Canon Policy

One of, if not the most pertinent reasons for the creation of Bungie Halo Wiki is allow for concepts in the Halo universe to be described how they were during the Bungie-era, allowing Bungie canon to be known and understood.

Bungie's canon policy was once described by Joseph Staten on November 5th, 2007, in response to a fan on halo.bungie.org

"Everything that Bungie has ever approved is canonical. But even then, certain things trump others. In order of canonical influence:

- The games rank first

- Published materials (books, comics, soundtrack liner notes etc.) rank second

- Marketing and PR materials third

And there's one codicil: the more recent items trump the older ones. So, for example, if some aspect of Halo 3's fiction contradicted Halo 2's, Halo 3's would be the gold standard."

With this, it is understood that any media that Bungie approved, and not what solely Bungie created, was considered Bungie canon. With (Bungie) games taking precedent over all, and published media being authoritative to marketing materials. With the addition of: In matters of contradiction inside the rankings, the latest fiction is definitive.

This policy will be Bungie Halo Wiki's general guide, but is not exclusive, and may not be correctly applicable to use in all instances. Any notable idiosyncrasies or disagreements within the studio should be noted, but such cases could still be demonstrated to have a justifiable conclusion reached for wiki information.

On October 5th, 2007, Bungie, who had been a subsidiary of Microsoft since 2000, announced it will again become an independent studio upon fulfilling a release contract including leaving the complete ownership of the Halo franchise with Microsoft, and the development of two more Bungie Halo games (materialized as Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach) Microsoft then announced the creation of 343 Industries to oversee the Halo franchise after Bungie's departure. During this interim period, 343 Industries and Microsoft are both credited in creating Halo media that may or may not have been approved by Bungie.

As a whole, exactly when Bungie could control what was canon, and what was everything the studio considered canonical, is unknown. While a "only confirmed Bungie involvement" purist stance can be taken (and should be noted), Bungie involvement was altogether undefined in works during the period of ownership transfer, and such it must be considered that any pertinent media may have been canonical to Bungie.

Such examples could include Halo: Evolutions: a short story anthology published by 343 Industries, but which included work from Robert McLees and Eric Nylund. Also, Halo: Helljumper a comic series credited only to Marvel and Microsoft, but has been stated to have been surpervised by Robert Mclees.

Therefore, If a piece of media is in line with Bungie lore, but does not explicitly have contributions of Bungie employees, it could still be considered canonical. Inversely, if such a work from that period of time is extraneously contradicting in nature with Bungie lore, the general purpose is for it to be considered non-canonical.

With all of this considered, Bungie Halo Wiki maintains a canon hierarchy system represented here:

Overall, canonicity will be decided on a case-by-case basis guided by the described hierarchy to materials cataloged on the Master list for canonicity status.