General storytelling tends to have the second act in a story be where the heroes are at their darkest moments and their highest moments of vulnerability. This felt that it was the case with Halo 2 as well.
I haven’t thought a lot about it mainly because Halo 4 did not make an attempt to bring the second most main character of the series. Understandable, considering he was probably still dealing with some -Yoink- civil war on his home planet or at the very least political tensions over him and his “heretic” buddies. However, it makes the most sense that his time will come again. I just haven’t known how they’ll do it so I haven’t focused on this since before the plot details of Halo 4 came out, but I’ll elaborate on it now:
I feel like the Chief needs to die. It just seems like it needs to be something that actually happens. Somewhere along the story. Could be in ‘Halo 5’, somewhere towards the end of the game, simultaneously -Yoink!- off the players and getting them pumped for the next game like Halo 2 did because they know they’re getting ready to get some -Yoinking!- revenge on whoever did it. It creates an emotional connection and it adds a little bit more depth to the character - even the lucky can’t live forever.
The other situation where it would occur would be at the very end of this trilogy/story arc. The last game would feature missions where you play from the perspective of another character as well and towards the end he’s killed, and it’s up to the other character to finish the job. The Arbiter really is the only ideal character to do this sort of thing, otherwise it’d be a character nobody has really grown to love as much like Commander Palmer or something. I had ideas about how I think it might have gone down and how the end could draw parallels in that situation with the ending to Halo 3, or in the case it happened in ‘Halo 5’ the same sort of thing. However, the story played out a bit differently than I’d imagined it to and now we’re in a situation where it seems like humans are gearing up for full scale war with the Prometheans. The only way The Arbiter would be drawn into this is if we started the next game from his perspective or something, something happened that put he and the other Sangheili at risk from the same (or a new) threat as well where an alliance is again formed with the humans and Thel and John meet each other again. This would set up many situations for good character development and really potentially emotional situations where a warrior has to go against his own kind while grieving that they do not know the truth.
However ultimately, I don’t think most fans want something like this and would rather just say “duD3! NOO! MC can’t DIe -Yoink- dinoS!!”. Those typically are the kind of people where campaign takes a backseat to multiplayer yet they somehow gripe about the campaign.
So I don’t expect anything like this to necessarily happen, however I wanted your opinion on it. Should the Chief die at any point? Because he started as just kind of a faceless, anonymous supersoldier that’s basically supposed to be YOU and since then huge steps have been made to add depth to his character. If the latter is going to continue, I feel he should be vulnerable like a real character. I liked that he showed an emotional vulnerability at the end of Halo 4, that’s a step in the right direction, but there’s a lot more that needs to be done. Also, I’m not suggesting just “killing off” Master Chief like it doesn’t mean anything, I mean an event where his death would be a pivotal part of an elaborate story and a culmination of events.
> Spartans never die…
their just missing in action…
> Spartans never die…
Goes “missing in action”, whatever.
That’s the part I don’t care for. I only appreciate “spartans never die” because Kurt said it, not because any of those disposable undeveloped characters from Reach said it.
> Spartans never die…
Except Sam, James, Li, Daisy, Joshua, Vinh, Issac, William, Anton, Jorge, Malcolm, Solomon, Arthur, Grace, Joseph, Cal, Sheila and everybody else on Red Team during the Fall of Reach.
Besides them though…
> > Spartans never die…
>
> Except Sam, James, Li, Daisy, Joshua, Vinh, Issac, William, Anton, Jorge, Malcolm, Solomon, Arthur, Grace, Joseph, Cal, Sheila and everybody else on Red Team during the Fall of Reach.
>
> Besides them though…
They rage quitted because they were losing the match, they never died.
I don’t want him to die.
Maybe some hibernation time, but not death.
I know it would be a good dramatic idea to have chief die to add shock value to the story but i think having him retire from being a soldier and become a officer on the infinity like Palmer would create a better way to end our hero’s tale.
Making the fans realise that chief can’t do this forever will create a longer sadness as you can see your hero but never have those adventures like the old days. It sort of creates the feeling of losing your childhood. 
Halo 7: Master Chief goes to a super hi-tech doctors office and gets his hip replaced and is told he might have cancer due to years of relentless blasts of radiation and plasma scoring.
Saddened but not deterred, he goes back to the bridge and bosses around a couple SPARTAN-Vs, and drinks scotch from the bottom while playing Candy Craze on his computer.
Halo 8 is where things start going down hill for 90 year old John as he starts to slowly lose his memory and requires another smart AI, like Cortana but probably more his age so they can die together.
I think it would be fitting for the Chief to die at the end of the Sage rather than have him live. He’d probably suffer some devastating side effect from his time in the military and go nuts. Or be like Grandpa Jennings and say “I’ve seen some stuff, man, stuff ain’t nobody gotta see” as he yells at the neighbor’s kids for messing up his garden.
Besides, killing your main protagonist is all the rage these days. It’s easier to picture the end of a game series dead than it is to picture him doing something that isn’t putting lead into aliens like he has been for 13 years now.
Have his death mean something, go out in a blaze of glory. Like SGT. John Forge from Halo Wars, but instead you see everything and you are actually doing it in a FPS point of view.
A heroes death is rather cliche. Master Chiefs conclusion should be rather unique.
> Halo 7: Master Chief goes to a super hi-tech doctors office and gets his hip replaced and is told he might have cancer due to years of relentless blasts of radiation and plasma scoring.
>
> Saddened but not deterred, he goes back to the bridge and bosses around a couple SPARTAN-Vs, and drinks scotch from the bottom while playing Candy Craze on his computer.
>
> Halo 8 is where things start going down hill for 90 year old John as he starts to slowly lose his memory and requires another smart AI, like Cortana but probably more his age so they can die together.
>
>
> I think it would be fitting for the Chief to die at the end of the Sage rather than have him live. He’d probably suffer some devastating side effect from his time in the military and go nuts. Or be like Grandpa Jennings and say “I’ve seen some stuff, man, stuff ain’t nobody gotta see” as he yells at the neighbor’s kids for messing up his garden.
>
> Besides, killing your main protagonist is all the rage these days. It’s easier to picture the end of a game series dead than it is to picture him doing something that isn’t putting lead into aliens like he has been for 13 years now.
>
> Have his death mean something, go out in a blaze of glory. Like SGT. John Forge from Halo Wars, but instead you see everything and you are actually doing it in a FPS point of view.
Halo 7: Reclaiming Bad 
The problem having an illness like that is, it is easily curible in the future, in one of the halo legends episodes a scottish odst had cancer and was going to get cured the next day but everything change when the covanent nation attack.
While killing a protagonist can create drama, killing chief can create issues, killing chief would be like permanently killing batman. Killing his role as a future main character and keeping him as a side character would be a smarter desicision because if the new character sucks they can bring back chief.
> A heroes death is rather cliche. Master Chiefs conclusion should be rather unique, as in him not dying.
A hero’s survival and happy ending are just as cliche. The point would be to resonate on an emotional level.
I think it would be fitting at the end. Not to exercise and cliches or anything but just that he’s gone through so much. Halo 4 ended with John realizing a bit of humanity in himself, with the thing about “being a machine”.
He could just retire or go on, but I remember when he “died” in Halo 3 what an emotional effect it had (I went dark, no spoilers). I would have been fine with it considering that was to be the end but I was also fine with the real ending. I feel like if he died for real it might mean something more. Maybe at the very end of it all we skip back to New Mombasa or the rebuilt Reach or something and we see a statue in his memory. I don’t know what will happen to him, but regardless of whether he makes it through to the very end without dying or not, I don’t think it has anything to do with cliches. If he’s making a “heroic sacrifice” of sorts then sure, that’s cliche, but he’s attempted that several times and survived. That being said cliches aren’t something we need to really worry about. I didn’t feel there was anything wrong with Johnson’s death and probably wouldn’t feel there’s anything wrong with Master Chief’s.
> A heroes death is rather cliche. Master Chiefs conclusion should be rather unique, as in him not dying.
The hero living is just as big of a cliche. Perhaps an ambiguous ending is in order for Chief. Someone could find his helmet, for example, after whatever cataclysmic events happen and his legacy is left to the imagination.
> > A heroes death is rather cliche. Master Chiefs conclusion should be rather unique.
>
> <mark>A hero’s survival and happy ending are just as cliche</mark>. The point would be to resonate on an emotional level.
>
> I think it would be fitting at the end. Not to exercise and cliches or anything but just that he’s gone through so much. Halo 4 ended with John realizing a bit of humanity in himself, with the thing about “being a machine”.
>
> He could just retire or go on, but I remember when he “died” in Halo 3 what an emotional effect it had (I went dark, no spoilers). I would have been fine with it considering that was to be the end but I was also fine with the real ending. I feel like if he died for real it might mean something more. Maybe at the very end of it all we skip back to New Mombasa or the rebuilt Reach or something and we see a statue in his memory. I don’t know what will happen to him, but regardless of whether he makes it through to the very end without dying or not, I don’t think it has anything to do with cliches. If he’s making a “heroic sacrifice” of sorts then sure, that’s cliche, but he’s attempted that several times and survived. That being said cliches aren’t something we need to really worry about. I didn’t feel there was anything wrong with Johnson’s death and probably wouldn’t feel there’s anything wrong with Master Chief’s.
I mean we should have something unique, rather than a heroes death.
> > A heroes death is rather cliche. Master Chiefs conclusion should be rather unique.
>
> <mark>The hero living is just as big of a cliche.</mark> Perhaps an ambiguous ending is in order for Chief. Someone could find his helmet, for example, after whatever cataclysmic events happen and his legacy is left to the imagination.
That’s not what I meant. Something unique should happen, rather than him dying.
> > > A heroes death is rather cliche. Master Chiefs conclusion should be rather unique.
> >
> > <mark>The hero living is just as big of a cliche.</mark> Perhaps an ambiguous ending is in order for Chief. Someone could find his helmet, for example, after whatever cataclysmic events happen and his legacy is left to the imagination.
>
> That’s not what I meant. Something unique should happen, rather than him dying.
The only opposite to him dying is him living. There ins’t exactly an in between place besides his fate being left ambiguous.
That just means dragging on Master Chief’s story long after everyone lost interest. If he “has to survive” than at least make it an enjoyable scene. like Halo CE’s ending scene: “I think we’re just getting started” You know, like he said that to a hot babe or something on a nice tropical planet or something.
Not, dragging the story along until it gets to the point that people start praying to Ford that Master Chief gets shot after every mission.
I like Master Chief as much as the next guy but he can’t be alive forever, he’s only a genetically enhanced super soldier with good luck. One of these days his luck will run out and he’ll end up landing on something that isn’t dirt.
> That just means dragging on Master Chief’s story long after everyone lost interest. If he “has to survive” than at least make it an enjoyable scene. like Halo CE’s ending scene: “I think we’re just getting started” You know, like he said that to a hot babe or something on a nice tropical planet or something.
>
> Not, dragging the story along until it gets to the point that people start praying to Ford that Master Chief gets shot after every mission.
>
> I like Master Chief as much as the next guy but he can’t be alive forever, he’s only a genetically enhanced super soldier with good luck. One of these days his luck will run out and he’ll end up landing on something that isn’t dirt.
What if Master Chiefs conclusion in Halo 6 is kinda like Halo 3’s but a lot different and a lot better?
> Spartans never die…
They just respawn 5 seconds later.
> > That just means dragging on Master Chief’s story long after everyone lost interest. If he “has to survive” than at least make it an enjoyable scene. like Halo CE’s ending scene: “I think we’re just getting started” You know, like he said that to a hot babe or something on a nice tropical planet or something.
> >
> > Not, dragging the story along until it gets to the point that people start praying to Ford that Master Chief gets shot after every mission.
> >
> > I like Master Chief as much as the next guy but he can’t be alive forever, he’s only a genetically enhanced super soldier with good luck. One of these days his luck will run out and he’ll end up landing on something that isn’t dirt.
>
> What if Master Chiefs conclusion in Halo 6 is kinda like Halo 3’s but a lot different and a lot better?
As long as he isn’t hurdling ever so slowly towards another Forerunner construct then it will be a fitting ending.
I think hurdling towards Earth would make people happy, because at least you’d know that it was over and he was back on Earth.
