First…this is the best single-player since Reach (my favorite campaign.) Congrats 343.
Since this is going to be THE Halo platform for the next 10 years or so, with what I assume will be robust expansions, new stories, and whole new stand-alone games using the same engine…what would you guys like to see?
Here’s my list:
-The Endless. I think this is basically confirmed with 343 copy-writing the name - it’s likely the next single-player expansion. I hope they’re compelling - the Created were not. I’d like to see the actual trial of the Endless in the Silent Auditorium as a cutscene. I imagine the Harbinger was essentially their defending attorney/ambassador, hence her anger. She was clearly not their leader.
-Playable Brute expansion. Much like the Arbiter, I think it would be fun to play as a member of the Banished. Possibly it could be a story about them fighting humanity, but after Humanity takes responsibility for Cortana and…solves that particular issue, the player-character could find themselves at odds with Escharum’s obvious hatred of humans. Atriox wasn’t nearly as biased against humans, and he even accepted them into the Banished. It’d be nice to see the inverse happen from a story point of view.
-Human insurrectionist expansion. The Spartan program was originally started to quell insurrection in the outer colonies - it was a big problem. With the UNSC in tatters, it would make sense that surviving insurrectionist factions come to Zeta Halo to put the nail in the UNSC coffin. I think this would be most fun if it were told from an ODST POV, like the ODST expansion to H3. It could take place on a different part of Zeta where the Banished/Endless conflict hasn’t reached yet. An open-world campaign where a team of ODSTs is tasked with disrupting insurrectionist operations would make for a great story. It might be a good opportunity to introduce additional stealth elements too. We’ve never gotten to fight humans in Halo - I think it’s long overdue. This could nicely tie-in to ONI’s new boss, Ossman, and her team, in terms of lore. Maybe Osman has a single Spartan operating, giving missions to your team and showing up once in a while to just obliterate stuff. Sort of like Zero in the first Megaman X game…Osman’s Spartan could show up at clutch moments to progress the story or hand out missions.
-Zeta Halo prequel expansion. This idea is the most “out there.” I think the best point in the timeline to do a prequel involving Zeta would be after Mendicant Bias prevented a heavily damaged Zeta Halo from impacting with a planet. After that, the remaining Forerunners successfully re-took the Ring. Playing as a Warrior Servant, fighting to defeat and capture Mendicant, would be awesome, and something we’ve never seen from a gameplay perspective. Enemies could include the Promordial, his flood experiments in the Palace of Pain, and an expanded roster of Mendicant-controlled sentinals. It could flesh-out the history of this mysterious ring and also help set-up just how dangerous a Contender Class Forerunner AI is…since Mendicant’s replacement is heavily forshadowed in H:I. One of the reasons I loved the Reach campaign so much was that it was a tragedy, with the ultimate outcome known before the story even started…Humanity loses. This would be the same - we know that ultimately the Forerunners lost. Seeing their last big push before having to fire the rings, from a gameplay perspective, would be really cool.
That’s all I got! Interested to see what crazy ideas the rest of you have.
