Halo Wars is actually based off a C&C Generals Mod

[illage2]

In short there was a Halo mod for C&C Generals which basically made the game into Halo Wars but was shut down by Microsoft and not long after Halo Wars was born. You can see how Halo Wars was based of C&C Generals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4htJV6cmb0

[Purple Sauce]

games take years to develop dude

[Khan]

this is the most stupid thing i have ever seen. And i saw some stupid stuff in my life.

Just because a mod replaces unit models with halo models, doesn't make it a "Halo Wars" mod.

Halo Wars has a completely different gameplay.

[Pure]

yeah this is one of the dumbest things ive ever read

[JolanXBL]

The mod was Cease & Desisted 1 month before Halo Wars trailer, 3 years into the mod's development. While Halo started as an idea for RTS, they went with FPS. It is believed that after seeing how much fans wanted a Halo RTS, that pushed the Halo Wars idea. True that games take years to develop, but Bungie's studio had many more professionals than Derelict Studio / Slipstream Productions, so it's not impossible that one was influenced over the other.