Joseph Staten

Joseph Staten is an American writer best known for his work at video game studios Bungie, Microsoft Studios, and 343 Industries. At Bungie, Staten served as director of cinematics for the studio's games, including the Halo series; he would write mission scripts and movie dialogue for the titles. He has also been involved in managing the expansion of the Halo franchise to other game studios and producers, including Peter Jackson's Wingnut Interactive. Though not a published author previously, Tor Books approached Staten to write the fifth novel in the Halo franchise, Halo: Contact Harvest. Released in 2007, the novel reached #3 on The New York Times bestseller list in the first week of its release and received positive reviews. Staten rejoined Microsoft Studios as a member of the Microsoft Publishing team. Helping with the publishing of titles like Recore and Microsoft Flight Simulator. In 2018 he joined 343 industries as the creative director on Halo Infinite, and left the company in 2023 to become a creative director at Netflix. In October 2024, he and the rest of the employees of Netflix's southern California gaming studio were let go.