Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: Is Halo Wars part of the Halo saga?
The "Halo" franchise has been highly successful commercially and critically. During the two months following "Halo: Combat Evolved"s release, it sold alongside more than fifty percent of Xbox consoles and sold a million units by April 2002. "Halo 2"s sales generated US$125 million on its premiere day, making it the fastest selling United States media product in history up to that time. Combined with "Halo"s sales, the two games sold 14.8 million units before "Halo 3"s release.
GameSpot reported 4.2 million units of "Halo 3" were in retail outlets on September 24, 2007, a day before official release – a world record volume. "Halo 3" broke the previous record for the highest grossing opening day in entertainment history, making US$170 million in its first twenty-four hours. Worldwide, sales exceeded US$300 million the first week, helping to more than double the sales of the Xbox 360 when compared with the weekly average before the "Halo 3" launch. At the end of 2007, "Halo 2" and "Halo: Combat Evolved" were the number one and two best-selling Xbox titles, respectively, and "Halo 3" was the best-selling Xbox 360 title. "Halo Wars" was the best-selling RTS console game, selling more than one million units. The "Halo" series went on to sell more than 27 million copies by August 2009, and more than 34 million copies by May 2010. Tor Books reported that sales of all franchise materials are greater than $1.7 billion, and Bungie's games before "Reach" accounted for $1.5 billion in sales. The soundtracks to "Halo 2", "Halo 3", "ODST" and "Reach" all appeared on the Billboard 200 charts for at least one week. By May 2011, total gross of "Halo" merchandise was $2 billion, with 40 million copies of the games sold. The total amount climbed to $2.3 billion in July 2011, and $2.8 billion in January 2012. Total franchise grosses exceeded $4.6 billion by October 2015, with 25% of the figure from non-game-related merchandise.
Peter David's graphic novel "Helljumpers" contains a cameo by the Master Chief "before he actually "was" [the Chief]." The Master Chief appears as a main character in Marvel's limited series "Halo: Uprising", which ties together the events of "Halo 2" and "Halo 3". The Master Chief appears in four episodes of the 2010 anime collection "Halo Legends": "The Package", "Origins", "Homecoming" and "Odd One Out".
Total War is a series of strategy games developed by The Creative Assembly for personal computers. They combine turn-based strategy and resource management with real-time tactical control of battles. The first of the series, "" was released in June 2000. The most recent major game released was "" on 3 May 2018. The series has sold over 20 million copies.
MCPON John-117, or "Master Chief", is a fictional character and the protagonist of the "Halo" fictional universe created by Bungie. Master Chief is a playable character in the series of science fiction first-person shooter video games "", "Halo 2", "Halo 3", "Halo 4", and "". Outside video games, the character appears in books and graphic novels—"", "", "", and ""—and has cameos in other "Halo" media, including "", "", "The Halo Graphic Novel", "Halo Legends" and "".
"PC Gamer" complimented the variety of multiplayer game modes available. This sentiment was shared by other reviewers who thought the multiplayer offering was considerably more diverse than what was typically available in most RTS games. Numerous critics regarded Blitz to be the standout multiplayer mode, however they were still apprehensive about its shortcomings. "GamesRadar" called Blitz the most forward-thinking area of "Halo Wars 2", in contrast to other parts of the game which they thought were formulaic. Other writers agreed the mode was an interesting twist on RTS and enjoyed playing it. While Blitz card packs could be earned through playing the game, critics still expressed disappointment about the inclusion of microtransactions for purchasing card packs. A couple of reviewers suspected that winning games in Blitz may be too reliant on the luck of the draw. Consequently, the randomness and card mechanics in the mode were thought to be unsuitable for competitive multiplayer but fitting for the Firefight variant.
World of Warcraft (WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the "Warcraft" fantasy universe. "World of Warcraft" takes place within the "Warcraft" world of Azeroth, approximately four years after the events at the conclusion of Blizzard's previous "Warcraft" release, "." The game was announced in 2001, and was released for the 10th anniversary of the "Warcraft" franchise on November 23, 2004. Since launch, "World of Warcraft" has had seven major expansion packs released for it: "", "", "", "", "", "", and "".
Overall, the opinions of reviewers seem to have been summed up by Pro-G: "One day someone is going to combine the RTS with another genre and pull it off really well; "Rise & Fall" isn't that game. The basic RTS elements are sound, but the hero mode verges on awful, boat control is a nightmare, and the campaigns are dull... There are so many other games out there that offer a better all-round RTS experience, there's really no reason to bother with Midway's effort. Some praise must be given for trying something a little different, but Rise & Fall is another idea that falls a long way short of its potential."
After "" was released in 1996, Blizzard originally began development of a point-and-click adventure game called "" which was supposed to tell the story after "Warcraft II". "Lord of the Clans" was canceled in favor of "Warcraft III" in 1998 which was presented to the public at the European Computer Trade Show in September 1999. The game's design and gameplay was significantly altered during development, with the final game sharing little similarities with the originally presented version. "Warcraft III" is set several years after the events of "Warcraft II" and its expansion and tells the story of the Burning Legion's attempt to conquer the fictional world of Azeroth with the help of an army of the Undead, led by fallen paladin Arthas Menethil. It also chronicles the combined efforts of the Human Alliance, Orcish Horde and Night Elves to stop them before they can corrupt the World Tree.
In 2004, Blizzard Entertainment moved the series away from the real-time strategy genre and released "World of Warcraft", a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Requiring a subscription fee to be paid to play, it also introduced regular additional content to the series in the form of patches. "World of Warcraft" gained popularity worldwide, becoming the world's largest subscription-based MMORPG in 2008. The game reached a peak 12 million subscribers worldwide in October 2010. "World of Warcraft" has had seven expansions as of 2018. During the production of "", Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce stated that "If there's a team that's passionate about doing another "Warcraft" [real-time strategy], then that's definitely something we would consider. It's nothing that we're working on right now, we have development teams working on "", "", "Diablo III", and when those teams are all off the projects they're working on, they'll be intimately involved in the discussions about what's next".
A fighting game sequel, "Persona 4 Arena", known in Japan as "Persona 4: The Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena", was developed by Arc System Works, the company known for creating the "Guilty Gear" and "BlazBlue" series, and released in 2012 for arcades, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. As with the anime, the protagonist is named Yu Narukami. , Mitsuru, Elizabeth, and Akihiko from "Persona 3" are also featured in the game. Set two months following the True Ending of the original game, the members of the Investigation Team are pulled back into the television and forced into a fighting tournament called the "P-1 Grand Prix" hosted by Teddie.
"" is the sixth main game in the "Guitar Hero" series, released by Activision to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii consoles in September 2010. The game was developed by Activision's subsidiary studios RedOctane, Neversoft, and Vicarious Visions; the latter provided support for additional features in the Wii version of the game. Following a decline in sales of music games in 2009, partially due to the large number of music games released that year, Activision scaled back their efforts in the "Guitar Hero" series. "Warriors of Rock" represents the final game developed by RedOctane and Neversoft. Both studios' respective "Guitar Hero" divisions were closed once the game was complete, with key personnel brought into Activision directly for future games. It was initially announced that Vicarious Visions would take over future game development of the "Guitar Hero" series, however due to declining music game sales, all further development of the "Guitar Hero" series was cancelled, until 2015 when "Guitar Hero Live" was released.
"Gears of War" was an immediate hit upon its release. On November 7, 2006—the day that it was released—it became the most popular game on the Xbox Live service, until the release of "Halo 3", overtaking "Halo 2" which had held the spot since its launch in November 2004. "Gears" was the second most-played game on the Xbox Live service throughout 2007. "Gears of War" sold one million copies in its first two weeks on sale making it the fastest-selling Xbox 360 game to date. By January 19, 2007, just ten weeks after its debut, over three million units of the game had been sold. It received a "Double Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 600,000 copies in the United Kingdom. As of November 7, 2008, the game has sold 5.88 million copies worldwide. "Gears of War" was also the first Xbox or Xbox 360 game to sell out and reach the top ten charts in Japan.
The first two games in the series, "Castle Wolfenstein" and "Beyond Castle Wolfenstein", were stealth-based and featured a 2D top-down perspective. The third game in the franchise, "Wolfenstein 3D", developed by id Software, introduced a first-person perspective with faster-paced action. Because of this, it is widely regarded to have helped popularize the first-person shooter genre. In 2001, the series was rebooted with "Return to Castle Wolfenstein", developed by Gray Matter Interactive. It was followed in 2003 by "", by Splash Damage. Raven Software's "Wolfenstein" followed in 2009. After ZeniMax Media acquired id Software, Swedish developer MachineGames released "" in 2014 and a standalone expansion "" in 2015. A direct sequel to "The New Order" entitled "" was released on October 27, 2017.
Hugues Giboire, art director of previous Ninja Theory game "Heavenly Sword", returned to work on the game. A Microsoft Windows version of the game was announced on January 9, 2015. The game is powered by Unreal Engine 4, and was made by Ninja Theory with a team of around twenty developers. Its subtitle, "Senua's Sacrifice", was announced in March 2016. "Hellblade: Senua's Psychosis", a short documentary film included with the game, details the concept behind its story and inspirations, notably the team's study of mental illness. It was written and narrated by Antoniades, and edited by Juergens.
A new installment in the "Grandia" series developed by Game Arts was officially announced on June 1, 2001 with the tentative name of "Grandia X". The game, later retitled "Grandia Xtreme", was to be published by Enix as they had just invested capital in Game Arts for a total of ¥99.2 million, or 15% of the company. The game was the first title Game Arts developed exclusively for the PlayStation 2. While previous installments in the series were traditional role-playing video games, the developers took the new title in a different direction and designed it more as an action role-playing game or dungeon crawler to make it more accessible to casual gamers. They nevertheless kept and enhanced mainstays such as the combat and magic systems, as well as the "enchantment" aspect of the story. To design the characters of the game, Enix and Game Arts selected Kamui Fujiwara, the character designer of "Terranigma". Development for the game spanned roughly 18 months.
Relic Entertainment is a Canadian video game developer based in Vancouver. The company was founded in June 1997 by Alex Garden and Luke Moloney. After its debut title "Homeworld" (1999), the company developed two more games, "Impossible Creatures" (2003) and "Homeworld 2" (2003), and signed a contract with publisher THQ for an additional two games. Before either game was released, however, Relic was bought by THQ in May 2004 for $10 million in cash; the company was renamed THQ Canada, with "Relic Entertainment" used as a marketing brand by the studio. THQ published the next five games by the company. A few months after being purchased, Relic released its first licensed title, "" (2004). It released two more original titles in 2006, "The Outfit" and "Company of Heroes", before transitioning to focus on further titles and expansion packs in the "Warhammer 40,000" and "Company of Heroes" franchises.
It has a score of 73% on Metacritic. "Destructoid" called "Freedom Wars" the biggest PS Vita release in 2014. IGN's Colin Moriarty writes that the game features plenty of content to keep the player occupied, and never forces them to play alone or online, allowing the player to choose their own pace progressing through the game. "Hardcore Gamer" rated the game 3.5 out of 5, describing it as a solid action RPG with good premise and deep themes, albeit feeling repetitive at times. "PlayStation Universe" gave "Freedom Wars" an 8.5/10 score, noting that the narrative and customisation were positive aspects, even though the endgame relies on a large amount of grinding. "PS Nation" notes that the singleplayer and multiplayer modes are enjoyable overall, and that the game plays well on a PlayStation TV device, giving a score of 9/10.
Silas Warner, an American programmer and an employee of software company Muse Software, was a pioneer of early video game development, especially the stealth genre. He had access to computers in college, and when he worked for the IBM Mainframe architectures before joining Muse Software. The computer he used for game-development, P.L.A.T.O., was one of the firsts with multiple functioning terminals and an example of early computer networks. Warner developed, with P.L.A.T.O., a series of classic video games like his flight simulator and arcade shooter. Inspired by the arcade shooter video game "Berzerk" and the 1961 war film "Guns of Navarone", he developed "Castle Wolfenstein", a stealth-adventure video game in which the player controls an unnamed American prisoner of war as he steals German files containing secret war plans, while avoiding, disarming or at times killing hostile guards and trying to escape the fortified Nazi stronghold 'Castle Wolfenstein', set in World War II. The game was published in 1981 by Warner's company M.U.S.E. Inc. (Muse Software).
On September 20, 2002, Blizzard Entertainment announced the development of "StarCraft: Ghost" in conjunction with fellow video game company Nihilistic Software. Nihilistic aimed to release the game for the Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube video game consoles in late 2003, which elicited positive reactions from the press. The game was consistently delayed, and during the third quarter of 2004, Nihilistic discontinued their work on the project. Blizzard stated that Nihilistic had completed the tasks it had been contracted for, and the game would be delivered on time.
The game was publicly announced first at E3 2005, by means of a humorous and slightly abstract gag machinima using characters from "Metal Gear Solid 3", under the slogan of "No Place to Hide". The title was described as "essentially finished" by January 2008 and went through extensive beta testing. At Destination PlayStation on February 26, 2008, Sony announced that "MGS4" would be released worldwide on June 12, 2008, along with the special "MGS4" PlayStation 3 bundle. It was announced that "Guns of the Patriots" is the first PlayStation 3 game that uses a 50GB dual layer Blu-ray Disc even with the use of file compression.
Although the Realms were yet to be an official campaign world, the module "H1: Bloodstone Pass", released in 1985 by TSR, is now considered to be a part of the Forgotten Realms, although it wasn't until module H3 "The Bloodstone Wars" was released that Forgotten Realms became the official setting for the module series. The first official Forgotten Realms product was Douglas Niles's "Darkwalker on Moonshae", the first book in "The Moonshae Trilogy", which predates the "Forgotten Realms Campaign Set" by one month.
The main trilogy, particularly its protagonist, are considered iconic and a symbol of today's video games; a wax replica of l Master Chief was made by Madame Tussauds in Las Vegas, where Pete Wentz compared the character to notable characters from previous generations like Spider-Man, Frodo, and Luke Skywalker. "The Escapist" author Roger Travis compared "Halo"s story to Virgil's "Aeneid", saying the religious and political struggle described in the games relates to the modern epic tradition. "GamesTM" stated "Halo: Combat Evolved" "changed video game combat forever", and "Halo 2" showcased Xbox Live as a tool for communities. GameDaily noted "Halo 2"s launch was "easily comparable to the biggest in other sectors of the entertainment industry", marking the first time a video game launch has become a major cultural event in the United States. "Time" magazine included the franchise in the "2005 Time 100", highlighting that in the first ten weeks after the release of "Halo 2", players spent 91 million combined hours playing the game online. A "The New York Times" report noted the success of "Halo 3" was critical for Microsoft, persuading consumers to buy the Xbox 360 console which was experiencing waning sales compared with the Nintendo Wii, as well as helping restore the console's image. On September 25, 2007, the release date for "Halo 3", Microsoft's shares rose 1.7% based on sales expectations for the game. "Halo" has been described as a series that "has reinvented a genre that didn't know it needed to be reinvented", with aspects of the main trilogy being duplicated in other first-person shooter games multiple times.
"Halo 4" and "" were both officially announced on June 6, 2011, at the E3 2011. "Halo 4" is the first installment in the Reclaimer Saga of "Halo" games. The studio's creative team, which included nearly 200 people led by creative director Josh Holmes, started developing the game as early as 2009. Prior to the release of the game, Microsoft Studios Vice President Phil Spencer stated that the "Halo" franchise is the "most important entertainment product in the company" and that "Halo 4" was the most expensive game that Microsoft had made. A demonstration of the game's campaign was first shown at E3 2012. The developers described it as a pivotal moment in development, as it was the first time the game had been shown publicly. The positive reaction was a morale boost for the team, who were unsure how the public would react. On July 7, 2012, a pre-release build of "Halo 4"s Forge mode was showcased by 343 Industries and Certain Affinity at RTX which took place at the Austin Convention Center. On September 26, 2012, O'Connor announced that the game's development was complete.
In addition to the standard retail version, a Limited Collector's Edition of "Halo Wars" was made available. To attract "Halo 3"s player base, Microsoft bundled early access to the Mythic Map Pack, a collection of three "Halo 3" multiplayer maps, with the collector's edition. A 48-page, half-size hardcover graphic novel was also included; titled "Halo Wars: Genesis", it was created by Phil Noto, Graeme Devine, and Eric Nylund. It explores the background stories of Anders, the Arbiter, Forge and Cutter. Other bonuses included a unique in-game vehicle, trading cards, and a "Spirit of Fire" patch. Players who pre-ordered the game from certain retailers received a special in-game Warthog vehicle with flame decals. GameStop announced that on February 28, 2009, one thousand stores in the United States would hold "Halo Wars" tournaments, and two thousand GameStop stores held midnight releases for the game. European markets sold a "Best of "Halo"" bundle of "Halo Wars", "Halo 3" and an Xbox 360.
In Book Three, the darkest part of the saga, ten years have elapsed and Halo has become a soldier serving in a Vietnam-style guerrilla interstellar war which has appeared as back-story in the previous two books, and is courted by a famous, fearsome-looking general, Luiz Cannibal. The series ends with the cessation of hostilities, after which Halo commandeers a spaceship and deserts, determined to take charge of her own fate.Other places she had visited or spent time in included Proxima IV, Vescue, Sirius, Skinner's World, and Popotoplec. Although it is mentioned that she met the famous historical figure Sally Quasa, this meeting does not take place in the first 3 books.