Meet the Man Who Created Halo's Master Chief

Welcome to the IGN Unfiltered, our monthly interview series where we sit down with the best, brightest, and most fascinating minds in the video game industry. (Catch up on the other 49-something episodes here.) Our guest this month is Marcus Lehto, the longtime Bungie art director and eventual game director who created the Master Chief himself and helmed Halo Reach, one of the series's most beloved entries. Lehto discusses his humble origins, such as how he got Bungie to hire him, as well as leaving the studio in recent years and starting a new studio and working on a new game, June's Disintegration. Check out the episode in the video above, but if you'd prefer to listen to the hour-long interview, here's an audio-only podcast download link. One way or the other we hope you'll check out the interview! Here's a preview clip, in which Lehto discusses the origins of Xbox's most iconic character: [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/05/11/master-chiefs-creator-talks-about-the-origins-of-the-iconic-character-ign-unfiltered"] And if you missed it, here's the previous episode of Unfiltered, in which Valve Software's Robin Walker and Chris Remo discuss Valve's long road back to making a Half-Life game: [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/03/24/valve-on-the-future-of-half-life-plus-other-inside-stories-ign-unfiltered-49"] Catch up on every episode of IGN Unfiltered here, including conversations with Bethesda game director Todd Howard, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, former PlayStation boss Jack Tretton, Journey creator Jenova Chen, Halo boss Bonnie Ross, and many more! [poilib element="accentDivider"] [widget path="ign/modules/recirc" parameters="title=More%20IGN%20Unfiltered&type=articles%2Cvideos&tags=unfiltered&count=6&columnCount=6&theme=article"] [poilib element="accentDivider"] Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan, catch him on Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.