The year is 2552. Planet Earth still exists, but overpopulation has forced many of her former residents to colonize other worlds. After contact with an outer colony was lost, a battlegroup was sent to investigate and was almost completely destroyed; only one badly damaged ship returned to tell of a seemingly unstoppable alien warship that had effortlessly annihilated their forces.

This was humankind's first encounter with a group of aliens they eventually came to know as the Covenant, a collective of alien races bent on wiping out humanity. A desperate plan is set in motion: board a Covenant vessel and learn the location of the Covenant home world. But before the mission begins, Covenant forces strike and annihilate the attack force.

The Covenant are now on Earth's doorstep. One ship escapes and makes a blind jump into deep space, hoping to lead the Covenant away from Earth. The ship crashes on Halo--an artificial ring world that is actually a weapon capable of destroying all life in the galaxy should it fall into the hands of the Covenant.

You are the Master Chief--all that remains of a classified military project to build a series of genetically enhanced super- soldiers. You are humanity's last and best hope against the Covenant--but you're woefully out-matched, and survival is not guaranteed. Can you battle your way through the massive world that is Halo, defeat the Covenant, and save humanity?

Halo 2600 is an original homebrew game created by Ed Fries for the Atari 2600. Ed Fries once worked as the VP of Game Publishing for Microsoft's Xbox division and was instrumental in bringing Bungie Studios into the Microsoft studio family). AtariAge worked with Ed Fries to produce Halo 2600 in physical cartridge form, and a limited run was produced for the 2010 Classic Gaming Expo. After the Classic Gaming Expo, additional cartridges were produced using a different label (pictured in this auction) to differentiate the two releases.

In the game, Halo players control Master Chief in a non-scrolling exploration game with rooms to explore and a variety of enemies to shoot. The Chief faces a variety of enemies across 64 playfields, and must find hidden keys to unlock the game's force-fields in order to reach the final boss encounter. But first, he needs a weapon...

Additional Information

Halo 2600 includes the cartridge with a high-quality, glossy, die-cut label, and a professionally printed eight page, full color, glossy manual. Your copy of Halo 2600 will be shipped in a box to ensure that the manual and cartridge arrive safely! Available in NTSC, PAL50, and PAL60 television formats — please select above

Get a Halo 2600 Box!

If you'd like a boxed copy of Halo 2600, please select "Box Upgrade: Yes" at the top of the page before adding Halo 2600 to your cart. Our boxes are professionally printed and include a box insert to hold your Halo 2600 cartridge in place. We want you to play our games, so we have not sealed or shrinkwrapped the boxes in any way, allowing you easy access to the game cartridge and manual.

These boxes are the same size as boxes Atari produced for their games "back in the day". They look great sitting on a shelf with your other boxed homebrew games, or alongside games from the classic Atari 2600 library. We only have a limited number of boxes for each game, and there is no guarantee they will become available again once our supplies are exhausted. Click on the images to the right to see larger photos of the box.