Microsoft’s announcement that Halo: Marketing campaign Advanced is coming to PlayStation is the ultimate nail within the coffin for the Xbox unique, and for some marks the tip of the console wars. Now, the White Home has waded in with an AI picture of Donald Trump as a saluting Grasp Chief that, properly… there’s one thing very unsuitable about it.
For the uninitiated, Halo: Marketing campaign Advanced, a remake of the marketing campaign of 2001’s Halo: Fight Advanced, is due out on Xbox Collection X and S, PC, and PlayStation 5 sooner or later in 2026. It’s the first Halo recreation ever to launch on a PlayStation console, and cements Microsoft’s place as a multiplatform online game developer.
The thought of a Halo recreation on a PlayStation console would have been outrageous earlier than, say, just a few years in the past, when Microsoft’s multiplatform push started (reportedly partly attributable to a must make an elevated revenue margin from Xbox studios). Maybe that’s what prompted U.S. online game store GameStop to tweet an announcement declaring the consoles wars over.
Somebody someplace inside the bowels of the White Home noticed that tweet and determined it will be one to leap on. The tweet in query reveals the U.S. president as Halo protagonist Grasp Chief — clearly generated by AI — holding an Vitality Sword and saluting in entrance of the White Home and the American Flag.
Energy to the Gamers https://t.co/GqNu0qdgmw pic.twitter.com/4Hw6G7i7aW
— The White Home (@WhiteHouse) October 27, 2025
However look intently at that flag and also you’ll see the error — there are 40 stars when there ought to be 50. Has Trump, as Grasp Chief, teased plans to clean 10 states from the U.S. map? Did the AI powering the creation of this picture trace at generative AI’s endgame? Ought to we be nervous?
Is Trump claiming a key function in ending the console wars? Is the White Home making a play for the gamer crowd right here? It’s exhausting to say what this picture is attempting to attain, however it has gone properly and really viral, with 9.3 million views on the time of this text’s publication. IGN has requested Microsoft for remark.
It’s an particularly odd “collab” from the White Home when you think about Trump’s prior feedback on video video games. In 2019, Trump instructed one option to forestall future mass shootings in America was to take a agency stance in opposition to violent video video games.
“We should cease the glorification of violence in our society,” he stated. “This contains the ugly and grisly video video games that at the moment are commonplace. It’s too simple immediately for troubled youth to encompass themselves with a tradition that celebrates violence. We should cease or considerably scale back this and it has to start instantly.”
Maybe, in Trump’s thoughts, Halo doesn’t depend.
The Trump administration has kind relating to utilizing AI photographs to advertise the President. In Could, Trump sparked a backlash from some Catholics after posting an AI-generated picture of himself because the Pope. The image, which was shared by official White Home social media accounts, was launched as Catholics mourned the loss of life of Pope Francis and ready to decide on the subsequent pontiff.
The White Home has additionally launched AI photographs of Trump as Superman and as a Star Wars Jedi. And final month, The Pokémon Firm formally responded to using Pokémon TV hero Ash Ketchum and the sequence’ theme tune by the Division of Homeland Safety as a part of a video displaying folks being arrested and handcuffed by regulation enforcement brokers.
We’ve acquired lots extra on Halo: Marketing campaign Advanced, together with why it’s the ultimate nail within the coffin for the Xbox unique, and ideas from some members of the unique Halo growth group at Bungie.
Photograph by Andrew Harnik/Getty Pictures.
Wesley is Director, Information at IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You possibly can attain Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].