Halo Wars Lead Designer Unveiled the Real Reason Why Master Chief Wasn't in the Game

The real-time strategy game Halo Wars is the last title Ensemble Studios worked on before it was disbanded by Microsoft in 2009, the same year the game was released. Some fans once believed that the lack of Master Chief, the protagonist of most installments in the Halo series and spin-offs, was blamed on Bungie, the developer of the original Halo games, who was reluctant to let others create games based on their IP. 

This speculation wasn’t coming out of nowhere because, according to Ensemble's founder Tony Goodman, Bungie felt Microsoft’s decision to let Ensemble work on a Halo game was "the whoring out of our franchise." 

To better understand the relationship between the two studios at that time, here is a short brief on the timeline: Bungie was acquired by Microsoft in 2000 and released the first Halo title, Halo: Combat Evolved, in 2001; it went independent again in 2007, while Microsoft kept the license of the Halo IP; Halo Wars, whose story was set before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved, was released in 2009. 

Now, more than 15 years after Halo Wars’ release, the lead designer, Dave Pottinger from Ensemble Studios, has stood out to share the real reason behind the game’s lack of Master Chief. It was actually a deliberate decision by Ensemble Studios to encourage players to care about every character in the game - so it’s not Bungie’s fault at all. 

Pottinger explained in an interview with the VideoGamer Podcast, saying, "We didn’t want to use Master Chief. We were telling [the player] that you needed to care about everybody else. We thought as soon as Master Chief shows up, that's all anybody's going to [care about]." And contrary to the belief that Bungine had been protective of the Halo IP, they were cooperative and offered help to access the series’ lore.

This real reason has generated some discussion in the community, with many fans supporting the developer's decision. "Looking back, it was refreshing to see stories of other characters in the universe. And I would honestly say this dev’s concerns have manifested in some sense based on how the storytelling quality of the recent games seem to be held back by the need to uphold, feature, or be anchored to, the actions/image of a single character," commented alzw1998 on Reddit.