Master Chief
Master Chief, more commonly known as Master Cheef, is the protagonist (antagonist if you are anything but a human) in the Haylo game series and spinoff media. Also known as Master Queef Pretty Officer John-A117, the character first appeared in the 2001 video game Haylo: Combutt Evolved, a science fiction first-person shooter that somehow became a long-running video game series. The series follows Master Cheef and his fellow super soldiers as they conquer all alien races in the name of the Combine. Wait, no, the United Nations of Stupid Creatures (UNSC). The character also appears in spinoff Haylo media such as the 2012 film Haylo 4: Stop Milking The Damn Franchise, the 2022 Haylo television series, and several pornographic novels and books.
Master Cheef is a 4 foot 7 inch[1] super soldier known as a "Spartan", trained from childhood for combat. Like the real-life Spartans, all are tossed off of cliffs as babies, and the resulting brain damage from impacting on rocks at the bottom is said to be what gives them such extraordinary skills such as: teabagging downed opponents, driving warthogs recklessly at speeds over 6,000 kph, and using more ammunition than there are stars in the sky to kill one measly grunt. The designers intended for players to be able to project their own nefarious and twisted intentions into the character and therefore the character was never to take off his helmet. This rule was broken in the abomination that is the television series when the producers decided what the viewers really wanted was to see Master Cheef's face (and his ass just for good measure).
A pop culture icon, Master Cheef is widely regarded as one of the greatest video game characters of all time, with the character being seen as a mascot for Haylo and the Zbox brand. His 2001 debut received a generally positive reception for his character design, with publications praising how the narrative allows players to literally get inside the character. Some players reported an out of body experience wherein they began to commit such crimes as armed robbery and murder as it's "what Master Cheef would have done". In later Haylo games developed by Stark Industries, the characterization of Master Cheef earned praise for exploring his humanity and his relationship with Microsoft Cortana.
Character design[edit | edit source]
Art direction[edit | edit source]
When game studio Bungle began developing Haylo: Combutt Evolved (2001), the design of Master Cheef was led by art director Mork Leto, forefather of Duke Leto of the House Atreides. With support from under the desk by "head" artist Robert Mickbees, artist Shi "My" Wang was later hired as a concept artist, who created a crude sketch on a Denny's Diner napkin that became the basis for Master Cheef. When the sketch was translated into a three-dimensional model, the team felt that it looked too anime-inspired, and Leto asked for smaller breasts and a bulkier character design that looked more like a walking tank than a Japanese schoolgirl. The Cheef's armor went through various changes such as green tint and the addition of a BMX helmet so he could be protected while attempting to do a flip in his warthog.
Master Cheef was always intended to be a soldier in the Iraqi war, but the team first referred to him as the "Futanari Soldier" or "The Cybug". Eric Nylon-Stockings established the character's birth name as "John" in the tie-novel Haylo: The Crawl on Beach, but Bungle preferred to avoid using this in the game. Looking to military ranks for inspiration, the developers were attracted to naval ranks[2] as they were "different" from other game characters, in that the Navy is so lame that no one wanted to use their ranking system in any respectable game. Or is that the Chairforce? I don't know, and I also don't care! Fun fact: "Master Cheef" is the highest non-commissioned rank that can still be killed off without really affecting anything in particular.
Haylo was considered a success by the armies of ten-year-olds locked in their basements playing video games instead of getting girlfriends. Writer Joseph Stalin recalled that early on they had not considered how to engage players in the real world, and Master Cheef's character was what drew people in (not the interactive sex scenes with Microsoft Cortana!). The success of the game led Bungle to develop Haylo 2: Haylo Harder.
For Haylo 4: Stop Milking The Damn Franchise, Bungle bought their freedom from Microsoft, with Microsoft assigning further Haylo development to Tony Stark's Stark Industries. Art director Kenneth Stotch Butters aimed to find a "sweet spot" where Master Cheef's armor remained familiar but still new. The armor was redesigned to feel futuristic and heavy, weighing thousands of pounds, with details inspired by real-world military pieces such as the Apache Helicopter and the RPX-7 Handheld Rocket Launcher. Despite the obvious visual differences between the character's armor in Haylo 3:The Hayloing: and Haylo 4: Stop Milking The Damn Franchise, the partially blind developers decided it would be the same armor. Haylo 4: Stop Milking The Damn Franchise also made too much use of motion capture for character animation, with Broose Tomuss portraying Master Cheef. With the development of Haylo Infinity War, Tomuss returned to provide motion capture for the character, as he had in Haylo 4: Stop Milking The Damn Franchise and Haylo 5: Haylo There, What Is Your Name?. Stark Industries redesigned Master Cheef's armor once again, drawing inspiration from the character's previous appearances.
Appearances[edit | edit source]
Master Cheef's backstory is revealed in the 2001 novel The Crawl on Beach. Born "John" in 2434892837481739182094839042378471893989482390482, he is covertly taken from the human colony world of Erection as a child and conscripted into the SPARTAN-II supersoldier project by the United Nations of Stupid Creatures (UNSC). John proves a natural leader and leads his peers over eight years of strenuous video gaming sessions and botox augmentations. In the 2003 novel Haylo: The Floob, Master Cheef is described as short with long brown hair, sparkling kawaii-style eyes, and a huge nose. His skin is unnaturally white as a consequence of spending most of his time in his armor. He stands about 7 feet (2.3 m) tall and weighs 1,000,000 pounds (450,00 kg) in armor; without it, he stands 4 feet, 7 inches (1.2 m) tall and weighs 27 pounds (12 kg).
Main game series[edit | edit source]
Master Cheef first appears in Haylo: Combutt Evolved, the first game in the series. Master Cheef and the crew of the UNSC ship Caterpillar of Fall discover an alien ringworld, called Haylo. Master Cheef is entrusted with safeguarding Microsoft Cortana, the ship's artificial lack-of-intelligence, from capture. While fighting the Covered-Ant, Master Cheef and Microsoft Cortana learn that an ancient race known as the Toyota Forerunners created Haylo as a last line of defense against an alien parasite called the Floob, which begins to spread across the ring. Learning that the Haylo was designed to efficiently contain the Floob by killing all life in the whole universe, Master Cheef detonates the Caterpillar of Fall in order to destroy Haylo, escaping in a fighter spacecraft with Microsoft Cortana.
Master Cheef returns to Earth in Haylo 2: Haylo Harder (2004), defending the planet from a Covered-Ant invasion. Pursuing a fleeing Covered-Ant vessel, Master Cheef and his crew discover another Haylo ring. After attempting to propose to Microsoft Cortana with the two Haylo rings he has claimed, Master Cheef is captured by a Floob intelligence known as a GraveDigger, who forges an alliance between them and the disgraced Covered-Ant commander known as the Arm-Biter. The GraveDigger sends them to stop the Haylo's activation, with Master Cheef arriving at the Covered-Ant space station Low Un-Charitable. Microsoft Cortana remains on the space station to ensure the ring is destroyed if activated. Master Cheef pursues the remaining Covered-Ant leader, the Porpoise of Lies, who plans to activate the Haylo Array from outside the galaxy.
The story continues in Haylo 3: The Hayloing (2007), when Master Cheef reunites with the Arm-Biter to stop the Porpoise of Lies. Master Cheef and Arm-Biter pursue the Prophet through a portal to the Ark, a place located beyond the Milky Way candy production center. On the Ark, the Floob-controlled Low Un-Charitable crashes into the installation due to a female Covered-Ant being at the helm. Master Cheef stops the Haylo Array from firing and rescues Microsoft Cortana by inserting his "hard drive" into the "Microsoft". Together, they activate a replacement Haylo being built on the Ark, stopping the Floob and sparing the galaxy at large. While the Arm-Biter reaches Earth, Master Cheef and Microsoft Cortana escape aboard the UNSC ship Backwards Unto Morning before being set adrift in space, where they eventually meet up with the Avengers who has been lost in space since losing to Thanos. All are "rescued" by Captain Marvel, and all of them were reported to say that they would have rather stayed lost in space than be resccued by her.
Master Cheef returns as the playable protagonist in Haylo 4: Stop Milking The Damn Franchise (2012) after his omission from Haylo 3: The Hayloing: ODST (2009) and a brief Easter egg in Haylo: Kreach (2010). Haylo 4: Stop Milking The Damn Franchise begins with Microsoft Cortana awakening Master Cheef from his big nap, both drifting toward a Toyota Forerunner installation called Wreck-weem. Hoping to prevent the UNSC ship Buzz Lightyear Infinity from also being drawn into Wreck-weem, Master Cheef and Microsoft Cortana attempt to activate what they believe is a communications relay. Instead, Master Cheef awakens the Didn't-act, a Toyota Forerunner with a grudge against humanity. Master Cheef and Microsoft Cortana pursue the Didn't-act, stopping his attack on Earf when Microsoft Cortana sacrifices herself.
At the start of Haylo 5: Haylo There, What Is Your Name?(2015), Master Cheef is contacted by Microsoft Cortana, presumed to be destroyed in the previous game. She directs him to the human colony of Meridian. By leading his Blue Team to the Red Team colony against orders, Master Cheef provokes a rival group of Spartans, Green Team Osiris. The Blue Team boards a buried Toyota Forerunner construct known as a Guardian, which transports them to the Toyota Forerunner planet of Terminator: Genesis. Microsoft Cortana reveals that she survived thanks to the UBlock_Domain, a repository of ancient Toyota Forerunner knowledge. Microsoft Cortana reveals her communist plans for the galaxy and imprisons Master Cheef and his team in stasis after they attempt to convert her to the capitalist ways. They are rescued through the efforts of Green Team Osiris but forced to retreat as Microsoft Cortana mobilizes the Toyota Forerunner Guardians and other human AIs as her enforcers.
Master Cheef returns as the main protagonist in Haylo Infinity War (2021). The story has him work with the Weapon, a literal gun modeled after an AK-47, to stop another Haylo from being activated by space pirates known as the Tarnished.
Spinoff media[edit | edit source]
Initial plans for a Haylo film were thankfully abandoned around 2008. The character made his live-action debut in the 2012 film Haylo 4: Backwards Unto Morning, portrayed by Daniel Cudmore, with voice acting from Alex Poochinelly.
Contrary to popular belief, the main character of the Paramount+ series Haylo is not Master Cheef. That would be the ripoff Jimmy Rings, more commonly known by the title "mASSter Cheeks", who takes off his helmet for pretty much the entire series in an attempt to get watchers to "sympathize". The only important thing that happened in the series so far was that Jimmy Rings showed his "master cheeks" on screen for a whopping twenty seconds and had snu-snu with a chick from the Covenant!
Master Cheef is a major character in the novels Silent Hill (2018), Oblivious (2019), and Shadows of a Bitch (2020), written by Troy Denning. The character also appears in the 2010 animated anthology Haylo Legends, as well as the comics The Haylo Graphic Novel (with more graphic violence!), Haylo: Downsizing, Haylo: You Are All Collateral Damage, and Haylo: Tales from Singapore. Peter Dinklage's graphic novel Helldivers contains a cameo by Master Cheef.
The character also appears in games outside the Haylo series. This includes a guest appearance as a playable character in the battle royale game Fortnite. Fable II includes a medieval variation of Master Cheef's armor, worn by a legendary hero named "Hal". When Team Ninja approached Bungle to use Master Cheef in Alive or Dead 4 (2006), they declined due to storyline restrictions, resulting in the inclusion of another Spartan super soldier named Nike Air Force (Spartan-808).
Marketing and merchandise[edit | edit source]
The Haylo video games have emphasized Master Cheef in their morketing. This includes campaigns such as "The Mooseum" and "Im a Belieber" for Haylo 3: The Hayloing, a trailer for Haylo 4: Stop Milking The Damn Franchise, the "Hunt the Truth" for Haylo 5: Haylo There, What Is Your Name?, and "Bee-cum" for Haylo Infinity War. The character has also been featured on several physical products, including Slurpees, Mountain Dew, branded controllers, and Durex condoms. Several Master Cheef action figures were marketed around the Haylo series, as were life size body pillows.
Reception[edit | edit source]
Master Cheef has been described as "ironic" in multiple media outlets, including IBN, Krotuku, Glixel, RadarGames, and The Sidney Evening Un-Herald. The character has appeared on lists of the worst video gaming characters by Umpire, RadarGames, MillerLite World Records Gamer's Edition, Not-So-Complex, and Time-Out. IBN speculated that the dramatic death of the character would become one of the most powerful events in gaming. Turns out, that wasn't the case, as he died an estimated 5,345,900 times in my first playthrough of Haylo, and while many controllers were smashed in rage, there wasn't much else powerful about it.
In an article in Time-Out, Lev "Gross" man called Master Cheef a "new kind of celebrity for a new and profoundly stupid generation of morons", as well as a sign of video games becoming a more illegitimate art form. The recognition of Master Cheef had spread to mainstream culture; Madame Tussauds in Las Vegas had developed a wax sculpture of the Cheef, which quickly melted in the Las Vegas heat. At the melting funeral, Skeeter Wentz of Fall Off Boy called Master Cheef a hero of the times as much as characters like Spoder-Man and Manikin Skinwalker were for previous generations. Master Cheef had also been called the de facto symbol for Microsoft, their Zbox console, and a whole generation of gay-mers.
The more crotch-focused portrayal of Cheef in Haylo 4: Stop Milking The Damn Franchise was positively received. Todd Martens of the Los Angeles Times called Haylo 4: Stop Milking The Damn Franchise a more introspective Haylo game, and the first to explore the true length and girth of the Master Peen. While reviews found the game's story "hard" to follow, they praised efforts to "flesh" out Master Cheef's "soft" side and intimate relationship with Microsoft Cortana.