The series was created as a marketing effort by 343 Industries to widen the Halo audience beyond gamers, following the success of previous live-action shorts Landfall and The Life, and was viewed by Microsoft as a stepping stone toward a potential Halo feature film.

Aaron and Todd Helbing were hired to write the series after pitching a script set on the planet Harvest; although 343 Industries didn't use that story, it showed the strongest grasp of Halo lore, leading to their selection as writers for Forward Unto Dawn.

343 Industries kept a representative on set at all times during production to ensure the story didn't break established Halo canon.

The series was shot over 25 days in May 2012 around Vancouver, including locations at Simon Fraser University and stages in Burnaby, on a budget of just under US$10 million, making it Microsoft's largest live-action promotional investment.

The Warthog vehicle featured in the series is the same prop built by Weta Workshop that was previously used in the short film Landfall.

Actors playing the cadets underwent a boot camp before filming to build fitness for assault courses and rifle drills, with some cast members training so hard they vomited, which they considered a bonding experience.

Daniel Cudmore was cast as Master Chief largely because of his height and physique (203 cm), as director Stewart Hendler wanted a strong visual contrast with the deliberately cast 'short, scrawny' teenage cadet actors.

Alex Puccinelli voiced Master Chief instead of the games' longtime voice actor Steve Downes, a casting change that had to be approved by Microsoft.

Legacy Effects created Master Chief's suit by body-scanning Daniel Cudmore and overlaying a 3D model provided by Microsoft, then 3D-printing a prototype to make molds; the final suit was mostly rubber over a foam bodysuit with a fiberglass helmet.

For a forest scene too complex for photogrammetry, visual effects supervisor Terry Bradley scattered LEDs across the set and measured the distances between them to digitally model the area in SketchUp and Maya.

The series used just under 500 CGI shots, about a quarter to a third of what a typical blockbuster film would feature, covering the fully computer-generated Covenant, the academy's space elevator, and weapon muzzle flashes.

Each episode opens with an entirely computer-generated sequence of the AI Cortana malfunctioning aboard the spaceship Forward Unto Dawn, animated by the Polynoid team at production company Blacklist.