Like many gamers in the early 2000s, I got an Xbox specifically so I could play Halo: Combat Evolved. I became so obsessed with it that I bought everything I could find with “Halo” on the cover, including Eric Nylund’s Halo: The Fall of Reach. I didn’t expect it to completely change how I looked at Master Chief, but it did, chronicling his experience as a child abducted into an experimental military program designed to create supersoldiers.
The armored, weathered combat veteran from the game, like the rest of us, was once a kid. But even at only six years old, he was special. Late last month, Xbox announced that development of the next game set in the Halo universe would be handed off to Activision.
Then, earlier this week, a leak shared by Rebs Gaming indicated that Activision is considering a hard reboot that would double as Master Chief’s origin story. But not only does this miss the point of Combat Evolved, which thrust players directly into an already ongoing future war between humanity and a messianic alien empire known as The Covenant, it also threatens to overwrite a legitimately great sci-fi story in the process. The Fall of Reach begins decades before Combat Evolved, in the year 2517, when Dr.
Catherine Halsey identifies John as one of 150 children genetically suited for the SPARTAN-II program. These children are abducted and replaced with short-lived flash clones designed to trick their parents into thinking each child is dead. He's then subjected to years of military training under Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez.
All of this occurs on the planet Reach which, aside from Earth, is positioned as the next most-prominent human world. Whereas the game and virtually all of its sequels effectively present Master Chief as the last of his kind, The Fall of Reach surrounds him with dozens of Spartans. John grows up alongside Kelly, the fastest of them; Linda, an almost impossibly precise marksman; Fred, who is nearly as capable a leader as John; and Sam, John’s first and closest friend who’s also described as the strongest of them all.
Together, they become a found family and tight-knit squad. Their earliest training exercises establish what ultimately makes John special. He isn’t the fastest or the strongest Spartan.
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