New York Toy Fair 2016 won’t officially begin until Saturday morning, but already Mattel has dropped a bombshell that has shaken the Halo collecting world to its core: Mattel is now the master license holder for Halo toys and action figures. I’ll talk about exactly what that means in the coming days–but today, let’s chat about the first series of Mattel Halo 6″ figures… including Spartan Linda!
The king is dead. Long live the king! As amazing as the McFarlane Halo toy line was for a few years, it’s been clear for quite a while now that McFarlane Toys had lost interest in Halo and felt like they had bigger fish to fry (*cough* The Walking Dead *cough*).
Many Halo fans prayed for the McFarlane Toys Halo license to be lost–and their prayers have been answered! With the announcement of Mattel obtaining the Halo Master License today, the era of McFarlane Toys is about to come to an end.
I have a lot of fond memories of the Halo McFarlane figures, but I became increasingly frustrated with the Halo 5 line’s lack of usable articulation and character diversity. In one swoop, Mattel is about to cure both those problems.
The new series of Mattel 6″ Halo figures will feature 30+ points of articulation, removable/interchangeable armor, plenty of weapons and vehicles (more on vehicles later!).
Mattel Halo Series 1 will contain the following six figures:
- The Master Chief
- Spartan Locke
- Spartan Linda
- Red Helioskrill Spartan
- Blue Air Assault Spartan
- Red Elite Zealot
The big news in this assortment is definitely the inclusion of Spartan Linda of Blue Team and the multiplayer Helioskrill Spartan.
While Spartan Vale of Fireteam Osiris at least received an (awesome) Halo Heroes figures already, to date no company has ever released a Linda Spartan figure. If Mattel wanted to win over longtime collectors instantly with one character choice, then they certainly made the right one!
Meanwhile, the Spartan Helioskrill armor has been one of the favored new Halo 5: Guardians armor permutations among fans, so it’s a real thrill to see this awesome red Helioskrill figure (with cool green visor!) in Mattel Halo Wave 1.
Considering that the Halo 5 McFarlane Toys figures were rife with durability and articulation issues, I am beyond psyched to see what this new line of Halo Mattel figures can do once it hits stores!
What do you think of this momentous news of Mattel snagging the Halo license, collectors? Will you be giving the new line a shot or giving up entirely on Halo entirely once McFarlane Toys shuts down its toy line for good?
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That Linda Figure, looks so awful =/, I just hope it´s not the finished Product, otherwise it´ll require a lot of Paint Job.
i just hope they are not that shiny when they come out. And i also hope the figures are not made of a cheap material.
But… Romeo?!
Still….. This just made my month…. So looking forward to then and if they are compatible with maver legends for customs!
+Figure drought is over
+Articulation
+6” so technically fits in with McFarlane figures (maybe)
+Variety
-Paint job
-Looks cheaper lower quality (not actually, just looks)
-Overall not as accurate as McFarlane
-Restart collection from scratch
Oh and the worst thing for me is that the McFarlane line will end before we get matching Linda and Vale figures to complete Blue Team and Fireteam Osiris. Also no badass H5 Arbiter. IDK, I guess I kinda saw this all coming with the way McFarlane has focused less and less on Halo (including quality). I am glad that Halo figures are not being scrapped altogether and it’s a plus that Mattel is not new to the license. But those “toyish” figure styles tho…
and of course they made toddler toys out of them…
welp this is the end. So much that never got made. Really had my hopes up that the Universe line would continue again after they rereleased H2 Cheif last year.
sorry, but there is now no reason for me to ever check this site again. 🙁
It’s indeed unfortunate that McFarlane have given up on the Halo line but at-least a decent company has taken over.
The pros here are that they’re going to be well articulated, durable and all-round great toys but that’s also the key problem. . . . .they’re only toys.
McFarlane dealt in collectibles which were of higher quality, better detail and awesome paint jobs. These figures are toys and although the detail looks decent, there isn’t going to be the professional paintjob to pick out all the tiny details.
I am glad that the line is continuing though and will be picking up some figures to compare and see if it’s worth pursuing. On the whole I think people are disappointed that there’s going to a be a clear difference in the companies’ products when they’re next to each other but Mattel taking this licence means that they’re ready to dive into it and I’m personally eager to see what they have in store for future.
These don’t look that great. They look like cheap toys, and the accuracy is lacking. The Master Chief hasn’t been that bright of a green since Combat Evolved. And that Elite Zealot… is just plain fugly, man.
Half the quality and 1/3 more in cost. I won’t be diving into this line.
I’m actually glad this happened now.
Because McFarlane just completely screwed over Walking Dead fans by canceling the 5 inch line are replacing it with a 7 inch line. 9 series of figures, with plenty of unmade figures and groups to be completed, but McFarlane says screw it and just starts over in a new scale with less articulation and a higher price tag.
He probably would have just done the same thing with Halo. Todd: “What you want us to finish up the fireteams and make new characters in scale with your old ones? Too bad were canceling those. Here’s 7 inch Master Chief and 7 inch Locke. They are $20 each and have even less articulation. Now hand over your money.”
Lol. Actually they did. All the figures from Halo 3 were 5 inches I believe and then the Reach line was suddenly 6 inches and had less articulation. And ever since they stuck with that scale. But I don’t see them going 7 inches out of nowhere since their Halo license is older than their Walking Dead license and it has only drastically changed once a while ago. And tbh, I don’t know what McFarlane was thinking by prioritizing Walking Dead over Halo, but that’s just me.
I spoke with McFarlane Toys today at Toy Fair. If they ever did Halo figures again–which they are NOT right now–they would be in the new 7″ scale.
To be honest this is a big disappointment. They look like cheap and bad quality toys for kids… Comparing these to McFarlane is like comparing crap to piece of art. :/
I don’t mean the paint, you can always repaint it, but I mean the proportions, or rather lack thereof and disfigured armor parts.
Damn, these look so much worse and wtf, they will be even more expensive? I might get the Helioskrill just to see it… But more likely I’ll just get few of these like Linda too to make myself a McF custom Linda figure… v_v
Great news in my mind.
I don’t really see what’s so bad. I mean, yes, they’re a lot shinier then Mcfarlane’s, but they’re fitting the theme of Halo 5.
Yeah, maybe they’ll be a lot more toy-ish, but the details are still on point, and the more important part of it is: More, better articulation and more production, meaning we won’t see the Halo drought we’ve been recieving from Mcfarlane.
And to be honest, recently Mcfarlane has been lacking, and if I can recall, a lot of people were complaining about it. The over-sturdiness, the articulation issues, the lack of variety– It’s a smaller business then Mattel, and I’m personally glad that Mattel was given the license.
I, for one, could not be happier.
I’ve been collecting McFarlane’s Halo figures on and off for years (but always sticking around for ODSTs), and from Halo 3 to Reach to Halo 4, I’ve watched their figures’ poseability and plastic quality both slowly degrade while their paint apps stayed at a pretty high level of quality. People like to complain about Marvel Legends sometimes being “rubbery”? HOO BOY lemme tell you about the broken hands, crumbling wrists, and loose joints in at least HALF of my collection of McFarlane toys.
“But now they look like toys!” …because that’s what they are. I don’t know about most collectors, but I like to be able to pose my action figures instead of just posing them once and letting them sit on a shelf forever; I’m always rearranging and reposing my figures, and I NEVER let them stay in their packaging. (I feel it’s an insult to all the awesome engineering that goes into making a toy.) With McFarlane toys, I was always scared I was gonna break my figures just trying to pose them- I remember a particularly bad incident with the TRU-exclusive Fearless Leaders 3-pack. I was HYPED as HELL to get a new Buck, but when I tried to fit the assault rifle into his hands, his right hand snapped off at the wrist. I returned it, got a new one, tried VERY CAREFULLY to put the assault rifle into the hands, and the same damn thing happened. I’m an adult collector and I’m not forceful or rough with my figures, the joint was friggin’ tiny and the plastic quality was absolute garbage. It took me a third try to get a Buck figure that could hold his damn gun, and it took surgical precision to get him to hold the stupid thing without breaking something. To this day I’m terrified of reposing him for fear I might break him.
I have a lot of other little gripes about McFarlane’s Halo figures that made them no fun to collect- Most of the Reach figures came with weapons they could barely hold with no trigger fingers for the hands (the shotgun was a notoriously bad case), loose joints like crazy, weird, sometimes inconsistent paint jobs, uninspired wave selections (Halo 5, I’m looking at you) and a lot of figures I have trouble getting into a decent firing position. Honestly, I’ve been hoping for YEARS that McFarlane would stop holding the license for Halo figures because I really felt their work hasn’t been up to snuff.
Halo has absolutely outgrown McFarlane’s status as a niche producer of toys, and I’m very excited to see where this line goes. If Mattel can circumvent the problems that plagued McFarlane’s Halo line in its dying days (and let’s be honest, McFarlane’s Halo line died a slow, sickening death) then they’ll have a real blockbuster action figure line on their hands.
Oh man, can you imagine what they’ll put out to tie in to Halo Wars 2? I can’t WAIT to see them do Red Team.
I forgot to mention this in my other post on the McFarlane interview page, but I really wish they would’ve given the “collectible” license to NECA. Same great paint job with better articulation.
Mattel can have the toy line, but have NECA produce the Characters in great detail.
I’ll keep an eye on this line if they keep making vehicles for the 6″ figures. Maybe cherry pick a few weapons…
Why is this happening now! Right after Mcfarlane released a sweet bunch of halo 5 figures. What if Mattel’s new figs don’t match the size of mcfarlane’s Spartans and elites? What if Mattel’s Linda doesn’t fit in with Mcfarlane’s uncompleted fire team? These pics of Mattel’s new figs seem less proportionate, weirdly colored and less detailed than Mcfarlane’s. These new figs armor pieces look like cheap plastic that has been quickly sprayed with metallic paint. Mcfarlanes figs were works of art.
We don’t care about ARTICULATION!!!!! We care about authentically and accurately modeled and detailed Halo figures!!But these new Mattel figures seem more like cheap toys than Awesome halo collectibles! What the hell was Tod thinking! He could of at least made a few more Halo 5 figures so our collections can be more complete!!! Does he really think he’s gonna be more successful with inconsistently sized walking dead figure series’.
Tis a dark, Dark day!!!!!
‘God help us all…….
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I can’t say I’m happy about this; as someone with a lot of experience collecting Mattel figures over the past 15 years. Batman, He-Man 2001 figures, DC Superheroes, and more recently a few Max Steel reboot figures; across all of these lines product availability has been a royal problem. They even have it printed in fine print on the bottom of the figures cards, “subject to availability”. Meaning good luck trying to find all the figures in the line, because we’re not going to make it easy for you. So a store may get a case of Halo figures with 10 Master Chief figures and only one of every other character in the line. Those 1 per case figures then show up on Ebay costing 4X more then they should. No thanks Mattel I’ve been through this game enough times. Outside of maybe buying a vehicle or two, I’m done this line.
If they gave the Halo license to Hasbro, then there would be a chance to find every figure in the line and the figures would be pretty durable. Neca I fear they would break easily, like there Terminator figures, their joints need better plastic; $24.00 figures shouldn’t break right out of the box.
I still hope one day a third party company, like those that make, those amazing third party, Transfomers figures and add on kits, will start making Halo figures and vehicles. I saw a website were someone used a 3D printed to make an articulated ODST figure. It looked great; just as much detail as the Mcfarlane ODST figure, but a little larger.
…HASBRO’s the one with good distribution? Are you kidding me? Hasbro’s distribution sucks! They can hardly get product out to stores on time. Sometimes, whole waves will essentially never make it to some areas. Mattel’s may not be that good, but it can’t be as bad as Hasbro.
Also, when was the last time you bought a NECA figure? They’ve had pretty good quality control recently. Also, to my knowledge, none of their 7″ figures cost $24.00. The normal figures cost $19.00-20.00, while the Ultimate figures cost $22.00
That elite zealot had better be able to hold his energy sword, and I hope they eventually make Vale.Is it really so hard for a guy to get a freakin’ Vale? Otherwise, they look really good. I also hope that the interchangable armor isn’t too loose. I had that problem with the McFarlane Reach spartans.
I just want Linda to fit in with size-wise with Master Chief, Fred, and Kelly from Halo 5 McFarlane line….I don’t mind a bad paint job, I feel confident in my painting skills, dry brushing, shading, and texture…or if that fails, I’ll hire a better artist for a custom paint job. Anything to complete blue team. If Hasbro does that for me, and I’ll gladly join them in their new endeavor into the Halo world.