I guess the title pretty much says it all, but let me ask in a bit more detail.
The games with Chief/main story have all been numerical (Halo 2,3, etc) Halo 5 is no exception…except its Halo 5: Guardians, not just 5.
There’s an extension to the title of the game. I remember first hearing its announcement I thought it WOULD be a spin-off.
Spin-off games such as reach, wars, and ODST (to an extent) don’t have a number since they are their own separate stories and don’t have the Master Chief
Halo: Infinite is…unique, I guess. It will have Chief but doesn’t have a number attached to the game’s title.
So is Infinite a spin-off with the chief? Is this going to be part of the main story? Will Halo 6 be another game entirely or is Halo now at a point where sequels will not be numbered and instead have something else in the title?
*Note I understand Halo: CE has this same concept, but the difference here is obviously that that was the first title to kick off the series, whereas Halo Infinite/ 6 are of course way down the line of an already expansive series.
H6 and Infinite are essentially synonyms of each other. Which means that Infinite will be the 6th mainline FPS title for Halo. Hope that answers your question.
Halo 6 Infinite: HD Turbo Remix Series XL
Infinite is the next game in the mainline series continuing the story from 5, not a spin off. 343i stated before H5 even that they wanted to get away from the numbers in the future so here we are, don’t expect mainline series to have numbers anymore.
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> Infinite is the next game in the mainline series continuing the story from 5, not a spin off. 343i stated before H5 even that they wanted to get away from the numbers in the future so here we are, don’t expect mainline series to have numbers anymore.
That’s a little stupid to do things like that because it can sometimes be difficult for new player to understand where can this game be placed in the franchise timeline.
Maybe it won’t happen with Halo but I remember having the same problem with a franchise (I think it was the Ratchet & Clank franchise where after completing the third one, I stopped for many years and when I came back, I had difficulties to find which game should be played first before the others without searching on wikipedia (I don’t always look at the launch year because sometimes you can have a prequel to the franchise (Reach or more recently RDR2))).
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> > 2533275031939856;4:
> > Infinite is the next game in the mainline series continuing the story from 5, not a spin off. 343i stated before H5 even that they wanted to get away from the numbers in the future so here we are, don’t expect mainline series to have numbers anymore.
>
> That’s a little stupid to do things like that because it can sometimes be difficult for new player to understand where can this game be placed in the franchise timeline.
> Maybe it won’t happen with Halo but I remember having the same problem with a franchise (I think it was the Ratchet & Clank franchise where after completing the third one, I stopped for many years and when I came back, I had difficulties to find which game should be played first before the others without searching on wikipedia (I don’t always look at the launch year because sometimes you can have a prequel to the franchise (Reach or more recently RDR2))).
Yeah I don’t really like it either. If the story goes in a straight line I don’t understand why not just use numbers, makes things so much simpler. I don’t get why they couldn’t have called it “Halo 6: Infinite”.
Infinite IS Halo 6, they have just decided to move away from numbered titles for the mainline games.
No, Halo Infinite is Halo 6.
343 simply decided to depart from the previous convention of simple, numerical titles.
I believe in an interview a few years ago, Bonnie Ross (343 head) said that the studio would eventually be departing from numbered titles because “we aren’t Final Fantasy” and didn’t want to eventually be releasing Halo 13.
I think 343 said before Halo Infinite is Halo 6 a long time ago 
> 2533275031939856;4:
> Infinite is the next game in the mainline series continuing the story from 5, not a spin off. 343i stated before H5 even that they wanted to get away from the numbers in the future so here we are, don’t expect mainline series to have numbers anymore.
Like, Skully just said don’t expect mainline series to have numbers anymore. Imagine telling family and friends they should buy Halo 43 for the Xbox 19.
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> > 2533275031939856;4:
> > Infinite is the next game in the mainline series continuing the story from 5, not a spin off. 343i stated before H5 even that they wanted to get away from the numbers in the future so here we are, don’t expect mainline series to have numbers anymore.
>
> Like, Skully just said don’t expect mainline series to have numbers anymore. Imagine telling family and friends they should buy Halo 43 for the Xbox 19.
Hahaha fair enough. Maybe they decided to stop the numbers now because they know this franchise is going to go for a long time and Halo 15 sounds ridiculous to them.
Yeah but what if 6 isnt infinite. What if infinite is the next installment after five but it is it technically 6. It silly i know, but it is possible. The way it is now how do you go past infinite? For instance how would you make another game after infinite would you make infinite 2, then infinite 3, or would you have halo five and another subtitle or would you have halo six that’s a prequel to infinite.
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> Yeah but what if 6 isnt infinite. What if infinite is the next installment after five but it is it technically 6. It silly i know, but it is possible. The way it is now how do you go past infinite? For instance how would you make another game after infinite would you make infinite 2, then infinite 3, or would you have halo five and another subtitle or would you have halo six that’s a prequel to infinite.
Here’s what Jeff said here, “It is Halo 6. You should just consider it Halo 6. Don’t think of it as a weird prequel kind of thing. It’s the next story. It’s the next chapter in what is going on.”
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> > 2533274851211096;12:
> > Yeah but what if 6 isnt infinite. What if infinite is the next installment after five but it is it technically 6. It silly i know, but it is possible. The way it is now how do you go past infinite? For instance how would you make another game after infinite would you make infinite 2, then infinite 3, or would you have halo five and another subtitle or would you have halo six that’s a prequel to infinite.
>
> Here’s what Jeff said here, “It is Halo 6. You should just consider it Halo 6. Don’t think of it as a weird prequel kind of thing. It’s the next story. It’s the next chapter in what is going on.”
Saying consider dose not mean it is, if you were at work and said “consider it done” your boss might say “ill beleive it when i see it”. Jeff said its the next story chapter, he never literally said the the number 6 is off the table completely. The point i got from reading it was that halo infinite was the next chapter to clear up what’s going on in the game and canon. It was Jeffs way of saying that the game is on track and not some alternate universe that retcons the game universe. I wouldn’t say the number 6 isnt in the name pool of 343 after we saw how the new xbox is series x.