While the Halo franchise has waned in popularity in recent years, the series as a whole still stands as one of the most influential first-person shooters of all time. Since its debut in 2001, the franchise has had to consistently contend against the likes of Call of Duty and Battlefield, despite the clear thematic differences between each of them.

Many would point to Call of Duty as the largest and most significant competitor to Halo over the years, with both IPs having stayed firmly in their own lanes during the past two decades. With that being said, the likely approval of Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition could see the two FPS giants crossover in ways that fans would have previously thought impossible.

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Microsoft's Activision Blizzard Deal: An Alliance Between Call of Duty and Halo

Halo has been the face of Microsoft and Xbox for quite some time, being one of the most successful gaming IPs to be spearheaded by Microsoft's gaming branch. Despite this, the glory days of the franchise ae clearly behind it, and Microsoft is looking further afield for other IPs to pick up the slack. This is best evidenced in the extremely high-profile attempted acquisition of Activision Blizzard King by Microsoft, with the tech giant offering a record-setting $69 billion to purchase the company in early 2022.

If successful, the deal would see Microsoft take ownership of some massive names like World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, and most importantly, Call of Duty. When considering that CoD alone makes billions in revenue each year, it is no wonder that Microsoft made such an eye-watering bid for Activision Blizzard, as this success could easily bleed over to other Microsoft ventures. While the scale of this deal has led to a lot of regulatory red tape, recent developments indicate that Microsoft could complete their acquisition within the coming months, or even weeks.

This would open up a huge amount of opportunity for crossovers between Microsoft IPs, and collaboration between Halo and Call of Duty would be fascinating to any long-term fan of first-person shooters. A complete departure from their long history of competition, both Halo and Call of Duty would be actively looking to help one another post-acquisition, and collaborative events between both franchises would be a great way to accomplish this.

A simple way to go about this would be to feature iconic Halo characters as playable operators in Call of Duty, with the likes of Master Chief and the Arbiter being perfect candidates. Halo just recently showed its affinity for this kind of collaboration with its Rainbow Six Siege crossover, which saw the operator Sledge receive his own Master Chief skin. The success of this crossover could easily be replicated in Call of Duty, with things like Halo-inspired weapon blueprints and Warzone vehicles being another example of the crossover potential between both franchises.

Of course, Call of Duty-related content could also be added to Halo, with armor cores themed around CoD characters like Ghost and Soap being a straightforward way to bridge the two IPs. For a more hands-on approach, Microsoft could offer exclusive content for Halo and CoD that can be unlocked by players for engaging in both titles. Playing Halo during a certain event could unlock content for Call of Duty and vice versa, encouraging players to experience both series simultaneously. Despite being adversaries for some time, the future of Halo and Call of Duty is shaping up to be a mutually beneficial one after the acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

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