Halo: Nightfall's Agent Locke is playable in Halo 5, and other details from Comic-Con

Halo: Nightfall, the live-action series that will serve as a prologue to Halo 5: Guardians, will be set on a broken fragment of a halo ring and tell the origin story of Agent Jameson Locke, who will be portrayed by actor Mike Colter.

At a Halo: Nightfall panel at San Diego Comic-Con today, 343 Industries' Kiki Wolfkill and Frank O'Connor were joined by executive producer David Zucker and actors Mike Colter and Christina Chong to show first footage from the show and reveal more details about its setting.

"Setting it on a halo is a pretty big statement about the scale of this project," O'Connor said. "This is a partially functioning fragment of the halo ring and its nature and functionality play a role in the fiction." Given that it's set on a damaged halo artifact (with a functioning slipspace drive), O'Connor explained, "the way that gravity and atmosphere function, the fragment become kind of a character itself — kind of a malevolent character..."

Nightfall will be set in the "present" of the Halo universe, during a lull in the Covenant war, O'Connor said, and give viewers "a really interesting perspective on Locke," who's an agent in the Office of Naval Intelligence. He'll be playable in Halo 5.

Locke's co-star, played by Christina Chong (24, Star Wars VII), will play a member of the Colonial Guard, and serve as "a vector for the audience's curiosity about the ONI."

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"If you don't watch [Nightfall]," O'Connor said, "it won't affect your ability to enjoy and play Halo 5, but I think it will give a really compelling insight into Locke. Locke's a little bit more complicated than just an all-American boy, though. There's going to be some nuance to his character in both Nightall and Halo 5, but you will get to go on that journey with him in the game."

Colter, the panel revealed, will play Locke in both the live action series and Halo 5, his first video game role. Colter also let slip that a vehicle new to the Halo universe, dubbed the Condor, will make an appearance in the show. O'Connor later explained that a Condor is a "medium-size transport craft equipped with slipspace engines."

Wolfkill also revealed that developer 343 Industries is exploring some "interactive elements" for Halo: Nightfall, and plans to reveal more about those plans at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany next month.

Halo: Nightfall is coming this November as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection for Xbox One.