IndustryGamers returns with another installment of our multi-studio interviewing tour. Our last interview with Lionhead Studios looked at the intricacies of the RPG and how gamer choices reflected upon game and player visual and experiential outcomes.
Today though, we speak with Bungie’s Joseph Staten on the Master Chief character from the popular Halo series. While Bungie has gone to greener pastures with an all-new action adventure franchise, their work with Halo is considered by many in the industry to be some of the best design out there.
As stated with the previous story, the goal here is to form a baseline on what motivates studios to develop and create characters. That in turn will help form an idea as to what drives gamers to purchase games.
While Lionhead and Fable focused on bringing about consequence into the action, Halo focused on providing the hero capability to the gamer, and that is explored through the world around the player, rather than the protagonist himself. Essentially, a hero complex arises in the gamer, enough to not only satisfy gamers, but also to keep them coming back. This is further compounded by the themes of loneliness and abandonment, a potent mix when creating a character needed to drive off the hoards, as it were.
We explore this concept further with Staten.
Control Questions:
IndustryGamers: Developing a character is assuredly a major concern for a game - how important is it for the development of Halo?
Joseph Staten: It’s mission-critical. Without a clearly defined (though not necessarily complex) character you have no grounding in the world of the game.
IG: What led to the design concept of the protagonist? Was this concept developed from the start, or did the characterization portrayal change over time?
JS: We thought about the Master Chief from the very beginning. Although he didn’t have that name for a long time (in fact he had no name for many years), he was always a soldier because we knew the game would be about the end of a long and brutal war. The Chief’s portrayal—or rather, his perspective—changed as the game changed, most notably from an RTS to a third and then first-person shooter; over time, immersion became more and more important.
IG: Why did you decide to develop the character in the way you did?
JS: In games, function often defines form.
Halo Specific Questions:
IG: The Master Chief has become one of the most recognizable characters in gaming, and yet most gamers know nothing of the character as a person. Why did you decide to leave out details about his background from the games and expand upon them in the expanded universe of the series?
JS: We left-out details to increase immersion; the less players knew about the Chief, we believed, the more they would feel like the Chief. When it came to the Halo novels and other products of the expanded universe, immersion wasn’t as important as deepening understanding.
IG: What purpose did developing such characters as Cortana and Dr. Halsey bring into the equation for gamers? Obviously at the end of the trilogy, we see a deep relationship between Cortana and John - why did you choose to build this relationship as paramount to his relationship between others within the game?
JS: Cortana began as a purely functional design requirement. We needed a character who could consistently guide the player through the game, and an onboard A.I. was something that could always credibly accompany the player (i.e., another soldier might get lost, wounded etc). 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. Through his interactions with Cortana, the Chief revealed his humanity (e.g., players learned the Chief had a sense of humor when he banged his helmet to stop Cortana from talking). And it was for these reasons that we focused so much on the Chief-Cortana relationship.
IG: Though you name the character, give him purpose and even provide a voice for him, he is relatively silent throughout the series. Is this an effort to elicit an emotional attachment between the gamer and the Master Chief? Was the intent to make the gamer feel as though they are in fact the Master Chief, rather than have them feel as though they are playing as the Master Chief?
JS: As I said before, yes, immersion was the main goal here. Also keeping the Chief a man of few words reinforced what we wanted to be a tough-as-nails soldierly persona.
IG: Though Halo: Reach has finally been released and gamers can gain a feel for the events that led up to the first game, the Master Chief is a man who has simply lost most everything he cares for. He is a man that is forced to lose pretty much all of his “family.” How did creating that story point affect the development of how the Master Chief was presented in game?
JS: In the first Halo game we absolutely designed experiences around themes of loneliness and abandonment. Halo didn’t dwell on the loss of the other Spartans (the closest we came was some of the “combat dialog” from friendly A.I. For example, “Look, a Spartan! I thought they all died on Reach…”), but we did absolutely want players sometimes to feel the weight of the Chief’s heavy responsibilities. Take, for example, the mission where the Chief leaves Cortana to search for his commanding officer, Captain Keyes, only to end up witnessing the recorded deaths of other soldiers who might have lived had the Chief been with them.
IG: The gamer is a half-ton of Covenant repellent, to put it lightly. The game simply could have been just that, a roving shooter. Why bother with trying to give consumers more to read into when it comes to the game? The Master Chief, as little as we know of him, is certainly more complex than he seems. Why put the time in?
JS: That really begs the question, why not? At Bungie, we make the games—and by extension, the game characters—we want to play. We think our fans are a lot like us: they want their time in games to have value, to be a personal experience that means something when they’re through. These shared expectations demanded a protagonist that was more than a bipedal platform for powerful weapons.
IG: The success of Halo has been truly phenomenal; it is simply one of the top franchises out there today. Do you believe that the game could be what it is today had the Master Chief been developed in any other way?
JS: Halo is successful because it is, first and foremost, a terrifically fun game to play, alone and with your friends. But the character of the Master Chief and the Spartans in general are certainly a big part of the appeal. Even in multiplayer, it’s extremely satisfying to know you are one of the smartest, fastest and luckiest soldiers ever known.
IG: Thanks Joseph.
