Halo is one of the biggest franchises in gaming- highly acclaimed, massively selling, and among other things, one of the first gaming properties ever to cross over outside of video games and leverage a cross media strategy properly. It has an instantly recognizable protagonist, and a rich universe with great lore- and Microsoft thinks that this makes it the Star Wars of video games.
“What’s really so special about Halo, and people will feel it the moment they start playing the campaign, is just the richness of the universe and the story and it’s very much like what Star Wars is to movies, Halo is to games,” said Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg to Gamespot. “You have that special sauce–it’s unlike anything else. So I think that whole universe and what the team has done at 343 with this game and I would stay staying true to what is Halo as a Halo fan, but also modernizing it and innovating it in some ways that I think makes the game a lot of fun to play and really engaging. We’re optimistic that reviews and fans will respond positively, but of course, we’ll wait and see how people feel about it. But personally, I’ve played all the Halo titles and this one definitely has something special that I’ve never seen before.”
Personally, I think this may have been true back in 2007-2010, when the Halo zeitgeist was at its zenith, with the release of Halo 3 and Halo Reach, but I mean, if you think about it, even Star Wars saw a relative lull with the prequel movies. Hey, who knows, maybe Microsoft is on to something here!