The world's most powerful people have started to realise that games have immense influence - why else would the White House post an image of Trump as Halo's Master Chief? The world's most powerful people have started to realise that games have immense influence - why else would the White House post an image of Trump as Halo's Master Chief? State of play: who holds the power in the video games industry in 2025? I love playing video games, but what interests me most as a journalist are the ways in which games intersect with real life. One of the joys of spending 20 years on this beat has been meeting hundreds of people whose lives have been meaningfully enhanced by games, and as their cultural influence has grown, these stories have become more and more plentiful. There is another side to this, however.

A sci-fi series has taken the number one spot on IMDB following the release of its second season - despite the show's'disappointing' debut in 2022. The first season of the video game adaptation was deemed a'one-hit' wonder' by viewers who felt the story was written by a'high schooler' and the graphics were'low budget CGI.' But Halo season two, released this month, now sits at number one in IDMB's list of top sci-fi TV series. The Paramount series has 7.2 stars and more than 81,000 votes - overtaking popular shows like Netflix's Stranger Things and Black Mirror. Halo also has an 89 percent on Rotten Tomatoes - a jump from season one's 61 percent rating.

The TV show of the gaming hit The Last of Us has proved to be a streaming blockbuster for HBO, pulling in 7.5 million viewers for its fourth episode after four straight weeks of gains. But video game adaptations don't always work well - even when they're backed by the most extravagant budgets, hottest stars and based on the biggest hits from the gaming world. Paramount's Halo and Netflix's Resident Evil were canceled after just one season, while the 2005 film Doom received a 5.2 out of 10 on IMDB. The failures come down to creators using a different structure in their storytelling than what gamers love in the games, along with the lack of puzzle solving that players appreciate while in the virtual worlds. The Last of Us has become a mega-hit for maker HBO and has overcome the odds of failing video game adaptations.

And so, after 17 years of false starts, numerous failed attempts at feature films (including a Peter Jackson venture), more than 265 drafts, a reported budget of $200m and a production schedule in Hungary decimated by the pandemic, we are finally set to see a TV series of the video game Halo. Will it have been worth such perseverance? Since the release of the first video game in Microsoft's crown jewel franchise – 2001's Halo: Combat Evolved – the series has sold more than 81m games, generating in excess of $6bn. If a network sticks the landing, a Halo TV show could be a significant weapon in its arsenal. For the uninitiated: Halo takes place at a time of intergalactic war between humans and a collective of quasi-religious alien species known as the Covenant.

From driverless cars to virtual assistants, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the way we live, work, or travel. It seems like the expertise of AI companies will contribute greatly to global economic growth and productivity. Here are a few industries using AI to create a global impact. Talking about industries implementing AI into their core, the gaming industry has revolutionized the way we used to play games. AI is transforming the future of the gaming industry and AI-based character like'Cortana' is the best example. AI in gaming means adaptive, responsive, and more engaging video game experiences. Halo Infinite is an impeccable example of how AI has bought several exciting new features into gaming.

This slow pace frustrated many fans of the games -- myself included. We know the backstory of Catherine Halsey (Natascha McElhone) and her use of kidnapped children for the Spartan soldier program that created the Master Chief. Except in this series, Master Chief is kept in the dark of his adopted mother and creator's sinister machinations, and the United Nations Space Command, humanity's authoritarian military power, is also unaware of Halsey's most dehumanizing, illegal experiments. His discovery of this scheme plays out rather slowly, and given that lack of action, the dramatic tension felt repetitive to knowing fans of the games' story.

Bathurst: Take that scene in Episode 1 where [Master Chief] is sitting in the ship with Kwan, and Kwan's having a meal and talking about the fact that, actually, Master Chief shot her mother. Initially, when I read that, you know, I thought, okay he's going to have his helmet on and that stuff, but I mean, that's what I mean by that impressive piece of [costume] design. I could look at that helmet and that mirrored visor for hours and kind of be intrigued as to what was going on inside. I mean, I actually sometimes found it more engaging when you're looking in the mirror [of Master Chief's visor] going, "What's going on in there?" I didn't find it disconnecting at all.

Your browser does not support the video element. The hero of the Halo video game franchise, Master Chief, made his debut in 2001 in the game "Halo: Combat Evolved" for the original Xbox game console. In the time since, he has become Microsoft's version of Mario, though just a bit grittier. The Chief, in his iconic green armor, and his fellow superhuman Spartans are more juggernauts than soldiers. Weighing a half-ton, and able to absorb anything short of a tank shell, the armor includes technological enhancements that improve everything from vision to reflexes, turning Spartans into the ultimate weapons.

Inside an annex just beyond the entrance to Microsoft's 343 Industries there is a shrine. There's a Halo laser tag kit, salt and pepper shakers and a metal, fan-made 100-pound-plus gravity hammer that members of the Seattle Seahawks once used for an impromptu test of strength during a visit. A Swarovski crystal shaped to the likeness of Master Chief's iconic helmet gleams under a spotlight like the Hope Diamond. Hulking, life-size statues of aliens and stoic, faceless Spartan soldiers stand vigil over the treasures, highlighted by a true-to-lore, 7-foot-2 recreation of the Chief himself.

Battle rifles, Phantoms, Cortana--for those in the know, the references come thick and fast in the new Halo series. Paramount shelled out $10 million an episode to adapt Bungie's first-person shooter for the screen, and with every knowing wink, the message gets louder: This show is for the fans. The first episode closes with the iconic Gregorian chant of the original soundtrack, which, the internet has noted, was not present in the original trailer. We wait with bated breath for the Master Chief to teabag a dead Elite. Halo finds itself atop an unenviable heap: the carcasses of failed video game adaptations.