When it was first announced that Master Chief would take off his helmet in the upcoming Paramount+ TV series adaptation of the long-running Halo video game franchise, many questioned if it was a wise decision. After all, in the two decades worth of Halo stories, we've never seen Master Chief's face. Those days are done, though, and according to Chief himself (Pablo Schreiber) and the show's executive producers, it's a necessary step forward.

"We set out to tell a story about Master Chief--and specifically to tell a story about John," executive producer Kiki Wilfkill, who has been working on the Halo franchise since 2008, told GameSpot. "John is someone that we explore in the books, not the side of him that we tend to explore in the games. And so that was a decision that the story really made. And it just became so clear, as we were getting into what that journey would look like, and what it means for John to discover his humanity and his place in the world and his place in the UNSC that you had to be able to see him outside of the armor and without the helmet."

So while Showtime executives may have played coy about whether or not Chief would unmask back when the series was still aiming to air on the cable network, it was always in the cards based on the very nature of its story. And when it happens on the show, the creative team is hoping they've captured the gravity of such an iconic moment.