At San Diego Comic-Con on July 10, the Halo 5 panel, “Hunt For the Truth: Following the Trail of the Halo 5: Guardians Story” featured 343 Industries’ Kiki Wolfkill moderating, panelists Ian Kirby, Morgan Lockhart, Frank O’Connor, and Ayzenberg’s Creative Director Noah Eichen. The panel examined the storytelling in and around Halo 5: Guardians, bringing new insight into the mysteries surrounding the Master Chief and sneak peeks of what’s yet to come.

The ending of Halo 4 and Master Chief’s questioning what it means to be a Spartan were among the first topics covered during the panel. This led the discussion into the story for Halo 5 – the most epic game 343 has created in terms of scale. The levels are larger and the story is more layered and intricate. Halo 5 is also the first game where co-op is built not only into the gameplay but into the narrative fiction. Attendees got sneak peeks of upcoming content and also got to hear an excerpt from the Hunt the Truth podcast.

Frank O’Connor and team have built an extended fiction for the Halo universe, allowing them to delve deeper into the characters. This includes stories, New Blood, Last Light, Hunters in the Dark, a three part animated series called Halo: The Fall of Reach, and the Hunt the Truth podcast. With such an intricate story spanning different media, Frank mentioned the importance of communication and working on the fly. Producing a podcast was new for 343 but Frank mentioned that they were “excited to explore the podcast space” with a cool story. Since even Noah Eichen and the Hunt the Truth podcast team were un-spoiled for Halo 5, they created an “everyman” main character in Benjamin Giraud who would ask the same questions the audience would have.

As the panel closed, 343 teased that there are more mysteries to unravel before the game’s launch on Oct 27 and announced that season two of the Hunt the Truth podcast will launch in September. While they wouldn’t give much away, fans were promised that they would see a different side of ONI.