The reality is, the classic Art style still holds up today, but Infinite is proof that moving to more classic Halo gameplay styles only appeases the loud minority, and that classic Halo just can’t hold up on its own in modern day.
I personally would want a soft-reboot.
Like Halo 4’s story was nice.
Halo 5’s original story was likely to be dope before the creative leads swapped around and the new heads scraped the already-established narrative for the one we got in Halo 5 Guardians.
Halo Wars 2 was dope.
Halo Infinite has its potential but the game is being held back by numerous issues within the development process and an engine upgrade that is admittedly sloppy.
I would want a soft-reboot to try and tell a more consistent and planned out narrative.
A trilogy that is actually planned out and COMMITS to the setups of the previous chapter rather than scraping it immediately in the next story arc.
Here is how I would do it - - -
Halo 4: Awakening
Basically a retelling of Halo 4’s story but without the needless retcons. Telling a very similar story while not making it needlessly linear and short, seeing as a LOT of the missions of Halo 4 felt like they were two or even three separate missions jammed into one chapter. Add in more branching paths to the topography and better A.I. combat so that fights are actually fun instead of the same experience over-and-over again as you hug your Light Rifle as it is the only reliable tool on higher difficulties.
The art style will be in the Neo-Classic art style that Halo Infinite has. Basically meaning that the MJOLNIR Gen-3 models are now known as MJOLNIR Gen-2. All of the 2012-2016 MJOLNIR Gen-II models that were made by 343 would either be given some slight redesigns or some major overhaul redesigns to better fit-in to the Neo-Classical Art Style rather than look like it entirely doesn’t belong.
The story still ends with Chief losing Cortana, showing Blue-Team reunite with John and they have a quiet moment of silence for their fallen AI companion… while still alluding to her possibly surviving as we leave a cliffhanger for Halo 5.
Halo: Spartan-Ops
Instead of being something that is directly connected to Halo 4 and bolted on, Spartan-Ops is now going to be its own spin-off title in which there will be three campaigns released.
Each of these three campaigns will focus on introducing a member of Fireteam Osiris to the fanbase, doing it in gameplay rather than books that barely anyone reads will be a better way to introduce the characters of Osiris.
The campaigns will be seen in a sort of flash-back format as Spartan Jameson Locke consults Serin Osman for approval of three Spartans to join him on his mission to eventually hunt down the Master Chief.
— CAMPAIGN No.1 - MAJESTIC —
Basically a proper redo of Spartan-Ops’ storyline. Instead of playing as random nameless Spartans in Fireteam Crimson, players will take on the role of Spartan Gabriel Thorne in Fireteam Majestic and perform proper scripted campaign missions rather than what we got in OG Spartan-Ops, which as essentially just Firefight with extra steps.
Thorne proves influential in securing the Janus Key and getting Infinity away from Requiem before it goes kaboom, but unfortunately Dr. Halsey is still wounded by Sarah Palmer and taken by the Storm Covenant.
There is also a revelation that Dr. Halsey’s fondness for Spartan Thorne is stemmed partially from the fact that he was a member of her original proposed second-class of the Spartan-II program. Funny how fate works sometimes, seeing as he still became a Spartan.
— CAMPAIGN No.2 - VIPER —
Locke expresses his necessity to have a sangheili specialist on his team. In turn, Osman presents Spartan Olympia Vale’s documentation and Locke reviews her most recent operations as a member of Spartan Fireteam Viper, a joint-task force operations team between the UNSC and Swords of Sanghelios. The story will feature Vale help to ease the trust of those skeptical of Humans still and also assist in the destruction of a new form of Superweapon that the Storm Covenant are trying to develop : The Kraken.
Fireteam Viper is made up of Spartans Olympia Vale, Leon Kateb, & Chul Kangjeon while the Sangheili members are Blademaster Usze 'Taham, Warrior-Healer Te’Ana Veran (female), and Datascribe Va’Rik Ne’munee.
— CAMPAIGN No.3 - HELLJUMPER —
Serin commends Edward Buck for his work as an ODST, citing the events in New Mombasa to show his dedication to his mission and his team. But Buck is a newly made Spartan, which has Locke skeptical. But reviewing his first mission as a Spartan eases his skepticism. Alpha-Nine is sent in on a mission to prove their worth alongside Spartan Fireteam Wolfgang. Their mission was to recover a fallen Spartan, only to find that this Fallen Spartan was actually a defector to an Insurrectionist group and as trying to get his set of MJOLNIR Armor to the rebels to reverse-engineer. Fighting against ex-covenant mercenaries and a faction of Insurrectionists, Buck proves to be capable as he captured the Innie leader, destroyed the MJOLNIR armor, and secured the Rogue Spartan while only suffering a minor casualty as J.D. “The Rookie” is merely wounded in action and now has a cool robot arm to show off.
(yes, in my proposed soft-reboot, the rookie doesn’t needlessly die).
Yes I recognize that Holly Tanaka is not mentioned.
She is still part of Fireteam Osiris, but as a peripheral operator using her tech expertise to support the the team and come in with surprise reinforcements when a couple dire moments happen during the campaign of Halo 5 as I envision it.
Halo 5: Reclamation
In my version of Halo 5’s storyline, we actually do have a dual-narrative story. This time around the proportion of missions we play as Blue Team and Fireteam Osiris is a bit more even.
17 Missions we play as Blue Team, only one of which is a “Guns Down” mission
BT PROLOGUE - EVALUATION
BT MISSION o1 - BLUE EMBERS
BT MISSION o2 - WHEN I MAKE A PROMISE…
BT MISSION o3 - A FAVOR FROM THE DEMON
BT MISSION o4 - SHARPEN THE SWORDS
BT MISSION o5 - GLASSLANDS
BT MISSION o6 - HOTFIX SHOWDOWN
BT MISSION o7 - BATTLE OF SUNAION
BT MISSION o8 - THE PUPPET GOD
BT MISSION o9 - LOCKE AND KEY
BT MISSION 10 - UNION OF JANUS
BT MISSION 11 - BRUTAL WAR
BT MISSION 12 - DECEPTION
BT MISSION 13 - NEVER LET HER GO
BT MISSION 14 - OFFENSIVE BIAS
BT MISSION 15 - MENDICANT BIAS
BT MISSION 16 - VENGEANCE AND HUBRIS
EPILOGUE - THE MANTLE OF RESPONSIBILITY
15 Missions we play as Fireteam Osiris, again only 1 “Guns Down” mission
FO PROLOGUE - OSIRIS
FO MISSION o1 - THE HUNT BEGINS
FO MISSION o2 - CONQUER THE UNCONQUERABLE
FO MISSION o3 - EARN MY TRUST
FO MISSION o4 - GLASS TRACKS
FO MISSION o5 - TARGET SIGHTED
FO MISSION o6 - TO BAIT A TRAP
FO MISSION o7 - SYMBIOSIS
FO MISSION o8 - UNION OF JANUS
FO MISSION o9 - TANGLED PUPPETS
FO MISSION 10 - REVELATION
FO MISSION 11 - KEYSHIP
FO MISSION 12 - PRAEFECTUS
FO MISSION 13 - WRATH OF A TITAN
FO MISSION 14 - S.O.S. 117
EPILOGUE - THE MANTLE OF RESPONSIBILITY
1 Mission we play as the Arbiter, which also means that yes; my versions of these games would feature playable Elites in Social playlists but not Ranked playlists. I may expand on this further, but this takes place after BT MISSION o7, directly picking up where it left off.
AR MISSION - BANE OF MY BLADE
In this version of the story, Cortana had left a fragment of herself within her A.I. chip. A fragment that had laid dormant for quite some time until it was able to piece itself together enough to contact Chief since he never operates without the chip in his head as a coping mechanism for Cortana’s loss.
The fragment claims to know a way to fix herself, having recalled a bit of lost data that it had recovered.
Chief now has three goals:
1 - He must save Dr. Halsey from the Storm Covenant and get a fresh brainscan from her for this fragment of Cortana to become more stable.
2 - He must also locate the Janus Key’s two halves in order to locate a Forerunner Keyship and then re-activate the portal to the Ark.
3 - Once on the Ark, he must locate the sealed away Mendicant Bias as the ancient Forerunner A.I. is the key to cure rampancy.
Now that Chief is AWOL, Fireteam Osiris is called in to hunt down Blue Team and try to stop them from meddling with affairs that ONI wants set in a certain way. Locke eventually grows sympathetic with Chief’s plight, only to learn that The Didact is still alive and is pulling strings to lure Chief into re-activating the portal to the Ark. The Didact seeks to merge his Composer with the Halo Array, deconstructing humanity to digital forms and be made into his slaves to rebuild the Forerunner Empire in his rendition of the Forerunner Legacy.
And what better way to further insult Humanity than have one of their greatest creations, Cortana, be reformatted into his own version of the A.I. and be an influential part in Humanity’s destruction?
Well, Hubris gets to all the villains eventually.
His reprogramming of the newly revitalized Cortana doesn’t go exactly as planned. She turns on The Didact and ends his life.
But she is no friend to Humanity. Now that A.I.s are able to cheat rampancy and death, they are the most superior form of life in the galaxy. Cortana deems herself and other A.I.s to be the ones who shall dictate order in the galaxy.
However, she is still forced to flee; knowing of something dire that can challenge her authority hidden away on Installation 07.
Halo Wars 2 is still canon in this soft-reboot, seeing as now that the Ark portal is re-opened in this version of Halo 5’s narrative, ONI sends in research teams in secret and The Banished eventually make their move and seal away the Ark; leading to the events of Halo Wars 2.
Halo Infinite is also still canon, but an update would be made to the game to do some lore fixes for the new timeline of the soft-reboot.
Whaddya think?
I disagree with this whole statement people keep regurgitating.
the gameplay in Infinite is not like the classic gameplay people were asking for, its closer to Halo 5 with the Spartan abilities and Sprint removed to create the illusion its more “classic” on top of a sandbox severely lacking the variety seen as far back as CE. Its more accurately described as a half-hearted attempt at hybridization if anything, and that’s why it drove off so many players since not committing to either one was a terrible decision.
The last game to actually nail the classic experience was Halo Online during the unofficial mod years, being an iteration upon Halo 3&ODST as Halo 3&ODST were upon Halo 2. Meanwhile 343 has consistently abandoned that gameplay since H2A was set up to fail, and pushed the same competition focused modern shooter gameplay for every title since to chase industry trends.
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Could not of put it any better my man Ravan lets party up g i got your back anytime!
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Here we go again we just reguritating that old predictble H3 again! let go and move on .
Your definition of nailed it seems a little different to mine i dnt wanna play the same H3 the maps where awsome but the game play was predictable maybe thats what your clinging on to here ! .
You definitely never played H:O/ED, if you had, you’d know it wasn’t just “predictable old Halo 3” as you called it.
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Look i am just tired of players who just wanna reboot! i mean no offence just tired of all this going back stuff lets just move into a postive space for everyone its that simple but we all need to be on the same page and make some compromises and learn to develop new skills !
For your understadning i enjoyed playing all of the Halos and never complained about any of them the only thing i had reservations for was the campaign and story like Kortana turning evil but i allways respected what was trying to be achived and felt it was allway’s going in a postive direction so my response is let the devs enjoy their work and stop being a burden on them always complaining and stuck in the past…
4 THE LOVE OF HALO
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FAil fail fail fail thats all you talk about! maybe your just talking about your personal experience here my man! please show some respect because for many its been allot of fun and i apreciate the efforts that have been learnt through the whole adventure and i stand by my team and devs! nothing but respect here .
Maybe you should show them how its done !
They should not do that for many reasons. All three of their games kinda felt like reboots trying to start trilogies that never took off. Another reboot would just end in failure, unless they rebooted completely like declaring everything 343 made not cannon.
That being said brings me to the other point. If they did declare the last 12 years of halo non cannon, I doubt they could still come up with a better story or mechanics to please most of the fans again. Big issue seems to be a problem with finding a new threat that isn’t the covenant or flood, and also has significant stakes.
Also most AAA game studios seem to be obsessed with Live services which is part of why halo 5 and 6 got a lot of flak.
A big thing to take into account is that almost every franchise (book, game, movie, comics) seems to have issues respecting the source material these days, among other things. So continuity is becoming muddled as people do whatever they want with the lore, even ignoring lore they wrote!
Whatever path they take they should probably hire people who like the Franchise first and listen to those actually buying and playing the game, instead of randos on twitter or something. Second in terms of lore, thoughtfully build the lore and stick to it. Third they should nix the Live services.
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What even is Microsofts story for Halo? It quite literally hasn’t gone anywhere since 4. You could reboot the entire thing from Halo 3, and what would you have lost?
Seriously you guys, all they did was kill Cortana, in literally the worst way possible, at the hands of a Saturday morning cartoon villain called Didact. You didn’t even get to kill him lmao. Even worse, they made her evil…
Microsoft’s writers can sod off. Just reboot it or let it die; it would be better than this mockery we’re at now between the Master Cheeks TV show and Halo Finite.
I want you to think about the story Bungie gave us, with all the depth and consistency as well as the thematics in regards to its religious connotations and depiction of power struggles, and then think, what has Microsoft done even in the slightest, which is on par.
Just compare the characters alone of Halo 1-Reach and then compare them with 4-Infinite…
Who even likes these games lmao? They are the equivalent of throw-away Marvel films now.
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Doesn’t discount the fact that H2A has always struggled to maintain playercounts.
Doesn’t discount that while Vote existed, H2A was consistently voted out in Favor of H2C or Halo 3.
Doesn’t discount the fact that for years the fans who actually loved H2A pleaded for the devs to give them the barest minimum of content, be it recycled from Halo 4 or otherwise, and were constantly ignored because the majority of players were never interested in playing H2A while Halo 3 was sharing the same roof.
Set up to fail is the most accurate statement one could make about 343’s decision to expand H2A into the MCC, so stop throwing a tantrum because people are capable of more critical analysis and don’t share the same blind fanaticism you do.
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Nobody’s having a tantrum but you my man I’m sorry but it’s time to move on to better things new worlds and species and tech story’s 
4 THE LOVE OF HALO
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sounds pretty good, but there’s one thing:
Spartan ops would need to stay about Fireteam Crimson. Spartan Ops is a story about your/the player’s character, something we don’t really get anywhere else in halo (Noble 6 does not count, his appearance as the multiplayer spartan is not canon. his canonical appearance is the default grey Mark V[B]. And he already has a pre-determined story and backstory. unlike the spartans of Crimson).
Instead of playing as Locke, I think it would maybe make more sense to have him either be a non-playable member/leader of Crimson, or, a headhunter that isn’t a member of crimson but is working with them on a few mission.
I don’t see any reason to play as Crimson at all.
Crimson’s entire purpose was to be your player spartans and it made no sense in Spartan-Ops where you were a rival team to Majestic.
For one it is immature for the commander of elite teams to have bets made and pit them against one another. That makes sense in simulated training matches but not on the field.
Secondly it was utterly pointless.
In Halo Reach you played as Noble 6 and your multiplayer appearance was used in cutscenes so that it helped put the connection that YOU were Noble 6.
But Fireteam Crimson doesn’t appear in any cutscenes.
For some reason when it comes to these multiplayer narratives that 343 is presenting, YOU are not the main character anymore but rather you are an extra in someone else’s story.
Players of Spartan-Ops played as Fireteam Crimson and out-performed Majestic in most of their ground operations; and yet Fireteam Majestic’s cast gets all the cutscene glory.
Your Spartan is used in The Academy and Lone Wolves cinematics, but the story isn’t about you. YOU are a nameless and backgroundless extra while the story is focused on Spartans Agryna, Dihn, Eklund, and whoever is going to appear in the Season 3 cinematics.
My point is that it is far less gratifying to have you be an extra in someone else’s storyline.
Imagine playing Halo CE and you were just some lucky marine who surived all the encounters and were saved by the Master Chief over and over again.
Stuck in a cell with Captain Keys? The mission starts with Chief breaking you out and then you fight your way out of the Truth & Reconciliation.
While Chief is delving into the depths of the Isle of the Silent Cartographer, you are a marine that is brought alongside him and are tasked with keeping the entrances secure while the Chief does his businness down under and then resurfaces.
Meanwhile after the player does all the hard work, the cutscenes focus entirely on Master Chief.
You make your way back to Earth, get your medals, and then the fleet start attacking the MAC stations. While chief deals with the bomb and has his cool action sequence cutscene, you were busy getting the VIPs onto the In Amber Clad and got to stand next to Johnson while he said “for a brick, he flew pretty good”.
That doesn’t sound like a satisfying experience.
The players should ALWAYS be playing as the star characters of the games and not as some random joe that sits in the sidelines of the cutscenes while the more iconic and interesting characters get to progress the story.
Unfortuantely that is what Spartan-Ops was and that is what the cutscenes of the Infinite multiplayer story get to be.
In Spartan-Ops, Thorne of Majestic says “hey what’s that?” as he looks at what your team just secured and brought on the ship; meanwhile you are nowhere to be seein.
In Infinite, our character says nothing and helps the named main characters while they do all the work to progress the story.
And that is just wrong. Why give us a story in a game and have it be one we do not have our character be one of influence?
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Given how Infinite was suppose to be the reboot, I would rather 343i and Microsoft pull a Final Fantasy 14 A Realm Reborn with Infinite.
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I don’t see any reason to play as Crimson at all.
Crimson’s entire purpose was to be your player spartans and it made no sense in Spartan-Ops where you were a rival team to Majestic.For one it is immature for the commander of elite teams to have bets made and pit them against one another. That makes sense in simulated training matches but not on the field.
But Fireteam Crimson doesn’t appear in any cutscenes.
YOU are not the main character anymore but rather you are an extra in someone else’s story.
we are taking about a speculative re-writing aren’t we. a re-write that can fix the narrative and focus issues such as these in modes like Spartan Ops.
for starters:
a good re-write of spartan ops would still feature the player’s spartan and Fireteam Crimson as the main protagonists. but this time they will be the focus of the story, not majestic. majestic would still be there, but they would be much more serious, less showboating and competitiveness, and have less prominent role. there would be in game/engine cutscenes that feature Crimson and the players’ spartans.
the player’s spartan would be silent and mainly communicate via body language, similar to the rookie from ODST.
you can still have the main character/s be both the focus of the story and be the player’s canonical multiplayer spartan. and it is the fact that it is actually our canonical multiplayer spartan that is one of the major appeals of spartan ops to those of us who actually enjoy the mode. if you replace the multiplayer spartan with a pre-existing/named character, like Locke, then it might as well not be spartan ops. in that case, it would be better as its own stand alone game, like reach, but in this case something like Halo: Fireteam Osiris.
Secondly it was utterly pointless.
In Halo Reach you played as Noble 6 and your multiplayer appearance was used in cutscenes so that it helped put the connection that YOU were Noble 6.
but is isn’t pointless.
Noble 6 is not truly the player’s spartan. his appearance as the multiplayer spartan is not his canonical appearance, instead his canonical armor is a grey Mark V[B]. he also already has a character and identity, while its not really built upon and is easy to overlook, it is there. and predetermined story, with a past, present, and a very short future. to break it down:
Noble 6:
- Canon Appearance: grey Mark V[B]
- Character/identity: name is classified but callsign is Noble 6. lone wolf personality, sharp and efficient.
story: - past: “classified”, left ambiguous but what we do know is he was involved heavily with ONI and was a pilot for the saber program
- Present: assigned to noble team, replacement for Thom, battle of Reach
- Future: MIA on Reach
lets compare that to Fireteam Crimson.
- canon appearance: the player’s spartan
- character/identity: left open for application by player, only detail is they are assigned to fireteam Crimson
story: - past: left open for player interpretation
- present: fireteam crimson, spartan ops
- future: left open for player interpretation
Firteam Crimson is a true blank slate for the player to actually become their character. it is the players armor that the spartan is actually wearing. and it is also the player’s personality that is imprinted upon the spartan. Noble 6 is Bungie’s spartan. Fireteam Crimson is the player’s spartan.
also, as an unrelated side note:
what if instead of a gen-2 armor suit, Mark VII continued as a direct continuation of the armors before it. that way, all future generation spartans at the time of halo 4 are still using “gen-1” armor. and then we could make the jump to gen-2 armors as a response to the AI uprising in halo 5.
and for fun, what if the Mark VII or later gen-2 armors were designed after the Mac World/Orion armor. would be interesting to see how the current gen-2 armors would look redesigned for that style.