Rooster Teeth Productions has publicly released the first official trailer for season 9 of their machinima series “Red vs. Blue.” The trailer shows an entirely CGI cast while utilizing multiplayer levels from Halo: Reach and Halo: ODST as their primary sets.

It looks as though we’ll be seeing a prequel series that takes place before the events of the original series.  Much of the Red vs. Blue lore came about well after the series had started.  Early episodes of the series were full of game humor and slapstick, but later episodes began to  create a background setting for the series that exposed the original Red vs. Blue war into a complex battle simulation to train super soldiers with embedded AI created by a shadowy branch of the UNSC military.  This process of change came about slowly as the series progressed and the writers began to tie together elements created for their humor, but worked together within a dramatic framework.  There are not many shows that have had the freedom to evolve from a basic comedy into an expanded drama that deals with serious issues while maintaining some of the original humor.  Studios force many shows to keep up their original identity to keep the marketing relevant.  Rooster Teeth’s size and independence from traditional marketing concerns has allowed them to let the show evolve naturally in form and execution.

Rooster Teeth began using CGI doubles instead of the traditional game-generated avatars in season 8 when the script required the characters to do more than just bob their heads and shoot their guns.  It looks as though they’ve decided to switch over to an entirely CGI cast for season 9.  The studio recently created a parody tour of their facilities with Burnie Burns as the host with a small section featuring the motion capture studio they’ve recently set up to help with the CGI body doubling.  Rooster Teeth had hinted at their motion capture crew and studio in past production and it looks as though Rooster Teeth has invested a lot of money in motion capture technology.  Perhaps they’re slowly gearing up to create a CGI piece entirely outside of the Halo game engine?