This morning, Variety offered us a look at Agent Locke, the protagonist of the upcoming Microsoft series, Halo: Nightfall.

Agent Locke, played by Mike Colter, is a member of the UNSC’s Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), the black ops arm of the Earth military in the Halo-verse. According to a new character description, Locke is sent to investigate a terrorist incident on a human colony. It’s there that he discovers an alien artifact which kicks off the series.

A quick note: it’s interesting that ONI is being used here as they’ve typically been portrayed as the bad guys (or at least evil-ish) throughout the Halo novels and comics. They’re kind of like the CIA with an even more unwieldy budget and access to hidden Forerunner technology and brilliant but troubled geniuses like Spartan program director Dr. Halsey. I’m guessing some of this will play out in Nightfall, given that a lot of ONI’s dirty work involves actions against the Insurrectionists (or “Innies”), humans who want to get out from under the thumb of Earth authority.

One other interesting wrinkle: in the Variety interview, Colter says that Nightfall, produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Sergio Mimica-Gezzan, was shot as a feature-length production before getting edited down to web-friendly chapters. 343 Industries and director Stewart Handler did something similar with the Halo 4 miniseries, Forward Unto Dawn, if I recall.

So how will any of this play into Halo 5: Guardians? Could Locke somehow become the other suited Spartan-type in the first promotional image for the game?

You can ask the folks at 343 Industries for yourself when they bring Halo: Nightfall to Comic-Con this week, where Microsoft will be showing some of the first footage from the series.

[Source: Variety]