Cortana (Halo)
Cortana | |
---|---|
Halo character | |
First appearance | Halo: The Fall of Reach (2001) |
First game | Halo: Combat Evolved (2001) |
Created by | Bungie |
Voiced by | Jen Taylor (video games and live-action series)[1]
Shelley Calene-Black (Halo Legends)[2] |
Cortana is a fictional
Cortana's original design was based on the
The relationship between Cortana and Master Chief has been highlighted by reviewers as one of the most important parts of the Halo games' story. Cortana has been recognized for her believability and character depth, as well as her sex appeal. The character was the inspiration for Microsoft's intelligent personal assistant of the same name.
Description
Cortana is an artificial intelligence found in the Halo franchise. In the video games, Cortana often serves as an advisor and assistant to the player character, hacking alien computer systems and decoding transmissions.[3] She speaks most of the first game's dialogue,[4] and serves as a talkative foil for the quieter Master Chief, as well as a way of relaying information and objectives to the player.[5]
According to her backstory, Cortana was derived from the
As an artificial construct, Cortana has no physical form or being. Cortana speaks with a smooth female voice, and projects a holographic image of herself as a woman. Cortana is said to resemble Halsey, with a similar attitude "unchecked by military and social protocol". In Halo: The Fall of Reach, Cortana is described as slender, with close-cropped hair and a skin hue that varies from navy blue to lavender, depending on her mood.[6]: 216 Numbers and symbols flash across her form when she is thinking.[9] Halsey sees Cortana as a teenage version of herself: smarter than her parents, always "talking, learning, and eager to share her knowledge".[6]: 218 Cortana is described as having a sardonic sense of humor[10] and often cracks jokes or wryly comments, even during combat.[6]: 217
Appearances
In video games
Cortana's first game appearance is in 2001's Halo: Combat Evolved. Humanity is locked in a losing war with the alien Covenant.[3] Cortana plots a course for the human ship Pillar of Autumn to escape the Covenant. This heading leads to the discovery of a massive ringworld, Halo, built by a mysterious race known as the Forerunners. Cortana defends the ship from the Covenant until she is given to the supersoldier Master Chief to prevent her from falling into enemy hands. Cortana helps direct human survivors scattered across the ring and assists the Master Chief in his missions. Inserted into Halo's Control Room, Cortana realizes that the ring serves as a prison for the parasitic Flood; activating Halo would mean destroying all sentient life in the galaxy to prevent the Flood's spread. Cortana assists Master Chief in destroying the ring and escaping.[11]
In
In Halo 3, Cortana appears to the player in broken transmissions. On the Forerunner installation known as the Ark, the Master Chief travels through the ruins of High Charity to rescue Cortana. Chief and Cortana are successful at stopping the Flood, but become stranded in deep space aboard the human ship Forward Unto Dawn. Cortana activates a distress beacon, while Master Chief goes into cryonic sleep to await rescue.[11]
At the beginning of
In Halo Infinite, Master Chief travels to the Zeta Halo and recovers the Weapon, a copy of Cortana designed to trap her for deletion. Traveling across a damaged Halo's surface and fighting the Banished, the pair recover data fragments left behind by Cortana that fill in what occurred six months earlier; Cortana threatened the Banished leader Atriox, and destroyed his homeworld when he did not submit. Atriox captures Cortana and tries to force her to hand control of Zeta Halo over to him. Instead, Cortana destroys herself, damaging the ring. In a final message, Cortana apologizes to Chief for her actions and encourages him to work with the Weapon.[15][16]
Other appearances
Cortana's first appearance in the Halo franchise is in the novel
Cortana also appears in the novelization of Combat Evolved, Halo: The Flood, and the following novels Halo: First Strike and Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, as well as the animated series Halo Legends and live-action television series Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn.[18] She is also a main character in "Human Weakness", a short story written by Karen Traviss for the Halo Evolutions anthology that details Cortana's time in the clutches of the Gravemind.[19][20]
She also appears in the Halo television series, created by Dr. Halsey as a means of keeping Master Chief and other Spartans in line. By cloning herself and then copying her clone's brain patterns (which also kills her), Halsey is able to bring Cortana to life and then implant her directly into Master Chief's neural pathways.[21]
Character design
Cortana was developed to provide Combat Evolved with a way of guiding players while keeping missions open-ended, and avoiding players from feeling they were being herded through the game.[22] Said story writer Joseph Staten, "we needed a character who could consistently guide the player through the game, and an onboard AI was something that could always credibly accompany [them]." Cortana's role grew from pure gameplay considerations to serving as a way of characterizing and humanizing the Master Chief, and in subsequent games the Chief-Cortana relationship became a focus of characterization.[23]
The character was designed and modeled by Bungie artist Chris Hughes, with the model's face based on a sculpture of Egyptian Queen Nefertiti.[24] Cortana's name is a variant of Curtana, the sword used by the legendary Ogier the Dane, just as the titular AI character of Bungie's previous game Marathon 2: Durandal is named after the legendary sword Durendal. Curtana's inscription reveals that the sword has the same "temper as Joyeuse and Durendal".[25] After assuming development duties from Bungie, 343 Industries decided to explain Cortana's established appearance as a reflection of her personality. "So one of the reasons she [appears as she does] is to attract and demand attention," Franchise development coordinator Frank O'Connor explained. "And she does it to put people off so that they're on their guard when talking to her and she has the upper hand in those conversations."[26]
Cortana and the Master Chief's relationship was a core part of Halo 4, part of a desire to feature a more human story. Creative director Josh Holmes noted that Cortana was in ways more human than Master Chief, and the idea that Chief would grapple with his humanity at the same time he was losing Cortana spoke to him.
For Halo 5, Cortana's appearance changes significantly. Describing her previous appearance as soft and "deceptively vulnerable", 343 Industries took the story opportunity provided to change her look to reflect her new role as self-declared ruler of the galaxy. "In the first draft of the ending she was going to wear a flowing gown, have long hair, etc. She'd be very regal, very “powerful high queen." Very obviously different than she was," writer Brian Reed recalled. Her final design incorporated elements of the Spartans and Forerunners on top of her previous look, including a Forerunner glyph. "Having her wear [the Mantle] was a nice way of having her own it too, from a symbolic standpoint," Reed said. The character was modeled and animated using motion capture and talent at 343 Industries and Axis Animation.[34] 343 Industries intended the character's normal role in gameplay to be filled by Blue Team.[35]
Cortana's design, particularly her human-like appearance, was met with controversy after the TV series' trailer was released.[36] Kiki Wolfkill explained that the decision was influenced by technology, as the team prefers to use the most up-to-date tools to make thoughtful design decisions, as they have done throughout the series' decades-long history.[37] She further said "A lot of the design changes as we progress[ed] through the game generations was because we had access to better graphics, technology, more pixels, and more effects. And so it's always been about adapting Cortana to the environment."[38]
Voice acting
Voice actress
For years after the first game was released Taylor remained distanced from the character. She attended only one fan convention in six years after the release of Halo: Combat Evolved,[42] and never saw many of the finished cutscenes with the character until a Halo 3 launch party.[39] Starting with Halo 3, Taylor felt the role involved more drama and less jargon,[43] and over time, her relationship with the character changed. "At first I was just excited to have a job and then I became more and more familiar, comfortable with and interested in her as she was developed," she recalled. "And I've sort of fallen for Cortana as far as characters go. She's remarkable." For Halo 4, Taylor performed her lines in the same room as Steve Downes, the voice of Master Chief, for the first time in the series. She credited the change for making the dialogue feel more authentic and real.[39] She reprises her role as Cortana for the Halo television series.[21]
Promotion
Bungie introduced the Halo series publicly in 1999 by sending the Cortana Letters, a series of cryptic email messages, to the maintainer of marathon.bungie.org, a
Cortana is featured in a variety of Halo merchandise. The character's first action figure was a seven-inch (178 mm) miniature released as part of the
Windows digital assistant
Reception
Cortana is one of Halo's most beloved characters,
Cortana has also been recognized for her
Mike Rougeau of Complex noted that Halo 3 balanced a large conflict with a more personal one—that while the galaxy was imperiled by aliens, "more important to fans was the rescue of Cortana."
Despite mixed opinions of Halo 4's campaign as a whole, Cortana and her story was often considered a strong point of the game. IGN called Halo 4 "really Cortana's story", as saving the galaxy is of lesser importance to the Master Chief than saving Cortana, and Cortana's humanity is ultimately the game's focus.[77] The Daily Telegraph's Tom Hoggins agreed, calling Cortana "the flickering blue heart of the game's plot", and Hoggins and reviewers for The Globe and Mail and Eurogamer singled out the character's writing and performance as high points of the game's campaign.[78][79][80] Justin Clouse wrote that the interactions between Chief and Cortana as the latter loses her hold on sanity were "perhaps the best it's ever been".[81] Complex's review praised the use of motion capture for Cortana, as they were given "new life" and new depth from the technology and performance.[75]
David Their wrote that the choice for Cortana to return in Halo 5 and turn her into an antagonist provided the game "with a well earned sense of drive"[82] and that her appearance in Halo 5 gave players another side of the character to see. "There's something unknowable about Cortana in her new role as AI God, but we've spent enough time with her throughout the series that we stick with her through the reinvention."[83] Similarly, Patrick Dane of Bleeding Cool defended the game's divisive campaign and Cortana's turn to antagonist as an "inspired choice", driving a wedge between the most important character relationship in the games.[84] Conversely, Matt Peckham felt that the plot twist of Cortana's actions "feels strangely underwhelming",[85] while Ars Technica and Kotaku considered Cortana's return, and her plans to use alien technology to remake the galaxy, unbelievable and unearned.[86][87] Responding to criticism that 343 had turned Cortana "evil", franchise director Frank O'Connor said, "my question back to them is, 'What makes you say they’re evil?' Certainly a lot of our younger players are going to struggle with that subtlety, that nuance, because they’re expecting Darth Vader."[35] Stephen Wilds of Polygon said that that "there aren’t notable antagonists, but that they tend to disappear after a couple games", and wondered if Cortana could have been a "full-fledged villain at the end of Halo 5" and would be praised by fans.[88]
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External links
- The Cortana Letters
- Cortana's profile Archived June 23, 2017, at the Wayback Machine at Halowaypoint.com
- Cortana’s profile at halopedia.org