Summary

• Halo's cancellation highlights the difficulty of adapting video games, contrasting successes like The Last of Us and Fallout.
• The Last of Us and Fallout succeeded by staying close to their source material, unlike the unsuccessful approach taken by Halo.
• Despite Halo's cancellation, recent video game TV adaptations have been overwhelmingly successful, showcasing the potential of the medium.

Paramount's proven that the video game adaptation curse is broken, although the Halo TV show proves that not every shot at adapting a beloved video game franchise is a guaranteed hit.

When Paramount first announced that they were making a live-action TV show based on Halo, excitement went through the roof. However, upon the release of Halo season 1, reviews were pretty negative, with fans pointing at alterations from the source material and an uninteresting story as reasons for the show's failure. Halo season 2 improved things slightly, but Paramount still canceled Halo ahead of season 3, with poor critical reception, fan backlash, and the massive budget that the show warranted all being likely factors in Halo's demise. Thus, Halo proves how difficult video game adaptations are.

Halo’s Cancelation Makes The Last Of Us & Fallout’s Successes More Impressive

They Succeeded Despite The Hurdles

Even after two seasons, Halo couldn't survive, with the show's cancelation making The Last of Us and Fallout's successes more impressive. Halo's budgetary problems and struggles to adapt its source material show that, even though some video game adaptations have managed to get it right, it is still far from easy. Video game adaptations are even harder when it comes to making multi-season shows, as Halo has to have the money and writing to create a massive space saga that faithfully adapts the games while also bringing in enough fans to warrant its cost.

The Last of Us and Fallout both were faced with these same challenges, but unlike Halo, they managed to become massive hits. Both the HBO and Amazon Prime Video series were able to garner praise from fans of the original games as well as new viewers, with them both becoming some of the most popular shows on their respective platforms. Although both shows only have one season as of the writing of this article, The Last of Us and Fallout were both successful enough to warrant a second season, although unlike Halo fans are excited for these continuations.

Fallout season 2 and The Last of Us season 2 are in development.

Halo Is A Reminder Of How Difficult Adapting Popular Video Games Is

They Aren't Easy Despite Examples Of Successes

The failure of Halo is a tragedy, but it is also a reminder of how difficult adapting a popular video game is. Although the Halo TV show is far from the worst video game adaptation, it hearkens back to a bygone era of constant failed video game movies. Fans of video game franchises like Resident Evil, Assassin's Creed, Prince of Persia, and more have seen the beloved games fall apart during adaptation, with most of these failures being due to production companies being scared that a straightforward adaptation won't be commercially viable.

Halo fell into many of these same trappings, with the changes made to Halo's video game lore being one of the most commonly cited issues that fans had with the show. The Halo show fundamentally misunderstood some core aspects of the franchise's appeal. For example, Master Chief is frequently seen taking his helmet off in the show, with the character's faceless nature from the video games being one of the defining aspects of Halo. Things like this, as well as a plethora of smaller changes, plagued the Halo show, disappointing fans but still being too weird to draw in unfamiliar viewers.

What The Last Of Us & Fallout Did Better Than Halo

They Took Their Approaches In A Better Way

Although The Last of Us and Fallout both took different approaches to adapting their source material, they took their respective routes much better than the Halo TV show. HBO's The Last of Us is an almost beat-for-beat adaptation of the video game story, with the source material being praised as one of the best stories in video game history. The Last of Us stuck immensely close to the games, and the changes that it did make came in the form of fleshing out The Last of Us' side characters.

Meanwhile, Amazon Prime Video's Fallout TV show took a wholly different approach. Rather than directly adapting a story from the games, Fallout focuses on entirely original characters in an entirely original story within the Fallout universe. In fact, the Fallout TV show acts almost like a sequel to Fallout 4, with the differences in its narrative meaning that it didn't have to worry about changing the source material. Major elements from the games, such as the New Vegas storyline, take place in the background of the main story, which is why it works so well.

Halo's changes weren't well received, but the show didn't change enough to stand on its own. Halo could have worked if it stayed incredibly close to the source material, or it could have worked if it told an entirely new story set in the Halo universe. However, Halo decided to still focus on Master Chief, although it made enough changes to where it didn't feel like the games that the fans loved, meaning that it was a failure.

Despite Halo’s Cancelation, Video Game TV Shows Have Been A Pleasant Surprise

They Are Overwhelmingly Successful

While Halo's season 3 cancelation still proves that adaptations can struggle, video game TV shows in recent years have overwhelmingly been a pleasant surprise. Alongside The Last of Us and Fallout, video game TV adaptations like Castlevania, Arcane, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, The Cuphead Show, The Witcher, and more have managed to please fans and newcomers alike. This highlights that video game TV shows still can be good, and Halo was unfortunately the now-rare example of a series that didn't work.

In fact, it can be argued that television is a better medium for video game adaptations than movies. TV allows the massive worlds of these video games to be further fleshed out than the comparatively limited runtime of a movie, which is why franchises like The Last of Us and Fallout have chosen to take the TV route. It is entirely possible that a Halo TV show could have been good, but it failed because of the creative decisions that were made, not inherently because of its status as a video game TV adaptation.