Ask someone to name the most iconic video game music of all time, and they’ll probably say it’s the Halo theme. It’s instantly recognisable, strangely beautiful, and 100% nostalgic. However, the mastermind behind the tune no longer works for Bungie, so what’s going on there?
The man behind Halo’s iconic soundtrack is Marty O’Donnell, who joined the team back in 1999, right before the company was bought by Microsoft. He composed the Halo theme along with Michael Salvatori in July of that year, over the course of just three days. He worked on most of the main series games up until Halo: Reach. However, according to the BBC, after 15 years with the company, O’Donnell was let go without much warning in 2014. At the time, he was in the middle of working with Paul McCartney to compose the music for Bungie’s upcoming project, Destiny.
Why was Marty O’Donnell fired?
In a tweet from the composer back in 2014, he expressed his disappointment, claiming that he had been “terminated without cause” in April. Bungie confirmed that they had parted ways, but claimed that they were still friends — sounds like my first high school break-up. Anyways, details are scarce, so it’s hard to tell who was in the wrong, but according to the aforementioned report by the BBC, O’Donnell claims that his bosses were getting impatient with him; he paraphrased their attitude as “Hey Marty, quick just write an iconic theme and show it to us.” It seems at least part of the reason for him having being fired in 2014 was to do with the workload and turnaround time. Back then, everyone took O’Donnell’s side.
O’Donnell’s history with the company since then hasn’t exactly been friendly. He later took Bungie to court, on the basis that the company had violated its contract when it fired him and forced him to surrender all his stock, according to VentureBeat. He ultimately won the court case, winning back vested shares of stock. However, he wasn’t so lucky when he and Michael Salvatori took Microsoft to court over a dispute regarding royalties in 2020.
The controversy
Court cases aside, fans started noticing his posts on social media, which started a small controversy. Just because he makes some great music, that does not mean Marty O’Donnell is a great person, and that would become pretty apparent very quickly.
You may have already put two and two together, but yes, everyone’s favorite video game composer is an alt-right loon. He’s made his ill-informed opinions known on multiple topics, as Forbes reports, as well as reposting from the likes of Tom MacDonald and Ben Shapiro. Whilst there isn’t necessarily a connection between these controversies and him being fired in 2014, it is an interesting fact to know about Marty O’Donnell. What’s even more interesting is that the former video game composer announced he was making a move into politics on Sunday night via X (formerly Twitter). That’s quite the career shift; if this man does somehow become President, it will all be because Bungie decided to fire him way back in 2014.