Listen to Master Chief's voice actor read an excerpt from the next Halo novel

While you're waiting for Halo Infinite to arrive next year, you can let Master Chief's voice actor recap the story so far with a new reading from the upcoming Halo: Shadows of Reach novel.

Halo: Shadows of Reach takes place between the events of Halo 5: Guardians and Halo Infinite. It follows the Master Chief and the reunited Blue Team Spartans as they return to their home world of Reach, decades after the cataclysmic ending of Halo: Reach (and the first Halo novel, Fall of Reach). The surface of the planet was turned to glass by relentless Covenant bombardment, but the Chief's mission is nonetheless to retrieve materials which may help stop the rogue AI uprising.

If you're caught up with the events of the games, there won't be any spoilers in the excerpt read by Steve Downes. It's mostly a recap of recent events in the series from Master Chief's perspective, giving us a chance to hear the inner conflict he still feels about the role he played in Cortana's dictatorial turn. It turns out that Spartan soldiers are really good at fighting but not so good at processing complex emotional trauma and lingering guilt. 

Halo: Shadows of Reach will be released on Tuesday, October 20, and the audiobook version will be narrated in full by Sean Patrick Hopkins. 343 Interactive has made it clear that this won't be "required reading" for the events of the Halo Infinite story campaign, but it will help set the table for the events to come.

See what else is coming to Microsoft's next console with our guide to upcoming Xbox Series X games.