Why The Halo TV Show Is Set In Its Own Timeline

As long as a Halo TV show has been in development, fans have wondered where in the franchise's canon it would be set. After all, Halo has some pretty complicated lore and just about anywhere you place the series, it's likely going to bump up against events seen either in the games, or the novels that have built out the universe. And with that comes the possibility of some tinkering with continuity.

Ultimately, it wasn't something fans needed to worry about, as it was announced that the show would be set in its own canon, known as the Silver timeline. It's just like the Halo timeline you know, but not connected to it in any way. As executive producer Kiki Wolfkill explains, "It takes place at a time that people are so familiar with."

According to Wolfkill, the choice to separate the two--TV show and games--was done out of necessity. "The creation of the Silver timeline was really to try and keep these things from needing to be so tied closely together that we lose creative freedom on either end--either with the show or with the game--but still kind of keep those pivotal moments," she told GameSpot.

So while the Silver timeline will share a lot of key events and details with the rest of the Halo franchise, it'll also have the ability to grow as it unfolds the story of John-117 over--presumably--multiple seasons.

"In order for John to understand who he needs to be, he needs to understand where he came from and watching him reconcile that is a big part of the show," Wolfkill said. "It was challenging because, you know, one option is put it somewhere completely different, where there's no possibility of colliding, but that point in time--pre-discovery of the Halo ring--is so critical and such a beautiful runway to have in front of us.

"Being able to sort of pull them apart a little bit, while still coming from the same place, gives us that runway and those pivotal moments without sort of risk of collision or binding either experience."

That all said, while the two sides of Halo exist on different timelines, it doesn't mean you won't see events from the games play out on the show--or vice versa.

"That's kind of hopefully the beauty of having the separate timeline," Wolfkill said. "Especially, because they share so much in terms of characters and the look of things and they share the same universe... I think you can see things sort of coming together and diverging and I think with [Halo] Infinite we're so lucky because we have this even bigger sandbox and now ability to bring things in from anywhere and so absolutely would love to see some cross-pollination."

That doesn't necessarily mean Pablo Schreiber will suit up as Master Chief in a game, though. For now, he's sticking to removing his helmet on the TV show.

Halo premieres Thursday on Paramount+. In his review of the series, Chris E. Hayner writes, "Halo is a show that shouldn't work, in the grand scheme of things. After over seven years of development--including showrunner, director, and network changes--it's actually surprising that it exists at all. Thankfully, it does, though. What the team behind the show has created is an interesting new way of exploring the Halo franchise. It stands on its own, away from the games, but it's only stronger for it."