Paramount+’s show based (somewhat) on the popular video games of the same name, Halo, was the streaming service’s most-watched series, racking up more views than Yellowstone. Even with the rocky reception by fans and critics alike — it has a lot of ups and downs — the show was the first successful Halo television adaption. Following the story of John (Pablo Schreiber), also known as The Master Chief, the UNSC Spartan super soldier fighting for the survival of humanity against the alien coalition known as the Covenant, this show is probably the starting point of many more.

A second season has already started filming, and it’s likely not going to be the only Halo content we’re getting from Paramount, as top execs view Halo as “enormously franchisable,” so we can assume that Paramount will be making many more stories set in the grand Halo universe. Here are other potential Halo stories that could be adapted by the studio for Paramount+ soon.

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Humanity’s First Contact With the Covenant

     Paramount+

Almost thirty years before the events of the show and the games, the war began on the peaceful planet of Harvest. Told by original Halo game trilogy writer Joseph Staten in the novel Contact Harvest, Paramount can tell the story of this chance encounter between species that started peacefully and ended bloody in a limited series, which provides the backstory for the rebel Insurrectionists and for one of the franchise’s most beloved characters noticeably absent from the show, Sergeant Johnson. As the beginning of the Covenant’s decades-long genocidal campaign against humanity, this is almost guaranteed to be adapted by Paramount at some point.

Doctor Halsey’s Experiments

Doctor Catherine Halsey is the mastermind behind the Spartans, her greatest contribution to the survival of humanity and her most abominable project. With no regard for the laws of the UNSC or morality, Halsey does whatever she pleases. To start her SPARTAN-II Project, Halsey kidnaped children and replaced them with quick-to-die clones to cover her tracks. The children were, being as young as six years old, brainwashed completely, trained as killers, and surgically altered, causing many deaths in the process, then put in the experimental MJONIR armor to create the perfect human soldiers. Halsey later justified her monstrous crimes as the reason humanity was saved from extinction, which is true.

Paramount accurately portrayed Halsey in Halo, but she falls out of relevance during the war, and now that she has fled the UNSC, a separate story she could fulfill is from Eric Nylund’s novel Ghosts of Onyx, in a series following her study and experiments with the mythical wonders of the Forerunners on the mysterious world of Onyx.

The Tragic Fall of Reach

     Bungie

The planet Reach was introduced in the first episode of Halo as the UNSC base of operations, but it was also the training ground for Halsey’s SPARTAN Program. The Master Chief’s harsh upbringing as a super soldier and the destruction of this vital stronghold are detailed in Eric Nylund’s The Fall of Reach, the first ever Halo novel that served as the inspiration for the acclaimed and loved game Halo: Reach. Paramount may include a catastrophic battle between the UNSC and the Covenant for Reach in Halo, and the studio has already changed the Master Chief’s backstory, so this storyline may tragically be forgotten.

The Ancient History of the Forerunners

     343 Industries

100,000 years before the battle between the Master Chief, the extinct alien species known only as the Forerunners possessed incredibly advanced technology but left behind ruins, all considered sacred by the Covenant, who worship the Forerunners as gods. These mysterious beings created the Halo Array, the giant rings seen only briefly in the show but act as the setting for many games, which can wipe the galaxy clean of all sentient life.

A Forerunner-centric novel trilogy written by Greg Bear could ideally and easily chbe adapted by Paramount as a long-running prequel series that could explore an era in the galaxy we know little about and would set the stage for all the Halo universe as we know it and the legend of the Master Chief.

Master Chief’s Story After the War

The Master Chief’s story didn’t end with the war in the games and expands even more after he stopped the Covenant. In the games after Halo 3, we find the Chief battling Covenant Spartans, coming face-to-face with the Forerunners, and even a rampaging Cortana. Paramount can draw from the games, but there is really no limit to what the studio can do in the universe after Halo the series is finished.

There are many more stories and arcs from the franchise lore that Paramount could use, and while Halo may not be what everyone was hoping for, there’s still that good chance for fans and newcomers to find other stories about the Chief to love, and there will most certainly be lots more to come.