Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn

Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn is a military science fiction web series set in the universe of the Halo franchise. Forward Unto Dawn consists of five 15-minute episodes released weekly starting on October 5, 2012, and was later released as a single film on DVD and Blu-ray and was later put on Netflix in 2013. A coming-of-age story in the twenty-sixth century set 31 years before the events of Halo 4, Forward Unto Dawn follows Thomas Lasky, a cadet at a military training academy who is unsure of his future within the military but feels pressured to follow in the footsteps of his mother and brother. The academy is attacked by the Covenant, a religious alliance of aliens. Lasky and his surviving squad mates are rescued by the Master Chief and must escape the planet.

The series was produced as a marketing effort for the video game Halo 4 intended to widen the audience of the Halo series and as a stepping stone to a potential Halo film. It was written by Aaron Helbing and Todd Helbing, and directed by Stewart Hendler. Forward Unto Dawn was shot in Vancouver over 25 days in May 2012 on a budget just under US$10 million. It has just under 500 shots with computer generated imagery, approximately a quarter of what a feature film would have, but the visual effects received praise from reviewers.

Forward Unto Dawn received a Streamy Award and several of the crew received awards for their work editing, producing and filming of it. The series also won a Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Award for sound editing. Reviewers were impressed by the special effects and action-packed second act, but found that the plot was too slow in the first half and most of the characters were under-developed. The series was also nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for main title design.