Is there any claim more audacious than that “the human race is something worth saving”? It’s how Kiki Wolfkill describes the ethos of the Halo video game, a sprawling sci-fi universe of heroism and sacrifice, aliens and supersoldiers. 

When Wolfkill joined Microsoft 20 years ago, there was no Xbox yet and not many women in the industry; she was a part-time race car driver when the company needed help with a driving game, and found her niche, rising to head of transmedia at Microsoft’s 343 Industries, which manages all things Halo. 

That means migrating the intergalactic shoot-’em-up to comic page, novella, and scripted series, and she’s an executive producer in a Steven Spielberg–helmed Halo TV show now in the hopper. “Game development is such an intriguing intersection of creativity and technology and collaboration and problem solving,” she says. “I think it’s a natural place actually for women to thrive.”