When Paramount put the whole of Halo series one on YouTube for free, it was obvious that a season two trailer was imminent. And here it is, along with a release date: the second season of Halo will begin streaming on February 8, 2024 on Paramount Plus.
As you can see from the trailer below, it's thrilling stuff – and the emphasis seems to be very much on the fighting side of things, which some fans felt was rather lacking in the first season. At the CCXP festival last week, showrunner David Wiener said that there would be more Spartan action scenes than in the first season – it was news that delighted the watching fans.
While Paramount is currently keeping details close to its corporate chest, that's not the case for Master Chief. The character may be famously taciturn in the games, but the actor who plays him on screen is a bit more chatty. Speaking to Collider earlier this year, Pablo Schreiber gave some hints about where season two will be heading.
What is going to happen in Halo season two?
According to Schreiber: "We meet a character who's cut off from his humanity, who doesn't have access to his emotions, who doesn't even have memories of his childhood. It starts there and he has an interaction with an artifact that brings back some memories from his childhood." That's led to speculation that the story will flash back to how a normal human became the half man, half tank Master Chief –and that could be a very dark plot line indeed.
It does look like the new season is staying fairly faithful to the source games. As Giant Freakin Robot points out, the other soldiers in the trailer look like the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers of the game Halo 3: ODST and it looks likely that we'll see more of the Flood this time around too, although hopefully not in quite the same numbers or for quite as long as in the infamous Library level of Halo: Combat Evolved.
It's clear that season two is the make or break season for the show. Season one, which we rate as one of the best Paramount Plus shows, inevitably had to pause the action a little bit to introduce the characters and make us care about them – that's been a disappointment to many who hoped for a high-octane action series that replicated the thrills and kills of the games.
As we said at the time, the first season had an identity problem. It seemed to fall between trying to satisfy two very different audiences – fans and newcomers – without really delivering for either. But now that season one has set the stage, season two could well deliver everything the fans have been wishing for. Here's to hoping.
Halo season two will be streaming on Paramount Plus from February 8, 2024.
