The Halo Wars 2 launch trailer is here

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Halo Wars 2 comes out on February 17, which is still well over a week away. To tide you over until then, here's the Halo Wars 2 official launch trailer which provides a cinematic look at Atriox, a beast so bad that "the whole damn Covenant couldn't contain him," even at the height of its power. 

I find that a little hard to swallow, to be honest. The Covenant was a vast alliance of alien races that spanned the stars and stood for centuries. Atriox is obviously a tough guy, but why was it so hard for an interstellar empire to find out what planet he was on, and then just blow it up? I mean, surely humans can't be the only ones to roll with the "nuke it from orbit" doctrine. 

In any event, it's clear that the odds are stacked steeply against the Spirit of Fire, described honestly (but unflatteringly) by Isabel as "one old ship and half a crew." But Captain Cutter's having none of that: He sees family, and a home—and a whole lot of ass-kicking ahead! Ooh rah, and so on.

Halo Wars 2 will be playable at the PC Gamer Weekender, which runs February 18-19 at the Olympia in London. Ahead of that, we've got some hands-on impressions of a near-final build of the game you can catch up with here.

Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

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