Here are the films in order of their release:
- “Halo: Landfall – Prequel to Halo 3” (2007)
- “Halo Legends” (2010)
- “Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn – Start of the Human-Covenant War” (2012)
- “Halo: Nightfall” (2014)
- “Halo: The Fall of Reach – The Spartan II Program” (2015)
“Landfall” was released as three shorts that were edited together into a single seven-minute video that one can watch on the Bungee YouTube channel. The shorts were filmed by Blomkamp, as he had already made some contributions to a scattered “Halo” feature.
“Halo Legends” is a compilation of seven animated shorts released in 2009. They were compiled onto a DVD released by Warner Bros in 2010. The shorts all serve as backstory for the Halo universe, and feature characters intimately known to players of the “Halo” games. The seven shorts were distributed among six animation studios, and they were given wide latitude for the project, making for wildly different looks and tones.
“Forward Unto Dawn,” a live-action film, was released as five 15-minute episodes prior to the release of the “Halo 4” game, and was later edited into a 75-minute feature that was released on home video and on Netflix. It’s a tale set 31 years before the game in question. Unlike the “Landfall” short, this was more of a film than marketing material.
“Nightfall” is a remnant of an unmade Ridley Scott “Halo” feature, and it was the origin of a character named Locke, an important figure in the “Halo” games.
One might note that the most recent film is an adaptation of the 2001 “Halo” novel that accompanied the release of the first game. It is an animated prequel and was originally presented in three chapters and runs about 64 minutes in total.