Master Chief is ready for his closeup, Halo's new TV series gets snapped up by Showtime

Xbox got the crowd hollering at E3 2018 with the announcement of Halo Infinite, and now it's doubling down on Master Chief in a deal with Showtime for its previously announced TV show. The ten-episode season will go into production next year, with Awake and Lone Star writer Kyle Killen as showrunner.

"This is a truly exciting moment for the Halo franchise," says Kiki Wolfkill, head of Halo Transmedia at 343 Industries. "Together with our creative and production partners at Showtime and Amblin Television, the Halo television series will represent new and exciting way for fans to enter and engage with the Halo universe."

Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt has been signed up to direct a number of episodes. 

"Halo is our most ambitious series ever, and we expect audiences who have been anticipating it for years to be thoroughly rewarded," adds Showtime president and CEO David Nevins. 

"In the history of television, there simply has never been enough great science fiction. Kyle Killen’s scripts are thrilling, expansive and provocative, Rupert Wyatt is a wonderful, world-building director, and their vision of Halo will enthrall fans of the game while also drawing the uninitiated into a world of complex characters that populate this unique universe."

Microsoft has experimented with adapting Halo before: there was a doomed movie project that signed up dream collaborators like Peter Jackson, Neill Blomkamp, and Guillermo del Toro before it collapsed around 2007. Since then, there have been webseries Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn and the Ridley Scott-produced Halo: Nightfall. This latest project was first announced back in 2013 at an Xbox One press conference, with an appearance from none other than Steven Spielberg.

Already forgotten what other bug game announcements E3 had? Check out our list of the hottest E3 2018 games and refresh your memory.