Dark Horse Comics will publish a monthly Halo comic series based on the storyline introduced in Halo 4. Franchise director Frank O'Connor will make the announcement tomorrow at a Comic-Con panel in San Diego, WIRED has confirmed.

Halo: Escalation will hit shelves on December 11. Chris Schlerf, lead writer on the Halo 4 videogame, will write the new series. The art for the first three issues will be handled by Omar Francia, known for his work on the comic adaptations of the Mass Effect and Star Wars: Legacy series. Dragon Age comic artist Anthony Palumbo will be illustrating Escalation's covers.

Dark Horse recently took over the rights to produce Halo comics from Marvel, announcing a mini-series called Halo: Initiation, which will be released on August 14. Although Marvel and Dark Horse have created several different Halo graphic novels and mini-series, Escalation will be the first ongoing series based on the videogame franchise.

Writer Schlerf calls Escalation a part of a bigger effort from Halo developer 343 Industries to develop and improve the story aspects of the series. "Halo in general has always had some great characters," Schlerf says, "more, I think, than it’s been given credit for."

This isn't the only attempt that Microsoft is making at expanding the Halo universe into other mediums, as it strives to make the Xbox brand more of a generalized entertainment product than a strictly videogame platform. At its reveal of the Xbox One in May, it announced a live-action television series to be produced by Steven Spielberg. Today, Halo: Forward Unto Dawn, another live action series produced last year, was nominated for an Emmy.

Halo: Escalation's plot will cover "how the events of Halo 4 have helped define the destiny not only of the Chief but of the galaxy as a whole," Schlerf told Wired in an email. The plot of Halo 4, which Microsoft released for Xbox 360 last year, focused primarily on the relationship between the Master Chief and Cortana characters. The comics will flesh out the wider context of the game's world, Schlerf said.

The first issue of the new series will begin, Schlerf says, in the midst of a violent assault from forces determined to stop diplomatic talks between the Arbiter and the Brutes, powerful enemies from Halo lore.

"The overall fiction of the Halo universe has defined people’s experiences with the game beyond just our storylines and our characters," he said. "Multi-player in particular has been shaped by the fantasy of being a Spartan and the more sci-fi elements of gameplay that go beyond just a typical military shooter."

"And when we do it right, that’s what elevates games beyond what other fictional mediums can do – it allows us to create stories where people are immersed as active participants as opposed to just a silent audience," he said.