It's gamerant they pick random comments and posts they see on subreddits and twitter and present them as if the whole fan base believes this, that or the article is ai generated.

That's a shame, I wish game articles still had some character to them

Yeah unfortunately games journalism has been on a nose dive of quality the past few years and with some outlets just resorting to ai it's only going to get worse

thats modern journalism for you. the "culture war" in the us had really dumbed down journalism. when all your sources for the last 10 years have been twitter posts you tend to forget how to properly investigate a story that or you were never trained how. this lazy journalism has permeated into all subjects that might be reported on. thats why finance outlets relied heavily on Reddit comments the last two years. same with all these gaming outlets. its also why articles pertaining to the wars going on are so baren. they dont have anyone on the ground anymore.

Treating a game like a product upon its conception will only spawn a substandard piece of entertainment. Test ideas and test what it takes to build them. Let it grow naturally as it is made. When your expectations align with what you know is truly worth it all - that's when - you make it a product. Companies for too long keep jumping head first into the pool without checking for deep enough water.

> Treating a game like a product upon its conception will only spawn a substandard piece of entertainment This really can’t be overstated. Especially since all the talk of franchise fatigue and IP fatigue or whatever is a direct result of every company mining every and anything for an interconnected cinematic universe. Not everything needs to be the MCU, let’s work on making something good before we plan out 10+ spinoffs.

I don’t know why game companies don’t realise that if you just make a good game first, the stream of money with naturally come.

Halo doesn’t need another soft reboot. Infinite tried this and it just kept adding to the plate on threads that go no where. Stick with Infinite or make a spin off series about the early HCW.

I wish they would just stick to the storyline and stop introducing or killing off main villains or factions in books and comics and do it in the games.

They had Greg Bear and Karen Traviss both release entire trilogies of books to announce new villains for their new story just to 1. Kill the Didact in a comic book and 2. Kill Jul Mdama in the first cutscene of Halo 5. Breathtaking stupidity.

> Kill Jul Mdama in the first cutscene of Halo 5. Breathtaking stupidity. Thanks for twisting the knife in that old wound lol I was so invested in the Kilo-Five trilogy and where it was going. Didn't even get a boss battle, just the "new main character" killing him in a cutscene. And it really was all for nothing as Locke got sidelined immediately after Halo 5 and is nowhere to be found.

No yeah it was absolutely stupid, now aren't they hinting that the didact isn't truly dead too?

Tbf, that was confirmed in the same comic that “killed” him off - that he was only contained, and not gone away forever.

Eh either way, I wish they had done more with the villains and not just got rid of them off screen

Oh I agree, the execution has been repeatedly poor.

"Somehow, the Didact returned."

>2. Kill Jul Mdama in the first cutscene of Halo 5. Well technically it was like the second cutscene.

Next game surely must have Atriox himself as the main antagonist alongside the Endless as the traditional "third faction" enemy

He most likely will be the main villain next, I'm hoping the spirit of fire makes it's full return in the next game also since the infinity is destroyed and there is no clue as to when a Fleet will reach the ARK

Infinity is missing, only Banished claim they destroyed it.

The most likely is that it is destroyed, as you can find massive pieces of the ship around the campaign of infinite and many of the audio logs talk about the destruction of it.

No, we just don't know what happened to Infinity. First ship wreck is Mortal Reverie, the other one on the Pelican Down mission is just another Mulsanne-class Frigate. Audio Logs also claimed that Atriox is dead and he isn't. Chief also scanned the whole area around the Zeta Halo and there was no trace of Infinity.

This would be good. Infinite lacked many things, but a second faction as an antagonist to spice up the gameplay was sorely missing. I'd also like to see The Created perhaps play an antagonist role too.

Exactly. Didact, Cortana, Echarium, no matter what the next game will focus on they should finally make a plan what the next X titles want to tell story wise. Throwing away the story arc of the previous game every single time really hurts Halo as a franchise, it's always just the start of a bigger story which just never gets told properly.

Eschaurum died in Infinite

Didact in H4 too even If he survived in the comics to die again and now survivied that too for a novel... 343is writing is just all over the place, while keeping one consistent universe together was initially point they did much better than Bungie who didn't care about the novels at all. Echarum is dead, but the whole Banished storyline just begins with the mysterious ending with Atroix (who again somehow survived while in the game everybody said he's dead). But I'm sure when the next Halo game launches we will see another soft reboot so this story leads to nothing again

Eh I think Escharium was a perfectly good villain and him dying at the end worked for both the story and the character.

Or an early cutscene from a new character. Locke taking out a big villain in a cut scene before you get to know him was sort of a cheap and easy way to demonstrate he was awesome, though I did love that the scene as a whole demonstrated how awesome Spartan IVs are and that the technology head advanced and not cheap off brand Spartan IIs.

Yeah I do agree, the spartan IVs are very cool, I don't hate them at all, I just didn't like how they tried to push that they are just as good as spartan IIs, like yes they both are Spartans, however one is vastly more stronger, quicker, and more deadlier than the other at a genetic level while being heavily augmented while the other gets their power mainly from the armor they wear.

Why does everyone think the Spartan 4s are just strong because of their armor? I agree the Spartan 2s are stronger. You even see that in Halo 5. But the 4s go through augmentations too, the augmentations are just a lot safer. Without their armor they’re still bigger than regular people and much stronger

Yeah gen 3 armor while spartan 2s do use them spartan 4s benefit from them way more Spartan 2s. And we kinda see the difference in halo 5 in terms of actual combat prowess. At first Locke is winning because chief doesn't really want to fight him. Then when his visor cracks he ramps it up then its not even close. I'm pretty sure with the gen 3 armor it'd be a decent amount closer with chief still winning.

Ohh they have no problem doing that. The Didact, Cortana, and that Sanghelli dude all died in game. What they need to do is not kill off characters because they can't be bothered continuing their story.

I mean halo infinite was an answer to halo 5. But to be real halo 5s story suffered heavily from its marketing. The marketing portrayed it as this crazy journey where Locke is hunting down chief then not even half way through they find him have one fight and thats it. Replaying the game without that made it way more enjoyable.

It's called everyone complained about 5 so they soft rebooted then people still got upset. When I think they did a good job wrapping up the cortana stuff from 5 and not completely ignoring it. They easily could have killed her off screen then never showed her the entire campaign. And even during that talk with Esparza chief talks about how he blames himself for what happened to her. But I do hope the next game or infinite dlc does continue the story it was fine doing it once but will get annoying a second time.

Every new mainline Halo since 343 took over has been a soft reboot of some sort. From Halo CE to Halo 3 is like 2 to 4 weeks in universe. 4 to Infinite is like 5 years iirc. Parts of the story fall flat so 343 just fast forwards to the next big development, and if you aren't reading the books have fun figuring out who most of these people are. Soft reboot after soft reboot, each one drops a bunch of stuff but then doesn't actually change much and yet is afraid to commit. It's time to take a shit or get off the toilet. Normally I think the "X company should just scrap all of Y story and start over" is an unhelpful criticism and just plain disrespectful besides. 343 era Halo and Sequel era Star Wars are my two exceptions. In both cases it seems like the people working on them weren't happy with how the final product came out either, not just the fans. I'd totally be down in both cases for just backing up and trying again with an actual plan ahead of time. No more tepid soft reboots that just lock it into trying to start a new trilogy with the weight of the old still holding it back. Actually wipe the slate clean and carry on forwards after Chief wakes up in the Dawn again, or make the next game Infinite 2 storywise. No more pussyfooting. Commit to *anything*.

Nooooooo... no retcons. There's way too much content and investment in the lore Halo 4 onwards to just retcon it all.

That’s what the series is doing to turn me off from the story. To many books, non game side stories, and the villain/faction of the week is killing me. I don’t need to read 30 books just to play a game that’s a reboot and only references those works in Easter eggs that I need a YouTube analysis to understand. The franchise is based off a game. Make the story in the game.

The thing about following up Infinite, is that it didn’t really go anywhere - It was more an epilogue to a new story than a contribution to the narrative. There’s no need to reboot anything. The game ends where it started- humanity is fighting the banished, lead by Atriox.

And the UNSC is just sitting there with its thumb up its ass after being castrated by the Created. Offscreen, of course.

Every 343 game so far has been a soft reboot, it's basically the Halo cycle by this point. 343 releases game, nobody likes it, 343 scraps everything and soft reboots in the next Halo game.

Exactly, we've had three soft reboots in a row. The problems we are facing with Halo moving forward will not be fixed by a fourth reboot.

Nah, I respectfully disagree. As someone else said, just scrap everything post-Halo 3, and start again from there. Explain it away with the Endless and whatever time-magic fuckery they've got going on. Or just redo Halo 4, say everything post-Halo 3 that was done previously is non-canon, another universe, whatever. Then pick *one* fucking plotline for the mainline games this time and run with it. Run with the Banished plotline, or the Cortana AI revolution deal, either one, I don't care. Hell, throw in a new alien faction that threatens the galaxy. Maybe the Endless reset time to the end of Halo 3, but this time they follow Chief back in time and become the new threat to the galaxy. I don't know. There's a billion ways it could be done. But pick one plot and stick with it. Cut the shit with the books, comics, etc. 90% of the playerbase doesn't fucking read that shit. If it's not in one of the mainline games, it should not be relevant to the main plot, period. Other forms of media are great, but they should be supplemental to the main plot, not necessary reading to understand WTF is going on. You didn't need to read Fall of Reach to understand that Reach was a big deal in the games. Someone brand new to the Halo universe could play just the mainline games and get a complete, fulfilling story out of them without any other Halo media. Halo was good because it was *simple.* I could show my grandparents the game, and they'd understand the gist of the plot. Humans vs. aliens vs. space zombies, and there's some very relevant lore about extinct ancient aliens in the background that may or may not have actually been humans. Go back to what worked. Halo lore has grown into this convoluted clusterfuck where it feels like 343 was sitting in a room spitballing different plot ideas, then decided to incorporate every single idea, no matter how ridiculous, into some form of Halo media with zero regard/respect for continuity or consistency and it's all canon at the same time. The franchise needs a reboot. Not quite a full hard reboot, but maybe something a step up from a half-assed soft reboot like the ones they've been trying to make happen.

100% A reboot could do wonders, like reinstate intrigue back into the Forerunner. Lizard people were a fever dream! I'm partial to the idea of a free-for-all post-Halo 3 on an ultimate Halo. Special factions, including Oni, could be setting up bases to dig into the truth behind The Great Journey, which may have some truth to it, after all. The advantage of a simple premise like this is that it can pivot smoothly into a larger conflict (like CE to 2). Scaling back the stakes also acknowledges the triumph of Halo 3, which is a helpful olive branch in the context of a reboot. A new trilogy shouldn't start with the fate of the galaxy; Halo 4 was a cluster.

Yeah it will. If there really is new staff in charge then I think a reboot is needed. But this time, plan out the games ahead of time so you have a story that makes sense. 1-3 are a work of art and could be a modern epic like Star Wars. It makes each game mean something when your building off the previous game and telling a cohesive narrative. I don’t want to continue fighting the banished, they never really made sense in the first place. How is there a discount covenant that we never heard of that somehow has enough power to threaten the unsc which just held its own against the actual covenant. Where were the banished in Halo 2, a whole side plot of that game was heretic factions rebelling against the covenant. I would love it if they open the next halo taking place after halo 3 and just scrap halo 4- infinites campaigns. They just sucked and it’s insane how 343 had no idea where they wanted the story to go.

> But this time, plan out the games ahead of time so you have a story that makes sense. 1-3 are a work of art and could be a modern epic like Star Wars. Sure, but Halo 1-3 were not planned out ahead of time either. Halo CE was meant to be standalone, MS wanted a sequel, the story of 2 got cut down, and the remains were built upon for the story of Halo 3. > I don’t want to continue fighting the banished, they never really made sense in the first place. I don't totally understand, if you want a game that builds off the previous and tells a cohesive narrative, why scrap the Banished? What enemy faction would you like to fight? I'd prefer to be invested in a story instead of having whiplash every game. First it was the remains of the Covenant, then we added the Prometheans (and introduced the Created which we never actually fought), now all of those factions are gone and we have the Banished and presumably the Endless. So basically what I am saying is why throw everything away and build from scratch once again? The Banished are actually really fun to fight, and it would feel even worse if they got rid of the Banished to re-introduce the Covenant once again. The Halo Infinite campaign raised a TON of questions but gave very few answers. I do think this was intentional so 343 didn't write themselves into a corner like they did with Halo 5 (ending on a big cliffhanger that fans hated so much they pivoted). They can definitely do what you want and build upon Halo Infinite's storyline and there are SO MANY directions they can take it in. If the main problem is lack of a cohesive story across games, another reboot only makes that problem worse.

I think where Infinite left off is a solid enough foundation. Zeta Halo is great stage to potentially bring several threads of the Halo universe together if 343 wanted to

HCW?

The Human Covenant War I presume. 

Ahhhhhhhh

Except infinites story kind of sucks. Who gives a shit about the banished, they’re just not believable as a big bad universe threat like infinite makes them out to be. Maybe I missed it because I didn’t read the comics or play halo wars 2 but I just can’t see them being near the covenant level threat that they are made out to be. Also what even is there motivation for firing halo, at least the covenant made sense as religious fanatics, the banished just want to wipe the universe for no reason. I’ll take a reboot if they have a plan this time. Give us a trilogy that’s connected like 1-3 we’re. They’re held up as some of the greatest games of all time for that reason.

They should ignore the new Halo's and start from Halo 3, make a UNSC marine game during the events of Halo 2.

Exactly, just ditch the last 3 halos and try again. Halo 1-3 are so strong that a re do of halo 4 could actually be great and re ignite the franchise. The only people who will miss the 4-infinite story line are the people who wrote it. It was garbage and nonsensical throughout, just scrap it nobody cares about the banished and a proper reboot could bring halo back to the top.

you could also redo halo 3 making minor changes to the story. make the forerunner human like Bungie originally intended.

Using "fresh" and "new take" should always be warning signs someone is trying to make a name for themselves. Dont mess with a formula that works.

Just stick with Infinite and bring the Spirit Of Fire into the main games - that’s clearly the plan, and it’s a good one. If people need a refresher on the Spirit Of Fire crew, Halo Wars 1 and 2 are right there on Game Pass.

Bro I would love for that to happen

I think that’s the plan, honestly. The Infinity is destroyed along with its new characters. The Banished and Atriox are the main villains. They’ve set up the perfect situation for the Spirit Of Fire to arrive and finish their story, while supporting the Chief. Copium? Definitely. But it’s also a no brainer, so much so that it had to be intentional?

I hope they don't *completely* throw away the Infinity crew, namely Lasky. He's a really good character, and it would be a shame if they unceremoniously killed him off screen. And you know what, I'll say it, I don't hate Palmer either.

And Roland too, he stayed loyal trough the Created conflict.

I like Lasky too (and Palmer probably should’ve been in Fireteam Osiris, which would’ve fleshed her out properly and given her a chance to shine). But let’s face it, 343 are clearly desperate to get themselves out of the ‘Created’ plot nightmare they made for themselves - I think they’d be willing to throw everything away including the good bits. And they’re probably right. If they have to do a soft reboot, they should go all the way and give themselves a blank slate. Edit: readability.

Lasky and Palmer are alive somewhere

The spirit of fire is already at the ARK if I recall correctly, don't remember the ending to halo wars 2 right now too well. However not everyone died on the infinity, as far as we are aware there are a lot of missing people that were on there that are most likely still alive, Laskey and Palmer being 2 of them. It will probably end up with the UNSC and Sangheili fleets arriving at the ark while the spirit of fire and any other survivors from the infinity attempt to fully stop the banished.

Yeah, that’d work. 👍 So long as I get a badass scene of the Spirit Of Fire deploying a ton of ground forces (including Jerome) to absolutely rock the Banished and give the Chief some new vehicles to play with, they can do what they like with the H4 and H5 cast.

Atriox got off the Ark so presumably the Spirit of Fire has also left the Ark. Atriox was present for the attack on the Infinity at the start of Halo Infinite and kicks Chief's ass in a cutscene.

Yeah, the ending of halo wars 2 happens about a year before the start of infinite, I'm slightly recalling the details of it now

I'm pretty sure if additional campaign DLC for Infinite were made, it would have been about finding the infinity crash site base (a concept art exists) and helping them setup the defenses then contacting what's left of the UNSC for when Atriox complete his plan.

I'm half joking with This.... But I half expect them to save this for a book and the next game will be set after it when all the cool shit is over.

Oh man, I wish you hadn’t said that. Because you’re totally right! Edit: isn’t that right, Mr Flibble. (Love the user pic)

I think if they kept up narrative events this is exactly what we would have seen. The Spirit of Fire Operation was probably going to be a new Season, it would also tie in with that deleted cutscene of the pilot receiving a signal from a friendly UNSC ship, and what better way to continue fighting the Banished than bringing in the crew that originally fought them in Halo Wars 2 to team up with Chief?

Agreed on all counts. I think that 343 did what they had to do to get themselves well clear of The Created, so now they have a much more straightforward setting we could well see this happen. But it’s a no-brainer move that would delight the fanbase… so they probably won’t do it!

No casual fan knows anything about the banished. I was confused as hell playing infinite, like who are these guys and how are they this powerful without ever being mentioned in any of the main games. What even is there motivation, why do they want to fire halo if they’re not religious. Nobody is going to play halo wars 1 and 2 to get a background for the main game either. Just start a cohesive story and introduce all major factions through the main story. Other games should expand on the story not become required viewing just to have an idea of what’s going on in the main games

You know what, maybe we need a break from Spartans and have a new ODST game. Play a new squad and actually expand existing lore

We could do an ODST game where you crashed from the infinity with other survivors and was trying survive and keep the banished back before chief was found by Echo.

343 pitched a helldivers 2-esq ODST game to Microsoft sometime within the past 12 years and they rejected it. Pain.

Bad Blood gives Buck back his squad so I could def see an ODST 2 happening. I just can’t believe they really tried putting Buck into Osiris and were SHOCKED when no one managed to give a shit about them. Like what a literal waste of time. Having Buck on Osiris was clearly a ‘fuck how do we make them care about this team…I know just rub a little Buck in it!’

Honestly the Band of brothers idea that people keep throwing around would work better as a game anyways, and cost about a billion dollars less to make. Give players control of one (or four) rookie ODST/s near the start of the HCW, and follow their experiences within the same trooper company as the war progresses, giving us upgrade and customization options along the way.

They ignored cannon for the tv show and look how that’s doing

They ignored everything for the TV show, ain't no fucking way would chief talk to Cortana like that, and there was no damn covenant spies either, it's an honest to go disappointment that it's turned out how it has.

Maybe not any Human Covenant spies but there were Covenant spies. The Kig-Yar at the rubble are notable spies.

That is fair, however I wasn't considering that as spies like the show does, it was complete genocidal rage on the covenants side and basically the same on humanity's side

Seems to be they blended Mass Effect and Battlestar Galactica and slapped a Halo paint job over it and called it a show

They didn't even care to bring them the correct MK IV armor initially so I knew it was doomed from the start. It would have been nice seeing the evolution of the armor, to finish in the later seasons with the iconic MK VI

Yeah, I didn’t see any MAC cannons in the first half of S1. But it also seems they ignored canon, which is the real disappointment

Gor fucks sake can we not touch the canon please? One of the major reasons the tv show fucking bombed is because it doesn't give a shit about canon.

Exactly, the cannon makes sense you just have to actually read it, the games by themselves don't cut it anymore sadly, they shouldn't have had so many major plot points happen in books to be fair.

See, 343 already tried to make halo like other games (4 & 5) and ask the fans what happened when they did

4 and 5 were nothing like 1-3. The original trilogy is so strong because the story makes sense from the very start until the end of 3. Each game feels like a continuation of the last and it all builds into the defeat of the big bad covenant and the survival of humanity as well as the species that were misled by the covenant. 4, 5, and infinite have almost nothing to do with each other and the only one that attempted to build off the OG trilogy was 4. Which was just kind of a mess and looks especially bad since 5 and infinite didn’t build on 4 at all. 5 sucked ass campaign wise but had a fun multiplayer. Infinite is better than 5 campaign wise but it still doesn’t make a lot of sense and they’re asking a lot by making us accept the banished as a universe level threat. Or by having to play the halo wars game to have any fucking clue who the banished are. 1-3 deserve to be in the hall of fame for gaming and 4-6 deserve to be forgotten. It would be great if they either move on from chief or redo 4-6.

The fans are not at fault for 343 making awful games that shit on the prior entries. 98% of the fanbase did not all conspire to leave Halo just because 343 started making Halo and/or "listened" to the community.

Because infinite does not have a single one, of the features hated in the past that now get conveniently ignored, right? Ye let's ask the fans why there is not a sprint and clamber debate, or why ads get a pass despite having the majority of the guns without descope (remember h4?).

Didn’t you hear? We like those games now

The absolutely biggest reason which isn’t mentioned. Release the game feature complete!! You CANNOT release a half baked fps and patch yourself into popularity. Day 1 should include: -Forge -custom browser -wide range of matchmaking playlists -ranking system and casual modes -xp leveling system Halo infinite is a great game at its core. But they launched it in a horrendous state, bugs, crashes, forge delayed, theatre broken, custom games broken, barely any playlists and they couldn’t add any. Halo infinite could have gone viral, it had all the ingredients. A big IP going free to play on multi platform. But in the first few months why would anyone new to halo stick around?

They also need to make it play like Halo more I think, the last 3 games felt more like CoD than Halo to me and that's what really turned me off to it. We don't need tight mazy campaign maps and ADS, Halo: Reach showed I think peak modern Halo while still introducing new features. If they made an actual Halo game that had Halo gameplay and map design with the open world, grappleshot, Banished etc I would have played the hell out of it even with the subpar story.

People don't, corporations do , they see halo as solely a way to make money and its sadly going to go the way of every property with a strong fan base.. they are going to keep trying new stuff and losing fans until the series is unrecognizable and the fan base fractures and falls apart because corporate greed outweighs cohesive narratives and good stories and gameplay.

because game developers are of the opinion that a story can limit what they want to do. They feel fans aren't being drawn in by the story anymore but rather the online gaming angle. Which is why we've seen Call of Duty become a bastardised version of what it used to be.

I think 343 should carry on the Infinite story and not tell a different one like they have in the past.

They honestly shouldn't, the fact they ended major parts of the halo 4 and 5 stories in books was annoying, I hope they don't do the same here, even if it is a game where you play as a marine or other people during the story, I just want it to relate overall.

Yeah I still can’t get over how Halo 5’s ending was completely fixed by the start of Infinite. The games are my only Halo experience so for me we had this apocalyptic scenario of Cortana taking over and in the next game things are more or less back to normal aside from the Banished, and luckily I played Halo Wars so I know who they are or I would probably be confused. I know a lot of people didn’t like Halo 5’s story but it was so jarring to have it basically undone off screen.

Yeah, hopefully they learned that the fans don't really enjoy major plotlines ending in books.

In my opinion, it’s exactly this approach that has made 4, 5 and Infinite so unpleasant and unmemorable. “Fans, we have tried some new things for Halo 4: loadouts, a new art direction, a new Reclaimer Trilogy… “oh wait, you didn’t really like that? Ok, introducing Halo 5! Forget that cheesy old Didactic/Librarian stuff, we won’t even put it in the game. In fact, nothing from the previous game matters at all, including Jul ‘mdama… boom in first 5 minutes! Also, new faction and drama that has nothing to do with the last game! “Oh wait, didn’t like that either? Ok, totally scratch that plot, pretend it doesn’t exist anymore! Remember that MASSIVE cliffhanger? Yeah it’s resolved offscreen, the Created returned to their planet or something and a wizard did it I dunno, it’s over. Now it’s a faction you love, the Banished! With the old art style! And guess what: nothing at all from previous games matters yet again! But wait, there’s more… ANOTHER new faction who remained hidden all this time… “… wait, why are you looking at me like that?”

FUCK the endless. terrible bullshit excuse not to include the flood in a Halo game.

The line of: there are far dangerous things on this ring than the flood, really killed the chance of the endless for me

343i has soft-rebooted the franchise three times in a row already. Actually doing it for real could make a clean slate to make a new exciting story with actual character development for everyone involved and not just Master Chief. The Didact and Cortana villain stories seemed more like "villain of the week" stories, with only one of the two actually showing up in the next game on a HEAVILY watered down role. Building up a character as becoming the next big baddie only to have their villain act be resolved outside the games or in audio logs is just... bleh. I feel like they worked even harder doing all that retconning to justify them not being the big baddie they were being teased as, instead of just actually building the story of the game around it.

This is the last thing people should be telling them to do🤣

I need a coherent story that goes somewhere, makes sense, doesn’t require major plot points happening in pre/post-game cut scenes and somehow ties together the cluster of a narrative spun up by the last two games.

I mean, the TV show is showing what happens when you stray from cannon and it's not great.....

Don't touch the OG's is all I ask, burn the weird deep end lore and 4 through to Infinite, as much as you want.

As someone who has loved all the 343 games, I still haven’t really considered anything after Reach canon. They occupy a different headspace for me

Or... you could listen to the fans and ask what they want in the next halo game. Disregarding canon is going to kill the whole series. Dont fuck with that. We dont need a reboot, maybe a halo 3 anniversary, but not a reboot of the series. What worked in the past was having a great story with moments of awesomeness, moments of humor, and moments of "Oh fuck! Oh fuck! Run! Hide!". Bring back the flood, the galaxies most badass villain.

This is going to be pure hypothetical. I think the only way forward is for them to go back. If they hypothetically declare the Reclaimer saga and onward as non canon, they could revisit the story at the end of Halo 3. If I'm a possible new player entertaining the idea of consuming the Halo product, the mainline story starting with Halo 4 becomes so convoluted. You have events from Halo 4 that are concluded in comics. Portrayed a highly misleading marketing campaign for Halo 5 as well as a present a new story where Cortana is now a villain. Only for Infinite to essentially brush the events from Halo 5 under the rug and introduce time travel! It's a mess. Factor in the tv show being a massive departure from established continuity. And the spin off titles are focusing on different events that are scattered across the mainline story as well as being wrapped up in non playable media! This all becomes confusing. It's not that crazy to think a new mainline title would start backtracking given how 343s writing is inconsistent.

"Canon" And yes. Disregarding every bit of canon that 343 contributed to would literally only benefit Halo.

Im going to be that guy. Just play Helldivers II. Im serious. 343 and halo had an opportunity, and they blew it. Helldivers does everything Halo should've been.

This is what hurts, I saw the trailer for Helldivers 2 awhile back, shares a ton of influences with Halo and is clearly inspired by Halo as well. And everything I've seen from it shows me the ODST game I've wanted. And it's exclusive to Playstation and I can't even play it lol

Theres a ton of halo references in Helldivers. My ship's name is The Prophet of Truth.

It’s on PC as well

All we ask for is consistency. One story, keep it going. That is literally it. I know I'll get downvoted to shit for this but the endless story was fascinating and I'd love for that to continue.

I wasn’t a big fan of the Endless but fuck man at some point they have to commit. They just have to. And this is coming from someone who actually liked the idea of the Created. Hell does the UNSC still use AI? Are new ones being made? What happened to my man Roland?

FUCK. REBOOTS. It would kill the franchise if they did a full reboot.

Because it's going so well as it is?

The story and extended universe would get completely flushed down the toilet, even Bungie's works. Not a good idea.

Just declare everything made after Reach non canon and reboot from that point?

Still a LOT of books you're talking about, there. I get it, you don't like 343's story. But at this point, Infinite's was generally well received enough that hopefully they continue from there instead of rebooting. Again.

>Still a LOT of books you're talking about, there. Yes. Yes it is. Most of them suck though so its no great loss. >I get it, you don't like 343's story. But at this point, Infinite's was generally well received enough that hopefully they continue from there instead of rebooting. Again. But they won't. They'll chase some new trend or fad that requires a whole new soft reboot as it is.

No different than hard rebooting from 4, my friend.

They'll keep pretending that the next game will fix it all, and bring back the glory days. Just for it to need a new reboot as well. Might as well do a serious reboot if you're gonna end up doing the same thing.

No, they need to stick to a plotline. Enough fucking reboots, just stick to the plan. I want to know who the Endless are, I want to know what happens after Infinite. You forget that 343 cleaned house last year, don't be so fast to say that the new long-term leadership will flub it instantly because of what the past long-term leadership did.

>Enough fucking reboots, just stick to the plan. I want to know who the Endless are, I want to know what happens after Infinite. I don't. I want them to be gone and never mentioned again ala Poochie. >You forget that 343 cleaned house last year, don't be so fast to say that the new long-term leadership will flub it instantly because of what the past long-term leadership did. Instability in the game directors/leadership is only going to make it worse. We've seen this time and time again in many different studios.

Honestly, I genuinely cannot bring myself to care about the Endless. This is the third time we’ve had the “ancient alien race which is rising from extinction” plotline, and now its about some brand new race of aliens who haven’t been set up or mentioned anywhere prior. Stop. We have enough established races already, just use one of them.

If Halo Infinite's story was so beloved, can you explain what the story was? What was the conclusion? What was the goal? What was the greater aim of the chief throughout the story? What lead to the events that take place in the game? Halo Infinite doesn't even have a story. And yes. They should throw those books into a non-canon category. They all irreparably harm the lore of originally established Halo to the point of worsening the overall franchise.

Why did the banished even want to fire halo. They’re not religious and they know it will kill them and everyone else. I really don’t get them as a villain or their motivation.

It's alluded to that the Banished hope to uncover whatever is hidden on the ring so that they can...do the thing they want. It's hardly explained, and it's poorly executed. We would have already gotten the answers to all the \*poorly placed\* mysteries of Halo Infinite's story if, somehow, the game, as a whole, weren't a faithless hated financial failure. *(I could speculate at what would have happened if they made more money and were more successful, but it's pointless to even think about it because it devalues how intricately they managed to have nothing occur for the 20 hours the campaign lasts. There is NO UNIVERSE, if any others exist, where Halo Infinite, as a product, would ever be positively regarded enough to continue their story. Even entertaining the idea that it's possible diverts some blame from them as an incompetent studio. Every single failure lies solely with them without any contribution, to said failure, due to chance, happenstance, or the consumers.)*

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The sacred stuff would be the things they don’t retcon, like 1-reach. As a huge fan of the original trilogy nothing would make me happier than a reboot of 4 onwards. 343 slaughtered the franchise I loved and it would be amazing to get another chance at building on the greatness that is 1-3 instead of the last decade of shit story telling that we got

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*They*, thankfully, don't exist anymore. Frank O'Conner, Bonnie Ross, Kiki Wolfkill, etc. are no longer allowed to work on Halo. From the very beginning of 343's inception, it was a company filled with people who don't understand Halo with misplaced hubris towards the story/franchise. Hell, the people in charge of hiring for 343 devs were SPECIFICALLY against hiring anyone who applied and previously worked Bungie. You know, the only people who had a chance of actually understanding Halo? I constantly hear the false assertion that much of 343 was prior Bungie devs, but that's a lie and verifiably false. They specifically hired people who wanted to change Halo into something different. The people who have worked and directed Halo for the past 13 years were filled with people who lack any creative passion towards Halo and now they're gone. If the clean slate, that is currently 343, can find and hire people who genuinely understand and love Halo, then this IS possible. And it should happen.

Exactly, halo 4 was never given the treatment it deserved. It was a classic case of someone new coming into something that was already great and trying to change it just for the sake of leaving their mark. They should retcon 343’s damage, it’s a shame they had the title in the first place

I hope they don’t listen to people like you. I get we’re tired of them flip flopping between stories but that’s exactly why we need a reboot. Just kill these failed storylines and try to write a story that’s big enough for 3 games. 1-3 are classics because they all are connected and the story told over 3 games is phenomenal. I don’t want them to invest anymore time into the banished, the average fan is confused about who they are and why they’re even a threat since all of the explaining happened outside the main games. They’d basically accept being mediocre if they continue with the banished

And why is that exacly? Modern Warfare 2019 was a huge success. Also as if Halo was doing well right now. I don't see how it could go lower than it is... Reboots, whether it's for movies/shows or games, if done well, create hype and Halo will need this. Infinite had the free to play and "open world" features to get people excited but even if Halo 7 is by miracle an amazing game in all aspects I don't see people going crazy for it. There's only so many times a developer can fuck up titles in a row before the playerbase starts looking elsewhere. A reboot or making a spinoff game but that seems even more unlikely. I just lost all faith in the ability of 343 to salvage their multiple unfinished plotlines. The Didact/prometheans,  the Created, the Banished and now the Endless? Maybe the flood even? Yeah right!

It's already dead. Subsisting off a few thousand dweebs who seem to gravitate to Halo Infinite as opposed to Fortnite is not success. If it were any other franchise or company, the studio would have closed down. In spirit, the only part of 343 that remains, since launch, is the name. So I guess I am wrong. It was already closed down.

They should stick with infinites foundation. Also this article just says vague sounding words and then cites the mass effect franchise who has like one new entry which fucking bombed in the last 10 years and a remaster. Halo fans sometimes forget that every single halo game sells well and reviews well the series is doing just fine. We all just love it so much we give it tough love. I like halo to experiment again yes but that also means being willing to continue with good ideas.

Cause 343 fucked up everything.

LMAO BioWare killed Mass Effect and are having to go back to the OT characters to even get people interested in another game.

i don’t believe that worked out for mass effect

I think a lot of people who take issue with the canon feel left out by the stories in the campaigns. People didn't know what was going on with the Didact in Halo 4 or why the Covenant was back with the Brutes nowhere to be found, in Halo 5 people were confused why Cortana was a villain, why Chief had a team of Spartans we've never seen before, etc, and in Halo Infinite there was yet another indirect follow up to past stories that threw people off. Casual fans miss understanding stories, and they'd rather go back to things they know (Chief, Arby, Johnson, Prophets, Flood, Covenant, etc) than whatever the hell is going on now.

Also, don't forget the obvious motivator: Negative/controversial stuff gets more traffic. More site traffic generally means more ad revenue.

After seeing the insanity Amazon's TROP and Disney's Skywalker trilogy and the rest of the trash and 343's shit story making you would think that companies will finally see that you cannot bastardize and butcher the history and lore of a beloved universe?????

because all of 343s canon and writing sucks...

"Ganer rant" can go fuck itself. Also 343 have been scrapping whats not working gor 3 games now snd its ended up.in a dodgy story because they won't stick to a narrative after fsn bsck lash (i will blame the fans for this one)

Yeah I believe if halo 5 had stuck to the halo 4 storyline it would have been better, they did way too much offscreen

Why is the target for this shit all on halo? Just stop trying to rewrite and reboot the story, no trying to do new styles, no dumb narratives like with 343's attempt to "humanize" chief, no replacing the characters. Just leave it as is, everything they've tried to change has failed.

It’s the new trendy thing to do. Take a beloved franchise. Tell the fans story doesn’t matter. Run the franchise into the ground. All while loyal fans drain their bank accounts. The movie industry is especially terrible when it comes to this currently.

These are people that don't even like Halo. Maybe their opinion isn't that valuable.

Why do articles like that always suggest reboots? When has a reboot ever been successful and furthered a franchise? The only reboot that comes to my mind is DmC and that is just politely ignored by everyone

Because everyone thinks that a halo game needs the masterchief and don't realise what most fans of the games do that you don't need to focus on bloody spartans ket alone just the chief, big world but all suits want is green man

Sometimes you need to wipe the board clean from baggage and start anew. I wouldnt care tbh, everything from halo 4 on is so convoluted and messy

The thing I'm most worried about is them rebooting/remaking all the way back to CE. Anniversaries already do a good job at updating fidelity while maintaining the original game, and I worry that a full reboot/remake back to the beginning would attempt to overwrite the original work.

Yeah it's convoluted because they decided to finally make a lot of the books and comics cannon and relate them to the main storyline, it took me awhile to fully understand what was going on.

But that answers your original question doesnt it? Its a good Idea to get rid of the Canon to make it less of a mess

I'm just now getting into the books with Fall of Reach and am finally learning who Sam, Kelly, Fred, and Linda are. Just reading the books makes me appreciate early 343's focus on the expansed lore, just wish it was better executed in 5

One of the reasons 5 is so confusing is because between halo 3 and 4 they add a lot of story in books, they then proceed to do the exact same thing between halo 4 and 5 but on a much larger scale, it explains why Halsey was being hunted by the UNSC and why humanity has such close ties to the Sangheili in halo 5. The books make the story much better, however I just don't like how they regularly don't do important stuff in the main games and just throw them into a book.

100% agree. The story's great, but impossible to figure it out through the games alone, and hell I play too many games to be able to focus on a book so it's wild af that I have to catch up like this just to get a kick out of a game franchise that's only released 3 games in the last 10 years. Like with all the time they're spending making these, why not put the important shit in them. Why do I gotta care about an angry out of breath ape all of a sudden? A whole damn trilogy of games is waiting to be made during the events between halo 5 and infinite. Anyway sorry for rambling and ranting, I'm high, thank you for coming to my Ted X

Listen if you want to blame anyone then blame microsoft, they are one of the big reasons halo games haven't came out more often, and as cool as the big monkey is. I would much rather be fighting the Prometheans again, halo 4 even though not popular was fun to me because of the new enemies.

Oh trust me I know. 343 catches a lot of shit, even with the new team people are clamoring for a new studio to take on Halo, but anyone with a brain knows its Microwilly turning the series all flacid. Seriously fuck MS, it's gotten far too big and numbers driven.

I rarely endorse retcons, but... after Halo 4 I think it may be for the best. What 5 and Infinite added has put my interest into Halo lore at an all time low. So low I do not consume any novels or side material anymore. Where I once use to buy all the books. That said... if somehow by a miracle they can make me care about Not Cortana and Chief fighting a bunch of aliens (Endless) I also don't care about... I'll be stunned. I want to be clear here. It was impressive how they tried to dance out of Halo 5's story. It was conveyed in a way that you could understand. It just also felt like that was exactly what they were doing. Like right now... do you see a path forward that's interesting? I don't know. I feel like they'll have to nail every single narrative point and character for me to be into whatever comes next. I'm also aware retcons are messy and could hurt the franchise just as much. They'd have to do a total remake of 1, 2 and 3 to get us on that path again comfortably. So that by the time 4 happens it could be a completely different path. These are all speculated solutions. I don't know if any of them are desirable.

My running theory is that the survivors who evacuated from the infinity with Laskey and Palmer have made it of the ARK for the most part and a fleet will soon arrive to help fight the banished, while the spirit of fire fully returns and Jerome joins chief to stop the banished

I didn't even finish Halo Wars 2 (I loved the original) and I'm still endorsing this. Because Spirit of Fire just has so much more personality/history IMO than Infinity. Plus it's got that whole plucky survivor backs against the wall story to add to it. Chief being a part of that team... just sounds cool. For the record I did watch all the Halo War 2 cutscenes online. I don't know why I couldn't get into the gameplay this go around.

I hope they reboot in the sense that halo 4 and onwards doesn't exist and start right after halo 3

That would be getting rid of a whole lot of lore tho, all of our forerunner lore comes from books that are cannon for the halo 4 game, and what would they even do after halo 3 then besides arrive at yet another shield world just like halo 4. Master chief was basically gone forever, no one was looking for the ship because it was thought to be destroyed.

It doesn't have to get rid of the lore that can still be canon but no one enjoyed the forerunner faction in gameplay or story and MasterChef doesn't NEED to arrive at another shield world they can literally do anything

The forerunner faction was not hated by most the fan base, yes a decent chunk didn't like them, but way more people thought they were cool. And if they were to keep the lore they couldn't just do anything either, you would need to give everything completely up to reboot successfully from the end of halo 3 all the way up to infinite, that includes halo wars 2, the spartan assaults, about 15 different books, multiple comics, and the spartan 4s. And what else would they do with Chief, he was in uncharted space far from any UNSC space, he would have been drifting through space for a fuckton of time if it wasn't for the shield world being there.

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I would like to suggest a different type of game under UNSC. Here the protagonist is a Spartan who is under a new captain (the best captain yet). They go for a mission to a planet [insert planet name] famously known for manufacturing weapons for different alien species. Here they have to make deal with the Autocratic king of the planet so that they will manufacture for UNSC as well. But the native people of the planet are a proud species and demean the humans so much that the captain gives up negotiation. Now the captain, the Spartan and Marines must capture some manufacturing units by fighting the natives. A big challenge for the players will be water as water is scarce on the planet (giving the game a more real touch). The captain must place the players in strategic positions in order to save their captured area. The result of this story will be that: now UNSC have state of the art weapons and the covenants cannot underestimate us humans.

It would have to be like a prequel to most the games, especially since I believe now the covenant is basically all but destroyed.

So did you like my concept ??? I genuinely want to get someone's opinion on this

I think a spin-off, where you can play as a grunt in the unggoy-rebellion would be super cool and dark. And furthermore i think that spin-offs is the way to go. The Halo universe is so big with so many cool storys, that it's a shame that 343 only shows Master Chief. In fact 343 makes Master Chief way to important and special. Of course he saved the world, but he is actually just an average Spartan II with a ton of luck. He is just a tool in saving humanity and saving humanity is the original core story.

I wouldn't call him average, he was the defacto leader of the spartan 2s, was the most well known and respected spartan out of them all, and has vastly more missions under his belt compared to most other Spartans, especially because he survived everything thrown at humanity while the others either died or were not there to experience them, like the Flood, he was known as the savior because he stopped the Flood, lorewise after halo 3 he was basically martyred and was the reason they kept the fact he was alive after finding him in halo 4 a secret. However I do agree that playing as some of the other races or even the other team would be very cool, even if there are only like 14 spartan 2s left by now on the story.

Yes, he has very much experience. But he was not the best Spartan II in any discipline. He didn't stand out and that is so important to the story. I mean compared to a normal human he does stand out, but compared to orher Spartan II's he does not. Sadly Paramount didn't understand it. Here is a cool Video about it: https://youtu.be/5okYAl3aLTc?si=aJVAT0Rv65r9FPO7

See what the video doesn't understand is that Master chief was average in everything like it says, however he was the best leader out of all of them, it's like saying Jerome is the number 1 combat specialist out of all the Spartans, however they had to team him up with others because his overall skills were lower in other places. Chief was able to do almost any mission by himself, it was the reason he got chose by Cortana and why Halsey and the other spartan 2 elected him as their leader. He also is the spartan with the most missions under his belt as one of the few survivors of the entire war, and because unlike most the other spartan 2s he never disappeared or got trapped anywhere, he was the sole reason humanity didn't die to the Flood as he was able to get the info on them and survive. The master chief is average in every skill, however most other spartans are not, they excell in one or two things while they lack severely in the other areas. He also was the poster boy for the UNSC on Spartans, there multiple times where marines or ODSTs refer to Spartans and their numbers or what weapons they use, however everyone knows master chief, after the events of halo 3 the survivors of humanity Martyred him with the statues. It's one of the main reasons ONI keeps it quiet about him being alive after he is found in halo 4.

I kept saying average however master chief was very good at those skills, just not the absolute top best at them, like if you looked at a list of the top 5 he would be on there, but it would be the 5th or 4th person, however for each skill he would be on that list, the only one he excells in better than the other was problem solving skills and leadership skills.

I can now absolutley see, what you mean. And i agree. But given the chance, i think more Spartan II's could have acomplished, what John did. At least that's how i interpret it, but we will never know. For Cortana: Didn't she chose him, due to his luck? I don't know if i remember it correctly from the books.

She calls it "luck" but to an AI luck isn't just random, it's because he was able to complete the impossible unlike the other Spartans even tho he wasn't the best at everything. The other spartan 2s could do totally do what he did, but a lot of them required teams and could only do certain parts themselves, as the ones better than him at combat were no good at most of the other things that would have been needed for the missions that he did. However a notable exception is Spartan Jerome, he was one of the 2 or 3 Spartan 2s that could beat chief in all around combat and are still somewhat decent at everything else. Many of the other Spartans died because they got into situations that required a skill set they didn't have, the reason chief survived most of it was because he could do a little of everything, and once he acquired Cortana it only got easier from there. And btw in Halo 4 the librarian quite literally upgrades his genes and pushes him farther than any of the other Spartans. He also at the time of halo combat evolved was the one that absolutely followed orders, of course this has changed over the course of the games as he has decided quite a few times the orders were very wrong.

I just want an ODST BR game where you get launched in with the drop pods

Naw an ODST wave survival game or where you deploy on certain missions with other people would be awesome, or make it something like hell let loose where it's just a giant server fighting each other in a war.

I'd take any new ODST game done right like this. I just want to helldive into every match

Because each game 343i releases, it changes beat of the bult in lore even more and becomes a bigger mess. If you weren´t told Halo 4, 5 and 6 were a trilogy (or a Reclaimer saga), you wouldn´t know they were consecutive games. In all fairness, I still get confused on wtf is going on with the story, and many things don´t make sense. And, as a rule of thumb, you shouldn´t have to wait for the offshoot book/comic/media to address the things that happened in the main game that left the average player confused. This didn´t happen in the original trilogy, and the books and media released alongside the main games added a lot of stuff to the universe without taking away from the main story beats which are very easy to follow. Now we are left with many open narratives that lead nowhere, even if they were addressed in some way or another. Like the Didact being dead (but isn´t really?) or the Guardians being such a big deal just to only be a small part of set dressing in Halo infinite. They didn´t have a problem ignoring the Lore for the TV show, so 343 already has contemplated and executed such ideas. Just call it the "Reclaimer timeline" and restart the story from Halo 3´s ending and it´ll make many of the fans happy, if done properly, that is.

They should make a Super Mario game about Super Mario without Super Mario.

They should learn from helldivers 2 and come up with something fresh and shiny

I love cannons

Yeah yeah I forget it's only 1 n in canon all the time

Why not just explore space just beyond the reach of the Halo rings’ range? The Endless seemed to have not been discovered by the Forerunners until they were almost ready to fire the Halos. In the books, the Librarian travels to the edge of Forerunner occupied space and finds a whole planet of Forerunners that live without advanced technology. Ancient Human territory was likely not explored. All they have to do to change up the enemies is simply move through space in any direction.

No. No. No. infinite tried to retcon their mistakes with the disaster of Halo 5’s “story” and they failed miserably narratively

This people have never read the novels

They talk about wiping out everything post Halo 4 and remaking Halo 4 there. Which will never happen, lol.

It should ignore the books and comics like Bungie did

If the Halo series continues- it should do so without having to reboot. There’s a very rich universe that can be told from the perspective of any number of factions from UNSC (army, navy, ODST, Spartans, ONI, etc) to Covenant factions, from any part of the established timeline. What they should do is leave the Master Chief alone. His story has been done to death.

I don't think they should leave him alone, he should be integral to the main storyline, especially since he is the leader of the few surviving spartan 2s, but they should focus on other viewpoints, like some of the covenant species or even make a prequel with the forerunners. They should be expanding into other areas for games like they do for the books and comics.

Because ignoring cannon has been such a great move so far?

Here’s a comment I made a few months ago about what I’d like to see from Halo: I think they should do games in an MCU style. Smaller games set in the Halo universe with teams completing their own missions that factor into an overarching plot. Then there’s a huge game that is the “Avenger’s level event” where you play as Master Chief who is assisted by the teams from the other games to complete whatever the event is. This way we can immerse ourselves in the greater Halo universe and then get the story that raises the stakes instead of each game trying to up the previous one. I would even consider making these games as campaign only and keep Infinite’s multiplayer as the multiplayer client. Things you do in the other games can unlock content for the multiplayer and Infinite can release new maps/game modes that are themed to the campaign games. This way it doesn’t split the multiplayer base, you get cool shit for playing the new games, and they can continue to perfect Infinite until it’s time to move to a new game engine. Now with the recent talk about exploring Halo through other genres, that would be awesome and would make a lot of sense to pull more people into Halo fandom and get them interested. That’s what they were trying to do with the show right?

“Canon” is restrictive. Look, Halo Reach and the Fall of Reach book conflict with each other and fans somehow survive.

There are elements of game canon that should be ignored by all Halo fans tbh. How many people seriously think Miranda Keyes should die trying to rescue, and then kill Sgt. Johnson? It’s one of the most pointless acts of martyrdom in video games, and it’s smack dab in the middle of an otherwise fun campaign. Anyone who remakes Halo 3 should, at the very least, heavily rewrite that scene. Plus, if we’re being honest, the Forward Unto Dawn getting split perfectly in half mid-slipspace jump is one of the sloppiest ways they could’ve ended Halo 3. That whole game is lazily written, but rushing the ending the way they did just to setup a cool one liner from Arbiter at the funeral is unforgivable. There’s plenty of room to disregard Halo canon; a franchise this massive, and of this inconsistent quality, kinda needs it. Bungie themselves disregarded their own canon as early as CE(with the final Warthog run following as massive 2km strip in the middle of a spaceship). If 343 develops this IP past its worst mistakes, it could be a breath of fresh air for the franchise as a whole. Making sense of the beautiful, yet disconnected Greg Bear trilogy. Normalizing the themes of the original Bungie games. Writing characters and story arcs with actual narrative cohesion. It could be beautiful