Ensemble Studios’ director of technology, Dave Pottinger, told TGR that the real time strategy game is "the best way that the Halo story has been told."

Pottinger chalks this up to an ensemble cast (no pun intended) of five main characters, whose stories are told through a half hour of cutscenes. These cinematics play out in between and during each mission.

"If you sit down and watch all of those movies back to back in the theater, it is a great half an hour show," Pottinger said.

His studio’s approach to storytelling allows players to know "the motivation," he said. "It is fun ... to be able to do the game play differently, but also to tell the story from a multi-character standpoint."

As for specifics, Pottinger and the rest of Ensemble and Microsoft have been pretty quiet about the plot. All we know is the game takes place 20 years before Halo: Combat Evolved, original first-person shooter, and that the main characters are a military captain, a sergeant, a professor, an arbiter and an AI construct. It’s also widely known that Master Chief won’t appear in the game, as he’s "off doing something else in the galaxy right now in our time frame," Pottinger said.

The Flood will have a role as non-playable characters, but their involvement is unclear as the UNSC’s first knowledge of the alien race came after Master Chief’s encounter in Halo: Combat Evolved.