There's been talk about Ridley Scott working with Xbox Studios on some sort of Halo-related property, and today at E3 Microsoft formally announced Halo: Nightfall. The project is part of The Master Chief Collection, the anniversary edition of previous Halo games that's coming in November of this year for Xbox One. Directed by Sergio Mimica-Gezzan (Heroes, Under the Dome) and produced by Scott, the live-action weekly series will focus on the life of Master Chief, tying together the first four Halo games and laying the narrative groundwork for Halo 5.

Nightfall is different from the Steven Spielberg-produced Halo series that Microsoft announced last year. Details are still scarce on that production — Xbox Studios told us recently that the project was in development and it hoped to be making additional announcements soon — though recent reports have the show possibly headed to Showtime as part of a combined distribution deal. Instead, Nightfall appears to be the end result of what Xbox Studios has been referring to up until this point as its Halo "digital feature." While we'll have to wait until the show debuts to see how well integrated it is with the larger Halo mythology, Nightfall appears to represent the first real example of Microsoft leveraging both its gaming and entertainment studios to create one comprehensive, intertwined experience.