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

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

On Twitter, Halo: Attain designer Niles Sankey responded to a submit in regards to the notorious nuke scene in Name of Obligation 4: Trendy Warfare. He famous that the primary two Trendy Warfare video games had been a “big” inspiration for the marketing campaign of Bungie’s closing Halo recreation.

He famous that, though Bungie felt Halo was doing issues higher than Name of Obligation in areas like enemy AI and automobiles, Infinity Ward was beating them at different issues, and it made sense to drag 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 mentioned.

Trendy Warfare 1 and a pair of had been big 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 so forth), 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 Obligation and Halo had been direct opponents within the mid-2000s, with Infinity Ward even going so far as growing a “Halo Killer.” Through the growth of Name of Obligation 4, the studio quietly prototyped a sci-fi Name of Obligation recreation generally known as “HK,” quick for Halo Killer. The venture featured aliens, superior expertise, and because the identify suggests, was Infinity Ward’s concept of attempting to straight dethrone Halo because the world’s greatest shooter franchise.

In the end, Name of Obligation was in a position to get there earlier than it ever went into the realm of sci-fi. The Trendy Warfare sequence was a large hit that put Name of Obligation on an unprecedented degree. Infinity Ward finally made a sci-fi Name of Obligation recreation with Infinite Warfare in 2016, but it surely was wildly totally different than what they’d initially designed for HK. Infinite Warfare dropped the aliens in favor of human-on-human house battles, which led to one of the vital acclaimed campaigns within the franchise. The remainder of the sport? Not so acclaimed.

As for Halo: Attain, it was the final recreation 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 Trendy Warfare’s dramatic storytelling beats to beef up Halo’s marketing campaign was in the end in all probability a sensible 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.