Clueless Microsoft Refuses ‘Halo’ & ‘Doom’ Crossover: ‘Secret Level’ Showrunners Were Turned Down for Potentially Legendary Master Chief / Doom Slayer Team Up
Secret Level is an animated anthology series on Amazon Prime Video created by Love, Death, and Robots creators Tim Miller and Dave Wilson that explores stories within the realm of video games and other media. Sometimes it follows canon closely, and sometimes the series veers off into strange alternative worlds, occasionally for the better, most often for much, much worse.
In this case, following the “rule of cool” would have been much better.
The Amazon Prime Video series left a lot to be desired, whether it was the embarrassingly awful D.E.I.-ified episode with Sony properties like Helldivers 2, the incredibly short MegaMan episode, the bizarre take on Pac-Man, or the hilarious-in-hindsight Concord episode that set up future plot threads that will never actually be realized, the showrunners hinted that one episode that could have rivaled the Warhammer 40,000 episode was left on the cutting room floor.
READ: 'Warhammer 40,000: The Ultimate Guide' Author Confirms Female Custodes Still Part Of Warhammer
According to Collider, Secret Level showrunners Tim Miller and Dave Wilson approached Halo and Doom intellectual property owner Microsoft with an idea so crazy it just might work: an episode of the show dedicated to a hypothetical team-up featuring Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 and the titular Doom Slayer.
Imagine that: the cybernetically enhanced Spartan-II that puts the fear of God into an entire race of technologically advanced aliens tag-teaming against the legions of hell with the man they call the Doom Slayer, whose entire life motto can be summed up as “you are huge, that means you must have huge guts! Rip and Tear!”
Unfortunately, the incredibly cool and potentially legendary concept never made it past the pitch. When asked by Collider whether there were any companies they approached with an episode concept that turned them down, Wilson had the following to say:
“WILSON: The creative director at id [Software] is a good friend of ours, and so are folks at Microsoft, so we made a big plea because one of the things both Tim and I would love to do is do something that isn't currently available in the games, like crossovers. We wanted to make a Master Chief/Doom Slayer crossover episode, and I spent a whole weekend crafting this impassioned letter of my childhood. And it's exactly what Tim said; they were like, ‘Nah.’’
Microsoft is no stranger to being clueless about the countless goldmines they are sitting on. Halo Infinite is widely regarded as one of the worst adaptations of the Halo franchise in its entire history, which is saying something because Halo 5 previously claimed that throne.
Its subsidiary 343 Industries, now comprised almost entirely of D.E.I. hires, heavily strayed from the original vision developed by series creator Bungie, which itself has become a poor facsimile of what it was once. Like 343’s near-constant failures with Halo, Bungie’s Destiny series continues to hemorrhage players while the company completes its Sony death spiral like countless other developers. It may not survive to even see its extraction shooter Marathon come to fruition.
But with Halo, Microsoft had a franchise that it built its entire console generations and brand around. Halo was so universally beloved, that the corporation named its AI assistant, Cortana.
READ: 'Gears Of War' EP Blasts 'Avowed' And Art Director Matt Hansen: "Why Would You Say This?"
In its acquisition of Bethesda, Microsoft gained an immense library of works, including the Fallout series, The Elder Scrolls, and Doom. So why not help bring Halo back into the good graces of the fans by releasing a short featuring a hypothetical team-up with Master Chief and the Doom Slayer, giving the forces of hell some berserker-packing men and a half?
Well, maybe the issue is that Microsoft is totally clueless about what people actually want. Look no further than the games the company is promoting, like Avowed, which had the art director meltdown on social media site X over criticism about the game’s use of pronouns, and had its internal Slack messages leaked by Smash JT, confirming just how woke the developers are.
So while you’re watching the Avowed disaster continue to burn and probably lead to a terrible, yet inevitable, episode of Secret Level in its own right, just remember you could have had Master Chief and the Doom Slayer knee-deep in the dead, blasting Covenant / Demon hybrids on the fiery shores of hell. What a waste.
What do you think? Do you think Microsoft screwed up by not agreeing to a Doom and Halo crossover, or do you think Secret Level would find a way to make it cringe? Become a paid member, support our journalism and leave us a comment!
Gator is an English language Vtuber and the host of the Anime Boomers Podcast with Cody Baier of Anime Outsiders, and Spooky Weebtrash. You can also find him on X as @TheGatorGamer.
NEXT: Steam Replay 2024 Reveals Only 15% Of Total Playtime Spent On New Releases