14 DAY TRIAL // Most fans of Halo might be focused on the launch of the fifth core game in the franchise later in the year, but the universe built by Bungie and now owned by Microsoft has always had cross-media ambitions and now a new novel is being announced, called Halo: New Blood, set to be launched on March 2 of this year.
The book is the result of a collaboration between 343 Industries, Simon & Schuster, and Pocket Star Books, and it is written by Matt Forbeck.
The official blurb for Halo: New Blood states, “While Spartans get all the glory, no soldier―not even the legendary Master Chief―wins a war on his or her own. Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck and his team of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers played a major role in saving the Earth from all-out invasion at the end of the Covenant War―acts of bravery and ingenuity that did not go unnoticed by the United Nations Space Command.”
Buck is now seen by the UNSC as the man who can lead the creation of a new generation of Spartans, but the military organization might have an ulterior motive.
The connection with the Halo video game universe is made through ODST and more information about the thinking behind the creation of the new novel is offered in an interview with the author on the official site.
Forbeck adds that he loved the way his main character was portrayed by Nathan Fillion in the game.
The writer adds that Buck is “a complex guy, proud of himself and his team, and determined to get the job done and bring as many of his teammates home as he can. That’s the kind of hero who lends himself to all sorts of great stories.”
Halo 5: Guardians remains the biggest launch of the year
As demonstrated with the delivery of Nightfall, the live-action series introduced in 2014, the focus for Halo fans is still on the video games.
Guardians is set to be launched in the fall of this year only on the Xbox One and will offer both a solid single-player mode, which focuses on the new adventures of Master Chief, and a multiplayer experience that will use a range of new mechanics, which have been already featured in the beta stage that ran in January and have attracted both positive and negative reactions from the community.
