Early life and education

Joseph Staten is the son of a minister who is a professor of theology and philosophy of religion. He entered Northwestern University in 1990 with the intention of becoming an actor. Realizing he was not material to be a leading man, he dropped the idea, but stayed with theater. At the University of Chicago Staten studied military history and political science, planning on getting his Masters degree and joining the Central Intelligence Agency. Having completed his masters, and being rejected by the CIA, Staten dropped the idea of entering the foreign service and helped his family at their winery in Sonoma Valley. Eventually, Staten met some of game developer Bungie's staff playing multiplayer games of Myth and joined the staff in 1998.

Bungie

Staten's former role at Bungie was director of cinematics and was responsible for the in-game movies for Bungie's Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and Halo 3. Work on the games at "crunch time" involved 80 hour weeks and stretches without sleep maxing out at 72 hours. Staten worked alongside three other staff writers at Bungie, each with their own separate role: Frank O'Connor developed Halo 3s combat dialogue, Rob McLees focused on Halo canon and working with licensing partners, Luke Smith interacted with the fans online, and Staten developed the cinematics and missions scripts. Staten said in an interview that he considered it challenging to write for the games, as "first person shooters [are] all about writing 'between the bullets'"...relating plot information to the play in between action sequences. "You need to be efficient and clever to give players the story...the context...they need. But you don't want to push too hard or they'll reject it." During his work on the games he read science fiction works by Iain Banks, Robert A. Heinlein, and Vernor Vinge. In addition to his writing contributions, Staten lends his voice to small aliens known as Grunts in all three video games.

Though previous Halo novels had been written by professional writers like Eric Nylund and William C. Dietz, publisher Tor Books chose Staten to write the fifth Halo novelization, entitled Contact Harvest. Tor's chief editor Eric Raab noted in the book's press release that "who better to tell the tale" of humanity's encounter with the antagonistic alien Covenant than Staten, who had "intimate knowledge" of the series' story. The novel is an ensemble piece, with the action being narrated from both human and alien viewpoints; the work of Staten's favorite science-fiction authors helped teach him the importance of honing a "strong, consistent voice". Staten found that writing compelling action involved slowing things down, paradoxically the opposite of the fast-paced gameplay of a Halo title. He considered the book the perfect way to elaborate on the Halo story without stripping it down for a video game,. and flesh out the character of Avery Johnson more than the games had allowed.

On release, Contact Harvest reached a top spot of #3 on the New York Times bestseller list, where it remained for four weeks. The novel also appeared on the USA Today bestseller's list at the same time. Reviewers noted that despite being an unproven writer, Staten had succeeded in crafting an excellent novel. The novel's success was considered to be evidence that games were breaking into the mainstream, and that the genre was becoming increasingly about the story.

Since Contact Harvests release Staten has played an important role in the development of offshoots to the Halo franchise. He has traveled to New Zealand several times to work with Peter Jackson and Weta Workshop. Staten assisted with the fiction of Ensemble Studios title Halo Wars, and the now-postponed Halo film. In interviews, Staten has explained that the game's protagonist, the Master Chief, would serve as a supporting character rather than who the film would focus on. He worked on story development for the Halo 3 expansion, ODST; Staten provided the voices for a number of characters as placeholder audio during the representational play testing of the game in December 2008. He is married and has two children. Staten's current project is an unannounced non-Halo game.