The iconic voice of Master Chief in Halo, Steve Downes, has spoken out about Halo 5's weirdly misleading promotional videos... more than 10 years later. In case you weren't around or have forgotten, before Halo 5's release in 2015, 343 and Microsoft released various trailers and promotional videos showing all sorts of stuff that would end up not being included at all and in some cases was seriously misleading, specifically Master Chief's relationship with the game's other playable protagonist, Spartan Locke. According to Downes, it was difficult to perform for these misleading ads because he felt like it was a betrayal of character. Halo Master Chief actor tells AI to keep its filthy paws off of his voice: "That's where we cross a line" Bungie had an unspoken rule for Halo cinematics: "Never make the player in the cinematic feel more 'badass' than the actual game" Halo's Cortana actor says the direction Bungie gave her for the FPS was to sound like "the girl next door" that you "wanted to hang out with, but you're not in love with" There's never been an official explanation for why these pre-release materials were so deceptive, but a common theory is that the game went through a major rewrite after the ads had been produced and it was too late to re-do them. At another point the AMA, Downes got onto the much more topical issue of generative AI in video game development, and made his stance very clear: AI voice cloning is "where we cross a line." Halo: Campaign Evolved is a faithful remake tasked with relaunching a legendary franchise: "We see this as a way to grow, expand, and reconnect the Halo community"