It's been a very long road for the Halo TV series. Originally announced all the way back in 2013, it featured major industry names like Steven Spielberg and Neill Blomkamp attached to the Halo project. Things quickly got off track, first in 2014 with Xbox Entertainment Studios shutting down, directors and showrunners leaving the project, and then a period of a few years when the show was stuck in development hell.
Finally, at long last, the Halo TV series has pushed through the many obstacles it faced over the past nine years and has finally launched its first episode on Paramount Plus. Although the series is just starting out, Paramount appears confident that the series will succeed in its first season as the company has already renewed the Halo TV series for a second season. While fans continue to debate certain aspects of the show, such as the change in Cortana's appearance, general consensus appears to be positive overall, with some even digging through the first episode to find any hidden secrets.
While longtime fans would expect to see plenty of nods to the Halo game series that the show is based on, some have discovered a very clever Easter egg for another major Sci-Fi gaming series. During a scene in the first episode with multiple characters watching a UNSC monitor, a background announcement can be heard calling for a character named Commander Shepherd to make their way to an area called the Skillian Response Center.
Now, while it would be easy to brush off the name "Commander Shepherd" as not only is it fairly common, but also mispelled from BioWare's version, the clever aspect of this Easter egg comes in the second part of the message. The use of the term Skillian Response Center, which is a clear reference to the Skyllian Blitz event that is a big piece of Shepard's backstory. While not depicted in any of the games, the Skyllian Blitz was a major assault on the human colony of Elysium by pirates, slavers, and Batarian warlords set off by a controversial Mass Effect character known as Elanos Haliat. Players can influence their Shepard's history by selecting them as a War Hero for rallying the colonists against the invaders or Ruthless, in which they instead took part in the retaliation against the Batarian stronghold on Torfan.
While the reference is a cool and very subtle nod to another big sci-fi franchise, many Halo fans have been a little disappointed with the lack of cross-promotion between the show and Halo Infinite. As a live-service title, the multiplayer side of Halo Infinite has had no shortage of limited time events come and go including Fractures: Tenrai. Considering the length of time that both the game and TV have been in development, fans were hoping that something would be featured.
Halo is now available on Paramount Plus with new episodes launching every Thursday.
Source: Mass Effect Wiki; Reddit