Attain Designer Reveals Fashionable Warfare Sequence Had been ‘Large’ Inspiration

Halo: Attain designer Niles Sankey has revealed that the sport was massively influenced by the primary two Fashionable Warfare video games.

On Twitter, Halo: Attain designer Niles Sankey responded to a put up concerning the notorious nuke scene in Name of Responsibility 4: Fashionable Warfare. He famous that the primary two Fashionable Warfare video games had been a “large” inspiration for the marketing campaign of Bungie’s closing Halo sport.

He famous that, though Bungie felt Halo was doing issues higher than Name of Responsibility in areas like enemy AI and automobiles, Infinity Ward was beating them at different issues, and it made sense to tug from their video games.

“Lots of the moments in Attain had been impressed by the sensible work of Infinity Ward, together with the Nobel workforce squad interactions, and ‘Goal Survive’ was spiritually impressed by the Nuke sequence [in Call of Duty 4]. We simply tried to push it one step additional,” he stated.

Fashionable Warfare 1 and a pair of had been large influences on Halo Attain’s marketing campaign.

The tonal execution in these video games was (and nonetheless is) completely sensible.

We knew that Halo did some issues higher (AI fight, automobiles, and many others), however we additionally knew the MW video games had been beating us in different… https://t.co/6aKYa23sYu

— Niles Sankey (@NilesSankey) August 20, 2026

This information might come as a shock to some followers, as Name of Responsibility and Halo had been direct opponents within the mid-2000s, with Infinity Ward even going so far as creating a “Halo Killer.” Through the improvement of Name of Responsibility 4, the studio quietly prototyped a sci-fi Name of Responsibility sport generally known as “HK,” brief for Halo Killer. The mission featured aliens, superior expertise, and because the title suggests, was Infinity Ward’s thought of making an attempt to straight dethrone Halo because the world’s largest shooter franchise.

Finally, Name of Responsibility was in a position to get there earlier than it ever went into the realm of sci-fi. The Fashionable Warfare sequence was a large hit that put Name of Responsibility on an unprecedented stage. Infinity Ward ultimately made a sci-fi Name of Responsibility sport with Infinite Warfare in 2016, however it was wildly totally different than what that they had initially designed for HK. Infinite Warfare dropped the aliens in favor of human-on-human area battles, which led to some of the acclaimed campaigns within the franchise. The remainder of the sport? Not so acclaimed.

As for Halo: Attain, it was the final sport within the sequence developed by Bungie, but in addition arguably one of many studio’s greatest. It was a darker, extra grounded tackle the sequence with a really tragic story. Leaning on Fashionable Warfare’s dramatic storytelling beats to beef up Halo’s marketing campaign was in the end in all probability a wise transfer on Bungie’s half. Now, over 15 years later, the co-creator of Halo is asking for the sequence to embrace a darker and extra grounded tone as soon as once more. Whether or not that occurs stays to be seen.

Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN’s information workforce. He covers all issues leisure, together with gaming, movie, and extra. You will discover him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.