Over the past few months, the US government has been on a spree of using video games, TV shows, and movies to promote some of their policies and current endeavors. Months ago, they used Pokémon and Halo to promote ICE. They also shared an AI image of President Donald Trump donned in Spartan armor from the Halo series when GameStop made a facetious post about the console wars ending. Now, this past Thursday, the official White House account on X shared a new video combining a plethora of movie, TV, and video game scenes with real war footage to promote the ongoing war in Iran to many people who oppose the war’s dismay.
One such person who took umbrage with the video was Steve Downes who voices Master Chief in the Halo series. The video has a short clip from one of the cutscenes from the series in which one of Master Chief’s iconic lines is spoken in”Finishing this fight.” This upset Downes as he did not give permission to the White House to use his voice work for the video. In response, Downes took to X himself to say he needs to be removed from the video.
Downes isn’t the first who has worked on the Halo series to take offense at the US government’s use of the franchise to promote their ongoing policies. In response to the aforementioned ICE post from the US Department of Homeland Security that used the franchise, Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto expressed his disdain for that post. This even ended with the US Department of Homeland Security responding by stating they had no intention to stop using video games in their messaging. Microsoft, who owns the Halo IP, has yet to release a statement in regards to the use of their IP in the videos.
With Internet culture being the way it is nowadays, it doesn’t seem like the US government will stop using entertainment media for their own benefit in promoting what they want. The only way it would possibly stop is if the IP holders take issue with it and file against the government to remove the videos.