NFL teams have been coming up with creative ways to announce their season schedules in recent years, from using memes to parodies to celebrities. For 2026, the Los Angeles Chargers have turned to Halo in order to tell everyone who they’ll be playing in the upcoming season.
The team posted a six-minute video, whose introduction notes that the Chargers got permission from Microsoft and that they didn’t use any actual gameplay footage. It’s modeled after a multiplayer setup screen, with each week’s opponent listed as if it was a multiplayer map. They appear to have even hired Halo multiplayer announcer Jeff Steitzer (or a fantastic soundalike) to do callouts for each week, such as “Beast Mode” for the Seahawks matchup in Week 4, complete with a faux Pike Place Market level. Plenty of NFL and pop-culture references are baked in as well, including a subtle nod to the scandal that Week 12 opponent New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel is currently mired in.
should we REALLY make our schedule release video in halo?
yes yes yesyes
yesyes yes yes yes
yes yes yes yes yes
yes yesyes yes yes
yes yesye yes yes
yes yes yesyes pic.twitter.com/eusK9QmNGd
— Los Angeles Chargers (@chargers) May 14, 2026
Halo, meanwhile, will be “on the field” this season, as Halo: Campaign Evolved, the Unreal Engine 5 remake of the original Halo: Combat Evolved’s campaign, is due for release sometime this year. We’ll likely get a release date for it at the upcoming Xbox Showcase. Check out our hands-on preview impressions in the meantime.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our semi-retired interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
