Since 343 is continuing the continuity of Halo 5, it’s strange how the first cutscene of Halo 6 (Infinite) is a time jump from the last time we’ve seen Chief.
From what I could understand from this cutscene, it is a significant time jump. This seems to be the case for Chief as well so the audience and Master Chief will experience the same confusion over what happened between the events of Halo 5 and Halo Infinite.
We also need to take in mind the after credits cutscene for Halo 5 and Halo Wars 2. Both of them showcasing this new Halo ring.
My theory is that Halo Infinite is the aftermath of Cortana finding the Halo ring.
The ring from Halo 5 was completely intact, this one isn’t.
Assuming this is the same ring, and the new Pilot character saying that “we’ve lost”, we are going to explore the lost history while exploring Halo again.
Basically it will be a story about finding out what happened while we’ve been floating in space. Maybe Chief will have a hard time trying to figure out what happened after Halo 5 too. Maybe they were attacked. Whatever happened, it’s clear something went down and everyone is paying for it. And it somehow relates to this new Halo.
I’ve heard talk that this will be more of a exploration type Halo game anyway, so it makes since as we explore we start to discover more and more things about what happened.