By now, you have likely seen the news that Jason Schreier broke about Halo and 343. In short, 343 is being restructured from the top down with the new management, 343 is essentially starting over with a fresh start. Along with this, he broke the scoop about campaign stuff. He revealed that 343 wasn’t planning on making any campaign expansions or DLC for Infinite. Jason mentioned that there were some devs that were playing around with campaign ideas in Unreal Engine, shortly afterwards they were let go (weird, as he revealed they ARE switching over to UE for future games). He sadly brought our attention that for the time being, 343 won’t be focusing on or making campaign content, only multiplayer stuff for future games.
This then brings us to the big question, what is the future of the Halo universe? It’s pretty clear that we won’t be seeing campaign content anytime soon. This will mean it’ll have been a long time since players last played a Halo campaign. Here are 4 of the options I can think of that can come from this restructuring:
Continue the existing storyline in future games. This is my favorite option.
Begin a new storyline in future games. This is 1 of my least fav decisions. 343 has done this twice with Halo 5 and Infinite. I want them to commit to a story thread and continue & conclude them properly.
Soft reboot/retcon every piece of lore put out by 343. This to me is prob the worst decision. Love or hate what 343 has brought to the universe (or somewhere in between), I think it would be insulting by removing everything by 343 and keeping just everything from the Bungie era.
Hard reboot. This is the nuclear option, get rid of everything and start over from square 1. I don’t like this option, but if they’re gonna do a reboot of any kind, I prefer this. Either reboot/retcon everything or nothing.
Things are very uncertain for Halo right now, especially in the story department. What’d you think will happen?
I’ve entirely lost all interest and care for the MP. It just too far gone, beyond saving.
I’m curious about the Endless. But I don’t think I’d mind a post-h4 reboot to get rid of the evil Cortana stuff.
I think they’ll probably just continue Infinite’s plot, but the question is when? It’s been a year, they need to get going with the next game. The fact that they’re not even working on anything just shows that the priorities are bad and that I should have 0 expectations.
they do a sort-of-reboot of all the 343 era games. keeping plot points, characters and story concepts (the Spartan-IVs, the prometheans and the forerunners, post war factions like the Keepers and the Banished). but re-writing it all so that it fits better with the classic games, improving the gameplay (honestly, they could get away with recycling the gameplay from Infinite, it could work), and fixing the art style (doing away with the Gen-2 armor and giving new spartans mark-VII, redesign h4/5 forerunner architecture and the prometheans to the old art style) to make the sequel games actually feel like a continuation of the original games. Personally, I feel this would be the best option, as this could give the old fans the proper continuation of the classic games that they wanted, while not pushing away the new fans by completely getting rid of the things they liked about the sequels.
I think we will (probably) get a campaign someday, just not anytime soon. I mean it’s still a big franchise, and it would be odd having Halo continue as multiplayer only with no Master Chief, etc.
Option 1 is my preference by a mile as well, I’m sick of reboots whether spiritual or hard and just want to get on with a good storyline. Not sure why any new game couldn’t just continue what infinite had down, other than that it would remind everyone of the ambitious but flawed project that was Halo Infinite.
In order of likelihood, I would guess in my unqualified view: 1>4>2>3.
Option 3 seems to be a popular opinion in some quarters but I don’t think MS or 343 view their own post Halo 3 work so negatively to do this.
Option 2 would be doing the same trick twice that was done between Halo 5 and Infinite, and could make it difficult to bring fans back.
Option 4 I think is a real possibility, in fact that is kind of what they done with the TV show. That said I wonder if reboot fatigue is a thing? Guess it depends on how the minds of the powers that be see things.
Option 1 seems the easiest to do, given the Arc has already started, but maybe they don’t want the continuation to be associated with Halo Infinite.
There is always option 5, that despite what I say above about it being too big to fail, due to the challenging and changing world the Halo franchise gets cancelled anyway.
The best would be the option 5 : finish quickly the what Halo 4/5/Infinite had started :
The next campaign present the endless, then MC kill them and destroy Halo Zeta.
The fate of Lasky, the Infinity and Lock is revealed
In the rest of the galaxy, the created lost their connexion to the domain when Cortana died. They still have the Guardians, but following the futur evenements of the book “Halo Oucast”, the Arbiter and Vale find a weapon against them and destroy every Guardian. The humans and other species refind the controll of their worlds.
After that, we can start to create new story more interesting
While I liked parts of halo 4 the divide between the 343 and bungie era is such a nice clean spot to reboot things. The problems with 343’s narrative approach started there, and we’ve mangled the current story too much.
I suppose if we can’t reboot, sticking to some sort of narrative is the best bet, albeit I have no real interest in the endless plot, doing another plot reboot would be bad.
I mean, maybe some new ideas will stick? Maybe? Honestly Infinite’s threat isn’t necessarily BAD just excessively BLAND.
No, please no. Just because 343 doesn’t know how to tell a story doesn’t mean we need to reboot everything Bungie did too. This will just divide the fanbase even more as people will just ignore the new story to stick with the old. Also being 343 they’ll probably make CE about Chief rebelling against the UNSC cause of a forerunner mcguffin, and make him and cortana the destined ones to activate the halo using their feelings…you know pretty much the halo TV show.
Even if they turn the endless in the principal ennemi for the next games, I think the Created problem and the Infinity’s fate must be quickly solved to get back on track
I think they can only do option 1 and just work with what they have.
There’s so little to work with that in my opinion there isn’t any need for another soft reboot. They wiped the slate clean without really putting that much there in terms of the Universe. What could you do? Kill off the Banished and Atriox. They’re just another Covenant Splinter group at the end of the day. They didn’t introduce the Ebdless so can do anything they want.
I can’t see them retconning Halo 4 onwards. Would be a huge admission of fault and they’ve kind of already done that via their soft reboots and really the whole Banished Red Covenant War has nothing to do with the world set up in Halo 4.
Bungie could have done an Elseworld story like CoD. 343 don’t have that option. People either feel Chiefs story ended with Halo 3 or they want to see that Chiefs story continue. I don’t think people want an Elseworld tale. CoD got away with that because the world and characters were always just window dressing. So resetting the board worked. Halo can’t do that without backhanding a lot of people.
The Endless should be built up and remain as the big bad for the new saga, especially since all the evidence points to them being the newest form of the Precursors.
Not sure why you mention the Created, as they’ve been defeated.
Also just to save a new topic. They’ve wrote themselves into a corner with Atriox.
We see the Banished carry on even after they think he’s dead. So it won’t be important if we as Chief end up smashing his face in until he’s dead. The setup is he would just become a martyr.
So it would be weird for them to suddenly have the Banished collapse and to make a huge deal out of Chief beating Atriox in that context.
Like if there’s some lie at the heart of the Banished, like the Covenant, which fundamentally changes that; I don’t think they’ve laid any seeds indicating that. Yes, Atriox is acting a bit weird and some symbols are a bit suspect. But I am clutching at straws to say this is all a front for Mendicant Bias or they’ve been taken over by a faction of the Created/whatever Irratus is.
Also, with the multi story. I am still perplexed about why they’re repackaging an AI focused story about taking over Spartans as having anything to do with the Banished. Like, you went out of your way to retcon the Created story. Presumably that’s because you think people aren’t okay or interested in AI rebellion stuff. So why do a story centred about that? Oh, this is a Brute AI let loose because Brutes are idiots and getting the homeworld smashed isn’t enough of a lesson. It’s a faction that hates AI adopting AI.
Because we don’t know exactly what happen to the Created after the HaloZeta events. There are two principal scenario :
A : Cortana died and the Created lost their connexion to the domain and their Guardian. They give up the fight and the UNSC and other species get back in power.
B : Cortana died and the Created lost their connexion to the domain, but they still controll their Guardian. The UNSC and the other species fight them for the controll of the galaxy.
C : Cortana died on Zeta Halo, but she still survived in the Domain. The Created keep their connexion to the domain and their Guardian. They dominate the galaxy
So yes I hope 343 will choose option A or B, and if it’s B I hope the Created will lost quickly to end this story once for all
I think option A is what they’re doing. There’s the occasional canon fodder article talking about old threats falling away as new ones rise. That suggests that whatever remnant there is has been addressed offscreen and won’t intrude on the main or secondary narrative.
Plus, given the multiplayer story. Why bother with creating this new AI taking over Spartans when you already had an AI rebellion storyline? That strongly indicates that whilst they still apparently really want to touch on that corner of sci fi they want a clean slate so have repackaged this idea as being loosely connected to the Banished. Like it’s stressed that Irratus was an experimental AI made from a Brute and so isn’t part of the Created. Like the only information they give us is that he isn’t a Created AI. It’s not much but it paints a picture.
They might do a book or some side story to address all the Geth being genocided; because that’s exactly what it is. If you thought Quarians were bad for breaking the Toasters I want to understand why destroying the Domain and killing the Created is okay? But I think the writing is very much on the wall.
Like if they’re going to pivot into needing Smart AI to help deal with this Logic Plague Irratus is cooking with the Spartans they really haven’t given any indication within the narrative. The games never suggest this is an ongoing conflict. It’s more likely that they would just present them like the Weapon as just human AI rather than directly address the issue.
I’m certain we’ll never hear about the Created in-game again, due to how hated that storyline was. Cortana is gone for good, as the Domain isn’t an afterlife, just a huge repository of info that Forerunners connected much of their tech to.
I’m guessing future games are gonna deal with the Endless as the main threat, and the Banished as the wild card enemy. I’m just hoping they commit to a single story for once.
Lets just reboot. Have cortana running simulations while chief is on ice and that can be the reclaimer timeline continuity we have been seeing since 4.
Leave him adrift until the end of the game and have cortana in contact with a mystery party via terminals throughout a campaign focused less on characters and more on the conflict itself.
Have names like palmer, lasky, atriox etc. All be connected to real people in the new canon.
Have the prometheans be some sort of oni initiative using forerunner tech to build a replacement to spartans.
Have the ivs be less ubiquitous and perhaps underperform and be less disciplined than the 2s and 3s.
Legendary ending is finding the dawn.
I feel like the comment you replied to answered this already tbh.
That said
Ideally id like to see a prequel series or a side story to the trilogy.
But not opposed to a retcon of either post bungie or post halo2
I honestly don’t like the idea of rebooting/retconning half the franchise’s lifespan. If they’re gonna reboot, either be the entire thing and start over totally or not at all, and continue from where we last left off.
I can understand that. However every game since reach has effectively acted as a soft reboot and retconned large chuncks of the series.
The fact of the matter is
Has been the modus operandi for well over a decade.
I dont feel it is necessary or clever to rethread CE and 2 so a total reboot feels like a poor choice.
While continuing the disjointed meandering and down right convoluted mess that is the current story of dropped threads and forced contrivances is not a worthwhile approach.
Especially now post fractures and silver timelines.
I actually think many of the concepts in the post bungie canon are deserving of better execution and many of the EU elements of being intergrated fully into the core series but as it is now the entire universe has pretty much been robbed of all its greatest strengths.
So just accepting the direction under frankie was a miss-step and letting go of all the inherited baggage in order to make something coherent is imo, the best approach if not the only one for bringing the story forward.
This is coming from a person who still felt strongly infinite had the potential to repair any and all damage done to the universe.
But after playing that campaign and seeing it repeat all of the mistakes without accomplishing any of the supposed goals it had im just past caring about the universe at large.
Troy dennings books are the only exception tbh. Those i enjoy.
And despite kelly gay being a tremendous author i feel her work suffers from either being too focused on greg bears trilogy or being entirely removed from the core narrative to have any real weight. At least the ferrets feel like a seperate struggle in the ongoing galactic conflict.
Its sad but as a fan of the franchise since its inception I cant say I care about any of the narrative at this point.
Make a prequels that intergrate the fall of reach and halo:Reach or halo 2 and onyx and things of that nature or reboot back to when we blew up the ark.
Like i said for me rebooting from halo2s ending would be my ideal but for the series health I believe abandoning the reclaimer saga and continuing where halo 3 leaves off or prequels that ignore the current lore issues are what is best.
