The Covenant were first introduced in the 2001 video game Halo: Combat Evolved as enemies hunting the player character, a human supersoldier known as Master Chief.

Not realizing the Halos were meant as weapons of destruction rather than salvation, the Covenant attempt to activate the rings on three separate occasions throughout the series, inadvertently releasing a virulent parasite known as the Flood in the process.

Soon after, the Covenant falls into civil war as the truth of the Halo rings' purpose is revealed: they are actually weapons of mass destruction built to stop the spread of the parasitic Flood.

In the post-war era, various factions replace the power vacuum left by the Covenant; these include the Banished, who feature as primary antagonists in Halo Infinite.

Writer Joseph Staten and other Bungie staff came up with the idea of a coalition of alien races, subsequently deciding that the faction would be motivated by religion.

[4]: 98  According to Eric Arroyo, the Covenant cruiser Truth and Reconciliation, which plays a major role in Halo: Combat Evolved, was to be boarded by the player by a long ramp.

[4]: 100 The art team also spent a large amount of time on Covenant weaponry, in order to make them suitably alien yet still recognizable to players.

Bungie's artists looked at live animals and films for inspiration; as a result, the species within the Covenant bear simian, reptilian, avian, and ursine characteristics.

[6]: 47  The more seasoned the Brute, the more ornate clothing and helmets; the armor was designed to convey a culture and tradition to the species, and emphasize their mass and power.

A new addition to the Jiralhanae artificial intelligence was a pack mentality; leader Brutes direct large-scale actions simultaneously, such as throwing grenades towards a player.

Their name refers to sacred agreements between the people of Israel and their God in Jewish and Christian tradition, and could be used to indicate the attitude of superiority complex the aliens have to the inferior and sacrilegious humans.

[15] The thematic parallels of religious zealots fighting an American military metaphor was not lost on Microsoft's content review team, who forced a name change of the holy warrior "Dervish" to Arbiter before the release of Halo 2.

[17][18][19] The Covenant were positively received in Combat Evolved, with their artificial intelligence praised and the different tactics needed to defeat each enemy type commended.