Halo 4 and 5 get removed, with Infinite taking place after H3 instead.
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Halo 4 an 5 we’re good addition to the game along with HW2… they added life to a otherwise finished trilogy. They could re use content from the older titles like maps etc to bring back the old fan base.
Be glad the whole Halo sci-fi series doesn’t just revolve around one person. Jaded narcissistic etc
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We all want to forget Halo 4 and Halo 5 but it’s the punishment we all deserve, quite frankly.
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That…makes no sense narratively.
Huh… so if this WERE the case, Cortana went mad and blew up planets because . . . she became purple again?
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I’m probably in a minority but I thought there were some interesting story ideas for 4 and 5, I just think they didn’t necessarily do the best job of telling those stories and really didn’t do a good job of using Infinite to resolve those stories.
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To be fair her ‘redemption’ didn’t feel like it had much more detail than that 
“Whoops, sorry about all that, forgot I was meant to be good.”
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Evaporates an entire station full of spartans
OopS mY bAd
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100% dude.
Which is why I have taken up the hobby of rewriting Halo 4, Halo Spartan-Ops, and Halo 5 to tell the same story but in a better method; with the end goal of having it still line up with Halo Wars 2 and Halo Infinite.
Think of it as a soft-reboot of the Reclaimer Saga.
Basically take the plot, summarize it to a paragraph, and use it as a writing promt/guideline to actually tell a better story.
So far I am just in the phase of just making it a plot summary of detailing the story of each mission/chapter. I am pretty much done with Halo 4: Awakening and Halo: Spartan-Ops Campaign 1 - Thorne, but I still have SO Campaign 2 - Vale, SO Campaign 3 - Buck, and the Halo 5: Reclamation script.
So I guess I can share the first two here -
Halo 4: Awakening
Same story, but the chapters of Halo 4 often felt like two or even three missions merged together. Also made some alterations and added a couple chapters to mix it up a little.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UD_kvc7vvNjCWNsmckvbZrqo0aqsRr7IMmOg-xAyMWs/edit?usp=sharing
Halo: Spartan-Ops - Campaign 1: Thorne
Basically telling the same story, but instead of making it boring Firefight-with-objectives and recyling maps WAY too often, it is its own stand-alone campaign. PLUS you actually play as Fireteam Majestic instead of their rival Fireteam Crimson.
Optional Foreword
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q3EFl2ihjJmP4P2OP5exSS1lNJ_axn8H3L4KUjNQ52I/edit?usp=sharing
The Story of Campaign 1 - Thorne
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cupyurIwlFCp4SUZ34tWiZAijmJ96vhWN7wxVwFb5vI/edit?usp=sharing
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In Spartan Ops episode 6-4 Search an Destroy you get to try an retrieve lost nukes that you find the covenant have stripped. In this episode you can go up against a pack of 4 hunters at once backed up by an elite general and numerous jackals an grunts… When has master chief done this without a vehicle!! You also are introduced to about ten jackal snipers all at once an a pack of invisible jackles and elites at the end. If you have the tough luck skull on this mission is quite lethal. They feel like full missions when you play them solo on atleast Heroic…I guess those missions are made for 2.
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Been saying this for a long time. I absolutely hate every part of the H4 campaign. They basically crap on everything that was Halo. H5 was just bad but not as bad. Infinite finally feels like the sequel to 3 I have been waiting for and am still happy with it. I wish the armor unlock system was more like 3 but that is my only real complaint, that and most vehicles are too easy to destroy.
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H4 story started out strong but H5 ruined it.
I will die on this hill.
As for gameplay, 343 Halos suck in general. Sorry gotta say it.
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I mean, whether or not you like them doesn’t mean you just get to re-write Halo canon.
H4’s campaign overall was good, and H5’s campaign had a few interesting moments, though the overall story was pretty meh.
Sequels will put in details that improve past media stories sometimes. Its not the easiest thing to do, but I think that’s a better approach.
I was hoping Infinite would expand some details of H5’s story so it would sit with better context. It was a missed opportunity imo.
Also, if HI took place as the next story chapter after H3, Cortana being bad makes no sense…
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The series presents us with a few explanations for Cortana going bad, I’d argue only one of them requires Halo 4 or 5 to take place.
Corruption by the Gravemind. The Gravemind has a history of corrupting AIs such as Mendicant Bias, an AI far more advanced than anything humanity ever created. Clearly the Gravemind has the ability to corrupt advanced AI and you do get to see some of the impact it has on Cortana. This doesn’t require Halo 4 or 5 as her interactions with the Gravemind took place in 2 and 3.
Rampancy. Whilst the story of Cortana’s rampancy is told in Halo 4 the concept of rampancy is established in Halo lore well before Halo 4 (both in terms of the canon timeline and the actual release of games and other media). Even if Infinite took place in the calendar year that Halo 4 took place it would be easy to argue she had become rampant by then given both her age and the vast amount of Forerunner data she has accessed and her experience with the Gravemind.
Corruption by the Domain. This is the only explanation that really requires anything past Halo 3 but I don’t believe it was ever really mentioned or even hinted at that access to the Domain had any negative impact on Cortana besides it giving her access to Forerunner resources, it might have enabled her but it doesn’t seem to ever have been called out as the route cause.
Yes it would be pretty jarring to not see Cortana’s decline, just as it would be to not see how Chief returned to the UNSC. I do think you could argue that Infinite as is was a pretty jarring transition from Halo 5 you had major characters just no longer being present and Cortana being killed off screen as examples of this.
For me the end of Halo 5 setup humanity (and potentially other races) being on the back foot against a legion of corrupted AIs using Forerunner tech and effectively being able to shut down their enemies technology. To me that sounded like an interesting idea, a seemingly truly unstoppable and pretty scary enemy, how do you fight an enemy that has the ability to take control or disable your own weapons? We didn’t get any of that and instead ended up with the standard Halo, you’re fighting races of the Covenant for control of a Halo ring. It felt like a massive u-turn.
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Halo 4 had my favorite matchmaking playlist, Ricochet of all the Halo games ever. Halo 5 brought local LANs to Microsoft stores across the country and that’s what got my friends and I back into Halo. Now, with Halo Infinite my friends and I are all LANNING again for the first time since Halo 3. Each game holds a special place and is vital to the franchise.
H4 had Spartan ops which has alot of different scenarios an enemies sort of like Warzone in H5. Halo Infinite I’d rank as the best story in series simply cause it’s open world an builds off the previous games in the series. It could definitely use some modern warfare maps an weapons for the PvP section.
If only the entire Cortana subplot would make sense without them.
But yeah, Infinite’s campaign was good. A far more fitting continuation of the franchise than Halo 4 and 5 were. And it definitely tried it’s best to forget they ever happened.
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Pretty much the entirity of the campaign’s plot is about cortana.
The endless stuff is just an add for the DLC
“I give up my evil ways because honey boo boo got hurt by the dreadlocks monke!”
Her convictions are very brittle.
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Halo Infinite would make no sense if you had not played Halo 4 and 5.
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The whole drama with the Weapon centres on Chief having lost Cortana in 4 n 5. There’s a huge amount of direct quotes and call backs to both games.
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The entire set up with Infinity being destroyed and the UNSC being in this predicament is a direct consequence of stuff Cortana did in Halo 5.
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What little world building they have done, begrudgingly, does have this AI rebellion brought up.
If you chipped away all the Halo 4/5 related stuff you’re basically left with Atriox want to free squid people coz unlimited power. Ork is dying and wants to go out with a bang. He captures your friend. You kill Ork Boss and then stop squids from doing something dark side. Very shallow and they decide to undermine the vengeance angle at the end; because we aren’t supposed to hate monster that eat people and who dash the skulls of innocents off the flagstones. So it’s both poor choice and poorer parts of the story.