Believe

On the eve of the release of Halo 3, I want to highlight and comment on the brilliant final marketing push for the game.

Clearly, given the temporary overhaul of my site, I’m a fan of the series. While not without moments of derivation, the storylines are pretty unique, not to mention insanely interesting and compelling. The characters are likable and believable while still larger than life, and the unfolding of the plot is actually done in-game rather than just through a series of cutscenes that link all the shooting parts. From a technical standpoint, the visuals have always been nice eye candy, the controls have handled well, and there’s been a good variety of gameplay. All reports indicate that Bungie is building on that foundation with more of what made Halo and Halo 2 popular to begin with from a plot and gaming standpoint, plus lots of other goodies courtesy of the Xbox 360′s improved hardware.

None of this is news, as it’s all been stated in many other places, but I’m reiterating everything just to say, “the series is huge, wildly popular, and with good reason.”

Almost everyone out there knows that the game is releasing tomorrow, and even those that couldn’t put a date on it know it’s coming, or at least have seen the logo on the myriad marketing outlets–newspaper ads, in-store displays, TV commercials, web banners, and soda cans. (One site even poked fun at the phenomenon with a mockumentary chronicling the imaginary history of the Halo series from the standpoint of the future, looking back and commenting that when Halo 4: Start Another Fight debuted in 2011, it was the only media released that year.)

With the ubiquitous, frequently gaudy hype everywhere, I find it interesting that in the last weeks of promotion before release, Bungie and Microsoft have chosen to take a segment of the marketing in a separate direction, scaling back the intensity while painting the product with a layer of sincerity and gravity rarely seen displayed for a video game.

As the setting for the trilogy is a galactic war, they’ve taken the perspective of treating it seriously, as one would an actual war. The latest marketing push includes a set of extremely well-produced, documentary-style live action video shorts and a website. The videos include interviews with aged veterans of the war in the setting of a war memorial/museum (The Museum of Humanity) much like you’d see at Gettysburg or Omaha Beach. The central piece of the campaign is a massive diorama (again, if you’ve visited a battlefield, you know the kind I mean) freezing in time a moment from one of the pivotal battles of Halo 3.

On the website, you can explore this diorama in 3D, zooming in, out, and around the battlefield while hearing, watching, and reading the stories of individual combatants at critical points in the fight. It’s all very somber, extremely well-done, and is some of the best, most creative, poignant, and even most moving pieces of marketing I’ve ever seen. The viral campaign for Halo 2 was impressive, and though this doesn’t quite top it in terms of creativity and execution, it outdoes it in impact.

Even if you know or care nothing about the Halo games, at least take a look at some of the videos or the website. It’s extremely cool. A link to the website is above; links to the videos are below in the order in which they were released. Thanks to GameTrailers for hosting the movies in better quality than YouTube (and to Bungie.net for the neat image)!

Museum: An old soldier remembers where he was at a crucial moment on the battlefield.
Believe: A montage of shots from the monument.
Believe 90: A longer, better version of the video above.
Making of the John 117 Monument: Slightly tongue-in-cheek; the most self-aware of all the videos.
Soldiers Reminisce: Two veterans talk about the weapons they used and their experiences in battle.
Hunted: Hunted by the Covenant, this former Marine recounts having to hide for hours on end.

Believe…and Finish the Fight!