The Halo franchise is going the Animatrix route by releasing a series of anime short films in a collected anthology entitled Halo Legends. The collection will feature seven stories told across eight episodes, all serving to expand the mythology of the Halo universe, much in the same way that the recently-released Halo 3: ODST sought to do.

For those of you still waiting on your live-action Halo movie, it seems as though you’ll have to make due with Legends for now, so, if “universe expansion films” like The Animatrix or Batman: Gotham Knight haven’t turned you off completely to this sort of thing, check out these highlights from the Halo Legends official press release:

I found a new Halo 3 video ad, apparently leaked, that’s live action and pretty cool, even if you’re not a Halo video game nut:

Now some background on the Halo movie’s development: