No Halo At Xbox Showcase, But Master Chief Showed Up At Ubisoft's Press Conference

As part of the Ubisoft Forward event today, it was announced that Master Chief and the Arbiter from Microsoft's Halo series are coming to Ubisoft's fighting game Brawlhalla in a crossover event. That's cool and fun news on its own. But the announcement was also notable because the Halo franchise was a total no-show at Microsoft's own Xbox Games Showcase a day earlier.

Halo and Xbox are basically synonymous, so some were left scratching their heads when Halo didn't get a mention or any updates at Microsoft's event. There could be any number of reasons for that, but the absence was notable all the same. Halo developer 343 Industries was impacted by the recent Microsoft layoffs. Separate from that, a number of high-profile senior staff--including Joseph Staten, Frank O'Connor, and David Ellis--have left in recent times.

It would appear that any announcements about the future of the Halo series are being saved for a later date. On the immediate horizon, Halo Infinite's Season 4 update arrives June 20.

As for the Brawlhalla crossover event, Master Chief and the Arbiter will leap into the free-to-play fighting game on July 12. As you can see in the trailer below, Master Chief looks to be a formidable fighter, as he can use his pistol, sniper rifle, and rocket launcher to mow down foes. He can also seemingly call in 343 Guilty Spark to help out in battle. As for the Arbiter, he uses his trusty energy sword to deal damage.

Halo is just the latest massive franchise to get a crossover event in Brawlhalla. Some of the previous Brawlhalla crossovers included various WWE superstars like The Rock and John Cena, as well as Lara Croft, Po from Kung Fu Panda, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Characters from The Walking Dead and Street Fighter also came to Brawlhalla.

Brawlhalla has reached more than 80 million players, and the character roster stretches past 50 characters. The game is available now on PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PC, as well as iOS and Android.