later levels, especially the ones with the Flood. And (almost) every day, without fail, no matter how tired he was from his busy day at work, he would sit down and play Halo with me. After I started consistently beating him in multiplayer, he’d swear that I was cheating somehow, but he’d always sit down again for another match.
I wasn’t having a good time at school at the time. I didn’t really have many friends either - I actually got pushed around a lot and one of my teachers was bullying me (that’s a whole other can of worms). But I always knew I could count on my dad to play Halo with me when he got home.
It was something to always look forward to.
Greatest Journey
The memories I have of the other Halo games could fill a book. I remember every single launch day and what it felt like, but many of my fondest memories are about the years I spent playing the games.
So many of my friends became my friends because I invited them over to play Halo. It became my first bridge, as a lonely and kind of strange kid, to other people.
When I think of the word ‘halcyon’, I think of those days. We were just boys hanging out, without a care in the world, free to goof off and play video games hopped up on soda and junk food. We were even going to film a machinima - I wrote the script for it - but we could never figure out how to get the capture card to work.
It was just the thing to do at the time. If you were a teenager on the internet, you’d grab a few buddies and you’d make a Halo machinima. That, combined with forge mode and the first sparks of my passion for writing, provided me an avenue to channel my burgeoning creativity which I have continued to nurture to this day.
It was also a proving ground for my nascent competitive spirit. This is where I brag that I nurtured my competitive spirit until I was ranked in the top 0.2% globally for skill in Halo Reach SWAT. Yes, I cite this often. No, I’m no longer that good, but for a time I was. And damned if I’m not still proud of it.
As a kid, I was never one for competitions because of a deep-rooted fear of failure. Call it a cultural thing. But the experience of going online in multiplayer, getting fragged and coming back for more, over and over, was a rapid feedback loop that finally drilled into me an understanding that failure only lasts as long as the time it takes to respawn.
And more importantly, we can always respawn.
Aside from giving me a place where I could achieve something objectively challenging for the first time in my life, Halo gave me something much more valuable: it was a place to grow up.
In Amber Clad
When people find out I used to write science fiction, they frequently assume my love for the genre must have begun with Star Wars, which is a reasonable assumption especially given the Star Destroyer perched atop on my bookshelf and the volumes of books and comics I’ve consumed over the years.
I was in the front row to watch Attack of the Clones on opening night, yes. And yes, I did jump around in the schoolyard for months afterwards pretending to have lightsaber fights.
But my love of science fiction really began with Halo.
I bought all the books and consumed all the lore. I don’t think I’ve ever re-read any book as much as I did with Ghosts of Onyx. I spent far too much time and boyhood energy being preoccupied by Halo’s universe. That was how I started writing, by the way. Halo fanfiction, on some long-dead fan forum. But that too is a whole story for another day.
In Chinese, the term for addiction is ‘沉迷’, which literally translates to ‘submerge and become lost’. There is no better way to describe what I was.
But for how negative that sounds, I credit that passion with preserving much of my imagination against the campaign of effacement conducted by the Singapore education system. When I wrote essays in school about aliens and space marines, I always received a failing grade and got cautioned to write about more pedestrian things. And yet, continue writing about aliens and space I did.
Because Halo made me want to. Halo told me these grand tales of a faraway future; of sacrifice, and putting up a fight in the face of crushing adversity. Halo showed me the power of a good story, the potential it has to teach and impart values. I learned that bravery inspires, and that legends persist long after our matter has faded.
It’s a testament to Halo’s storytelling that I’m still able to remember so much of its events. It’s an even bigger testament to the power of stories in and of themselves.
One Final Effort
Today, I run a space company. My science fiction works have been published. I’ve lectured on space law. I have no doubt that my path here would not have been possible without Halo’s influence.
It’s a funny thing, that a video game can matter so much. Except it’s not just a video game, it’s a story, and a damned good one at that. More than just the fiction, I think often of the way Bungie used to be in the good old days when I think of how to treat fans who care about the work I’ve created. And I think of the responsibility a creator owes once they get someone to care about what they’ve made.
Because we all live for other people.
“One of the secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.”
Lewis Carroll might have said it, but I learned it from Master Chief’s example.
So, as much as I love Star Wars, credit where credit is due; I have no choice but to admit that I have Halo to thank for my enduring imagination, my tenacity, and my sense of self and sacrifice.
Now, I do have more to say on Halo - like I said, I could fill volumes - but to be honest, I’d much rather go play Halo. So that’s what I’m taking the rest of this evening to do.