Jeff Easterling

A photo of Jeff Easterling taken for his 343 Industries community spotlight article.

DL Gator3737: "Can I has Reconz?"

Jeff Easterling: "No, but you can have retcons."

— Jeff interacting with the Halo community on Xbox Live.

Jeff Easterling, aka GrimBrother One or simply Grim, is a franchise and narrative writer at 343 Industries.

Starting in 1995, Easterling worked at the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa, Florida, where he wrote, produced, and performed theatrical science shows and content for the science center. By the time he left in 2014, he had become the program director, leading a team of thirty content writers, subject specialists, actors, and performers as they worked together to produce live shows, demonstrations, and classes for both the general public and the local school systems. Meanwhile, Easterling had also been working in the professional motorsports industry, even cofounding his own motorsport management company, which he helped lead up until 2014.

On top of this, Easterling had been very active in the Halo community, having been a member and moderator on halo.bungie.org and Halo Waypoint. His prominence on halo.bungie.org earned him a reference in the fan-comic A Fistful of Arrows as the ODST Jeffrey "Grim" Easterling.

After beginning his search for a job in the video game industry in 2011, the opportunity finally came and he was hired to join 343 Industries in June 2014. Easterling was primarily brought on to write and produce content for Halo Waypoint and the Halo Channel, both of which he would become the lead writer for. After working on Halo: The Master Chief Collection and continuing to support the Halo Channel, he transitioned into creating content for Halo Waypoint completely and then working on certain elements of Halo 5: Guardians. Around this time, Easterling introduced Canon Fodder, a blog focusing on in-universe lore that began as a subsection of the Halo Bulletin and later the Halo Community Update. Now, his Canon Fodder blogs are their own separate—and much longer—posts. Easterling would go on to co-author Halo Mythos: A Guide to the Story of Halo, released in 2016 and 2022's Halo Encyclopedia. As of 2021, Easterling continues to hold many writing duties across the Halo brand, creating fiction and ways for fans to engage with Halo's universe, as well as curating legacy knowledge and canon content. He also continues to be a prominent face in the community and a public representative for Halo.

Halo bibliography

Due to Easterling's position within 343 Industries, he has contributed to many various Halo projects in numerous capacities. This section lists those projects in which he directly has a writing credit;

• Halo Channel (2014)
• Canon Fodder (2014-2021)
• Halo Mythos: A Guide to the Story of Halo (2016)
• Youtube, An Inside Look at Halo: Warfleet – A Guide to the Spacecraft of Halo - a lore-focused stream focusing on the production of Warfleet.
• YouTube, Halo Lore Stream: The Halo Array - a lore-focused stream focusing on the Halo Array.
• Halo Encyclopedia (2022)

Trivia

• In the Halo: The Master Chief Collection port of Halo: Reach, Easterling's name was one of many added to the Fireteam mechanic, allowing allied UNSC personnel to spawn with his name and service tag "GRIM".
• In Halo Infinite, his surname is considered "an stupid name" by Glibnub.
• Between roughly 2008 and 2012, Easterling was a keyboardist in a band called Despite Distance, with several 2012-era live recordings available on his YouTube channel here. The band consisted of Jeff Easterling and his three brothers. The name of this band was later referenced in a 2020 Canon Fodder article of the same name.

Gallery

• 

  An NPC with Jeff Easterling's name in Halo: The Master Chief Collection's port of Halo: Reach.

• 

  Easterling engaged in a standoff with other 343 Industries employees during a livestream.

• 

  Easterling during another 343 Industries livestream.