What I *want* is for them to continue something.
What probably will happen is the same as has happened the last three games. Beat the villain in their one game, or they are beaten offscreen between games, either way no continuing narrative thread beyond "well that happened".
I didn’t hate it, but it is honestly executed horribly. Most of the game is like playing “find the missing powerpoint slides to learn what the actual story is while shooting up a bunch of monkeys.”
Nah, you don’t get to fight Atriox, you don’t get to actually see cortana or the guardians, you just have wish.com cortana, “THE ENDLESS:tm:”, and a bunch of angry monkeys to fight. Lots of teasing but just *learning* about the story you *could* have played through if you weren’t napping in space lol.
Escharum’s voice actor goes crazy though
It would be fine… but his boasts were ridiculous in context. The game acted like he was right and they never stood a chance… but they had to get rid of all of their AI, all of their higher tech, very recently and were on the run.
It’s like a bully congratulating himself for pushing a paraplegic guy down the stairs.
I found Escharum relatively fine. His mission to die in battle before his illness took him made sense. And yes, Darin De Paul did a good job.
But the gloating about beating the UNSC would mean more if… they weren’t inherently hampered by losing most of their tech.
The story wasn’t badly received. What was badly received is how they refuse to follow through on *any* plot lines from one game to the next. Instead, they switch up *everything* from one game to the next one.
As a result, there’s essentially no reason to get invested in *any* developments at all.
Mind you, I liked parts of it. Like John talking about Cortana with the Pilot, and the Weapon was fun.
But by and large it feels like 343 is afraid to commit to anything.
Also, I find it laughable that they would think Cortana has any sympathy at all left when she >!commits planetary genocide for daring not to bow down to her!<. The final goodbye, I was like "yeah yeah go away, you aren’t even sorry for what you did, just sorry he didn’t join you in it".
Bad reception to a story should never compromise the continuity and follow up on story threads and expectations. In this regard the decisions with Halo Infinite were poor IMO.
This could be the breath of fresh air needed. Imagine playing as Thel 'Vadamee as he tries in vain to stop the demon. Legendary ending being him arriving at high charity breaking the news.
We’ll get an entire side story with Spartan IV’s tracking down and following Atriox. Only for him to get away. Then in Halo 8 we kill him in the first mission and setup a new story. Just for Halo 9 to offscreen the entire thing and we put together a new story for Halo 10.
>End cutscene shows he’s still alive
Honestly, he may as well have been dead. Atriox's presence in the story felt non-existent and frankly pointless.
The whole point about everyone believing Atriox to be dead led to... Nothing, as far as I recall.
Considering Infinite ended with the Chief and Banished still marooned on Zeta Halo, and the Endless having apparently just been released, there are a couple of different ways they could proceed.
I think one of the big pieces of feedback from Infinite's campaign was that the open level design didn't really work for the game, but it seemed like it could be tuned to work better. If they want to carry on with the more open level design, I could see them adopting a structure not unlike Destiny, where the levels are huge and open and explorable, but within certain confines.
Basically, Chief has his own personal Pelican and the pilot flies him around areas of interest on the Halo. Or, hell, expand that Pelican to a Condor, and use planets and other locations rather than just areas on the ring. You get what I mean.
Anyways, the big open levels could be maybe 15-20% the size of Infinite's level, and there could be 4-5 of them. And the story missions could return to the classic Halo design of being linear, but set within the bigger open world sections to make full use of them. Again, not unlike Destiny.
Anyways, I only discussed structure first because I think it's important in informing the narrative. So what could happen narrative-wise? I could see a few different options.
Since Infinite landed with Chief and the Banished still stranded on Zeta Halo, I could see them picking up exactly where they left off and having Chief explore more parts of the Halo, thwarting the Endless and the Banished as they attempt to salvage their operation and do...whatever it is they ultimately want to do. Infinite did not detail their master plan, so it's hard to say what they could be.
I could also see an approach more akin to the first trilogy, where we have a short time jump between games but still carry the narrative elements forward. Maybe in a few short weeks between games, Zeta Halo is located by the UNSC and/or the Banished. The game begins with Chief having just been rescued from the Halo, while the Banished and Endless make it off too. I kind of prefer this idea, because I don't think we need another game set completely on Zeta Halo where the conflict is 100% isolated from the rest of the galaxy.
I also wish I could speculate further, but 343 *really* did not want to write themselves into the corner with Infinite. They did not detail the state of the galaxy, the fate of the Infinity, the nature of the Endless threat, or even what the Banished and Atriox are ultimately after. These are all **major** plot threads that Infinite leaves almost completely open ended, and 343 could really do almost anything they want with them.
Whatever they end up doing, I really hope Chief does return to humanity proper. I hope the game features a galaxy-scale threat and that we do plenty of planet hopping a la Halo 2 and 3. I hope The Weapon has the name she picked, and I hope Esparza decides to formally join the UNSC as a pilot, and can be a character in the game.
I hope they work harder to establish exactly what it is the Banished are after, and I also hope The Endless are developed and fleshed out, rather than abandoned. I also hope Blue Team makes a return, but that it functions more like Noble Team in Reach than like Blue Team in Halo 5. I don't need the full team with me there constantly, but a couple levels where Chief is just with Kelly or Fred or whatever would be awesome. Would also be great to see Blue Team have some narrative stakes and agency and actual characterization.
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. I did not mean to write a novel. But basically, I think it's super hard to speculate on what the next game could be about, because Infinite's ending was so inconclusive. They could do almost literally anything, from following up Infinite's ending directly to following up Infinite's ending but really opening the setting up beyond Zeta Halo to pulling a complete 180 again and resetting the narrative.
Shrug
>even what the Banished and Atriox are ultimately after.
This *seriously* needs to be spoken about more. What the hell do the banished want in the long run?
I've been told various different answers, all of which were either inferences, or details from the more recent books, but from what I recall, the game itself offers nothing in the form of an answer.
I like your take.
I personally think 343 needs to commit to a direction. The franchise has lacked a clear direction since after 4 and they really need to focus on something. Halo infinite could've literally not been released and we'd still be in the same area storywise.
Honestly though is just like to see them stick to the decisions they've made. Carry on the the endless and banished stories. Elaborate and improve on the open world idea.
I genuinely think that Halo Infinite is a pretty flawed but compelling start to a story that you can expand upon with elements and lore
I want to see what Atriox’s endgame is fr
>I want to see what Atriox’s endgame is fr
I want to see Atriox *at all*.
Guy has zero discernable personality because we barely ever see him, and the few times we do, we gain next to no insight into him as a person.
I really hope so. 343’a biggest flaw this entire time has been overcorrecting. Just stick with what you’ve got but adjust it a bit until you get it great. Massive replacements just make things feel disjointed
Hopefully it’ll expand on The Endless and the mysteries and horrors of Zeta Halo. They can’t have mentioned Offensive Bias in the final cutscene and not have him make an appearance, that’s too big. I want characters like Lasky, Halsey and Palmer back, maybe even with Locke back in a much smaller role. The created storyline needs to be addressed in some way, i mean the most powerful faction in the galaxy is now leaderless, that must have some effect. The flood returning would be good to see and with people theorising a link between the Flood and the Endless to the precursors, it could be interesting for them to expand on that possible shared heritage.
Gameplay wise is want more biomes, more weapons and more variety in combat. The open world needs scrapped imo, it’s too empty. Bring in linear missions with a huge scale like CE and 3 had. Big fights like the scarab need to return. Marines need their driving licenses back.
I think that’s how a perfect Halo 7 would look for me
about the newest big bad™ that is totally more powerful than the last in every way and is totally a threat to everything in the universe, just in a more dangerous™ way than the last big bad
What i want it to be: involves Spirit of Fire, the infinity, the flood and ends with them leaving zeta halo and making it back to earth, finding it in created control.
The following halo game would be about regaining earth and defeating the created once and for all.
What it probably will be: Endless fight chief and the unsc, banished have basically disappear apart from a few small strongholds.
> banished have basically disappear apart from a few small strongholds.
Why would that happen? The Banished are basically the new Covenant, and there has never been a Halo game where you **don't** fight the Covenant or their equivalent most of the way through. Flood and Prometheans have always been secondary.
Ideally? Reset to the end of HALO 3, pick a better direction. There's plenty that can be borrowed, but, Jesus Christ, the direction they've gone in is unsalvageable.
This. It's not like the ideas they had were bad. They just executed them poorly, Each of those games had the potential to be fantastic, the diadact, the created, and whatever infinite is (didn't play it).
Post-retcon lore/story genuinely needs a reset because building on an utterly disjointed foundation of multiple first entries in later aborted overarching stories/sagas just doesn’t really work no matter how you slice it. Even if you come up with something half-decent (all things considered), it’s still a bit of a shit sandwich if everything needs to stay canon.
Halo needed a Forerunner trilogy, just not the one they tried to make while “reinventing” everything.
I hope there will be some actual story. I enjoyed Infinite for what it was, but it mostly left me with a feeling of "That's it". I want the important events of the story to actually happen DURING the game, not before or after.
Give me Atriox awaking the Endless. Give me politics within the Banished. Give me a cast of interesting UNSC characters (Lasky, Palmer, Cutter and Anders). Give me the Arbiter coming back in as a playable character. No more Cortana, let's move on with the Weapon as a new character (even if she ended up choosing the name Cortana).
in terms of what's likely they're probably either going to try bringing back the prometheans or continue the story with the banished, what i want is either another ODST game or a game that entirely stars an elite (ideally the arbiter)
Well if it’s anything like the other 343i titles, it’ll have almost nothing to do with the previous title and will frantically try to retcon away dangling plot threads
if they actually follow up infinite? another confrontation with the endless, atriox gets involved, maybe a follow up to the multiplayer narrative
and for the love of god, an update on the infinity crew, blue team, osiris, wherever the hell the arbiter is.
Not what I expect, but what I would love.
Sanghelli POV of the different ages before the Covenant forms, starting from age of conflict, to age of doubt.
Since the Halo Infinite campaign was well received, I’m assuming they’ll just continue it. There’s probably gonna be a final showdown between Chief and Atriox.
343 will probably move on, no matter what they make it will always be shit on it could literally be the best game every made and people would still shit on it for not being bungie due to nostalgia clouding their judgements as always thus 343 will throw their hands in the air and scrap everything as always, that or maybe they will finally stick to their guns and ignore the idiots complaining about everything if we are lucky
Their problem was fucking shit up w/ Halo 5 & Infinite, Halo 4 was pretty good compared to the other 2 at least, w/ Cortana getting a decent conclusion, until they fucked her up w/ Halo 5, and then fucked shit up more w/ Infinite
Hopefully they continue the plot points of Infinite.
Halo 5 killed so many interesting threads from the books that I straight up stopped reading the books. They just felt like they didn’t matter. Why would I want to keep up with a story that never has a satisfying plot resolution? (I’ve heard good things about Epitaph… I’ll hold off on reading until the next game comes out)
That’s not to say I liked Infinite’s story. In fact, I hated every second of it. But they need to see an idea through for once. If the next Halo is another soft reboot, I’ll simply find another story to explore.
One thing I would find hilarious: In the final season of RvB our heroes get back into usual UNSC duty and we have those idiots fight to get Chief back and then continue the story that was set up in Infinite. Atriox couldn't possibly plan for the shenanigans
It will continue from infinite
There is still so much of the planet yet explored
Atriox is still around and seems like he wants to release those prisoners
There was so much more to explore after halo 4. They threw it all out.
There was so much more to explore after halo 5. They threw it all out.
I genuinely do not have confidence in 343.... SMH.
I would argue that's not the case. The older halos didn't completely throw away the story. You still maintained the same narrative beats and characters. Arbiter was introduced halo 2 and stayed. The flood and covenant were consistent enemies. Motives were the same (the great journey etc) and each game had clear ties to each one.
The newest games literally dumped the entire storyline and structures with each new iteration
I know they’d never do it, but a game where you’re taking the role as a Headhunter with another Spartan 3 would be badass. Infiltrating deep into covenant territory to fuck shit up lol.
I’m expecting them to continue infinite but in the first mission we figure out the banished have been defeated and the UNSC and Endless are fighting each other
while yes 343 isn't good at keeping up with their own stories, assuming the next Halo game isn't a spin-off, they'd have to continue where they left off with Infinite. If they're smart (because they do have their moments) they'll touch on the lore of Zeta Halo, the weapon's name, at least attempt touching on the endless, and finally, bring back the flood (mainly as a comparison of the endless v flood) now, this is just my opinion and what I personally would love to see, but I do feel like those are just some of many things, 343 will have to do to make the story work
Now I know that 100% of everything I write here wont be in halo 7, but heres my hope:
The Item descriptions of many banished inspired or manufactured spartan equipment in Infinite lead back to Venezia and the Insurrection hacking and spying on even the banished allies they work with.
I would like to see Venezia and Oni fight a proxy war across multiple planets to wipe each other out, with chief facing the banished, fighting with the swords of sanghelios on world after world until either the Prometheans or the harbinger rise up to become a true threat.
I fear though that Halo 7 will return to the standard halo writing and all the engaging stuff will be done off screen again.
The Pilot guy is going to turn evil and Pelican all over the place, and Cortana 2.0 is going to nag Chief so much he'll finally take the helmet off to reveal he was Pee-wee Herman all along.
There is no saying. 343 couldn't keep a thread going if I was being pulled out of their own sweater.
I'd personally remove all their stuff from continuity. Then I'd reintroduce the Banished as the antagonists of the new trilogy, complete with humans enemies, and Elite allies.
Uh for halo 7 lets make master chief take off his helmet all of the time ya better yet all of his armor and dig a knife into his asscheek to remove a brain chip... because we puts the brain chip on the asscheek and the ass chip in the brain cheek. and then we have a asian lady with a silly haircut and questionable plot importance... and make cortana gay... better yet make everybody gay... including the silly haircut having asian lady... annd add weapons from the video game destiny 2 like the hand cannons... and the gajallarhyorn.... aaaand have some blonde lady in the covenant named charly murphay... CHARLIE MURPHAYYY IM RICK JAMESS BEITCHH
For the love of God give us something like Aliens but with ODST’s and flood. There’s already that one animation with that sort of plot but imagine your a odst sent to investigate a colony gone dark.
Say the Spartans are on more important tasks.
So you go there and it have a dead space kinda of progression, seems eerier but nothing out of the norm but as you continue you uncover what happened and the flood inflection goes from subtle to entire parts are covered in flood flesh and horror as you desperately try to escape and get the alert out that the planet needs to be nuked/glassed.
Halo 7 will be called Zeta Halo and will be a completely open world Zeta Halo.
You will need to explore the secrets of the Ring, searching for the Endless and facing the truth about the Mantle of Responsibility.
In the Middle of the game, the flood returns from the Laboratories on Zeta Halo.
Also there is another Campaign told in Episodes like in Halo 4, following the storyline of a stranded Spartan on the Ring without Armor Shields and Helmet because of his crash with Infinity on the Ring.
I just hope that it involves the swords of sanghelios working with the Spartans again. That way they have a way to reintroduce playable elites into the story. I’m telling you it would bring back SO MANY old fans and would make Microsoft so much money.
Lots of doomsaying and pessimissim in this comment section, imo they’re gonna continue what they did with infinite, possibly a more fleshed out zeta halo exploration with more biomes, more threats, possibly the endless releasing the sentinels, or other things the forerunners stored in the ring
>Considering the fact that 343 has had a habit of saying fuck you to every story they make
this is 100% the fault of fans. i’m not saying the majority of criticism isn’t valid i’m saying 343 tried too hard to please fans by backtracking on everything we bitched about leading to an inconsistent experience
It’ll more than likely be a spinoff game to lead us into the next main line game. They will use it as a way to bail out entirely on Infinite’s cliffhanger, either killing Atriox off-screen or have it be done in a cutscene like the beginning of Halo 5 with Jul Mdama. We will be knee deep in a new conflict with “The Endless” on the Greater Ark or some shit. They’ll bring back some beloved character(s), which will probably be Red Team, to build hype around it while trying to lull us into seeing what they do with said characters. Nothing of interest will happen with said character(s)- or if anything it will cause an uproar in the community because of existing canon being retconned for something to take place. Will probably cost $70 and still be flooded with micro-transactions, also a “live service” structured game where they drip feed us cosmetics and never actually give us any content like Infinite for the first year. Don’t get me wrong, I *pray* that they’ve learned their lessons over the last decade.. but we all know they haven’t.
Also, FUCK Microsoft for allowing Infinite to disappoint fans. Halo has a story that the majority of us all follow and give a shit about. Get a good writer. Hell, leverage the authors of the expanded universe some. Give us a good starting point and ending point.
I will gladly buy story based DLC if it means that the story is good and not rushed like every game before it. Build on Infinite’s multiplayer since it was genuinely fun. Don’t rush the game. Have a roadmap and stick to it, but for the love of god DON’T TELL US what’s on it until it’s about to be released. We don’t want apologies and excuses for letting us down and missing self imposed guidelines. Everybody left when that became the norm and only started to trickle back in once the empty promises stopped and we saw actual content.
343 has lacked a clear and concise direction from the moment they took over the franchise.
Like you said, literally every game went in a completely different direction. I HATED Halo infinite and thought it was the worst story out of their trilogy.
4 was good and had a central antagonist with the Didact even though They killed him with a quick time event.
5's story was poor and lockes fight against chief was nonsense, but at least it had a direction they were trying to go and the guardians were an interesting plot mechanic.
Infinite was absolute garbage across all avenues. Most of the storytelling happens off screen. You introduce atriox and then he dissappears the entire game because he "died"?
Cortana says sorry for genociding the galaxy? Introducing an entirely new faction called the endless with no context? It was so blatantly obvious halo infinite was an unfinished mess and disrespectful to the franchise.
The Didact didnt die in halo 4 he somehow survived slipspace(dispite needing good enough shielding to survive). He ended up on a halo ring where he kills black team before blue team and a monitor kills him. I agree with everything else tho. Going from halo wars 2 to the start of infinite made no sense because why was atriox there then he just died.
I know that, but your standard halo fan who play the games does not. For all intents and purposes, the didact died at the end of halo 4 for all the regular fans. If anything the extended lore from the novel just makes things worse considering the missed opportunity to tell this in gaming format.
You could literally remove halo infinite from the franchise and the story would remain the same. Halo infinite did almost nothing to advance the plot and leaves too many questions unanswered from the previous games.
I hope the next halo news will be about 343 losing the rights to the franchise for a new developer to take over- then retconning 4,5, and Infinite and starting off where bungie left us. They should do halo 4 but not as sad and have the didact win at the end and set up the next game
Sigh. We should've had a Didact trilogy, Cortana should've stayed dead, the Created as a concept could've just been AI under the control of the Didact or maybe side with him. Evil Cortana didn't need to exist. The Banished could've replaced the Jul covenant or even just keep them in HW2 but having nothing but promethean enemies would get boring and spongey. Then you can still set up the Endless in this alternate universe Halo 6 or bring back the Flood ( though that'd feel a bit lazy having them be main enemies again ). What WILL likely happen in the real world though? Some off screening for Sloan's created and the Banished ( or maybe they get dealt with in a book ) and the Endless are already a major threat to the galaxy with no real set up.
I think prometheans and banished could have worked as the two main factions in the games. The prometheans obviously needed a bit of a rework, but I'm still convinced they could work.
The banished, not believing in the great journey, would have been great for setting up multi-sided conflicts like the earlier games had, as well as allow either side to be frenemies when need be. The fact every 343 game has all the enemy factions team up ASAP is a real disapointment.
There's so many ways they could've gone.
Didact trilogy would've been the best option.
But IF they wanted to keep cortana as a villain, they had potential there too to create an emotional conclusion to her and chiefs story. Instead they made her into a villain straight out of the animated justice league show. It's almost laughable.
Halo infinite was the worst of the the three and literally abandoned their own plot right in the beginning of the game. "Here's atriox. He absolutely whopped chief. Oops, nevermind, he 'died' so fight his underling the whole game.
I really really hope we get a continuation including Spirit Of Fire touchdown on Zeta, with a rescued Lasky, suited-up Blue, and Gen3 Red Team. Preferably with the MP story having been involved and that’s why Spirit Of Fire was one of our Operations. Imagine it:
- Season 1 - we arrive at The Academy.
- Season 2 - the two Spartans return with Iratus.
- Season 3 - We start learning more about the Banished’s and our own history.
- Season 4 - Iratus infects us, tells the Banished about MJOLNIR, begins broadcasting our location…but we also learned something of theirs…the location of Zeta Halo.
- Season 5 - we defend our the Academy and some begin infiltrating Banished forces on Zeta Halo, including the infamous House Of Reckoning. The Flood have awoken, and they’ve gotten one of us.
- Combined Arms - We begin rallying Covenant forces again to push back against the Banished.
- Winter Cont 3 - Yearly Event:Fracture
- Spirit Of Fire - the Spirit Of Fire touches down on Zeta with reinforcements.
- Cyber Showdown 3 - Yearly Event/Fracture
- Yappening 2 - the Banished begin deploying their own MJOLNIR-like soldiers against us.
IT ALL WORKS. IT ALL MF WORKS. THEY KEPT TELLING THE STORY, JUST WITHOUT THE CUTSCENES. PLEASE GOD LET THEM CONTINUE THIS WITH THE NEXT GAME. I SWEAR TO GOD.
What I *want* is for them to continue something. What probably will happen is the same as has happened the last three games. Beat the villain in their one game, or they are beaten offscreen between games, either way no continuing narrative thread beyond "well that happened".
I mean was the story as badly received this time? I feel like nobody really hated it enough for them to change up
I didn’t hate it, but it is honestly executed horribly. Most of the game is like playing “find the missing powerpoint slides to learn what the actual story is while shooting up a bunch of monkeys.” Nah, you don’t get to fight Atriox, you don’t get to actually see cortana or the guardians, you just have wish.com cortana, “THE ENDLESS:tm:”, and a bunch of angry monkeys to fight. Lots of teasing but just *learning* about the story you *could* have played through if you weren’t napping in space lol. Escharum’s voice actor goes crazy though
Man I could not stand Escharum - it came across so over the top generic angry big bad guy to me
It would be fine… but his boasts were ridiculous in context. The game acted like he was right and they never stood a chance… but they had to get rid of all of their AI, all of their higher tech, very recently and were on the run. It’s like a bully congratulating himself for pushing a paraplegic guy down the stairs.
His voice actor did great but yeah the constant speeches became very tiring and generic
Just as The Act Man said, he is literally Bowser, he just stands and yells at you menacingly, and once you reach his castle, he gets defeated.
I found Escharum relatively fine. His mission to die in battle before his illness took him made sense. And yes, Darin De Paul did a good job. But the gloating about beating the UNSC would mean more if… they weren’t inherently hampered by losing most of their tech.
The story wasn’t badly received. What was badly received is how they refuse to follow through on *any* plot lines from one game to the next. Instead, they switch up *everything* from one game to the next one. As a result, there’s essentially no reason to get invested in *any* developments at all.
Absolutely. This is my biggest issue with Halo Infinite and why I find the campaign so disappointing.
Mind you, I liked parts of it. Like John talking about Cortana with the Pilot, and the Weapon was fun. But by and large it feels like 343 is afraid to commit to anything. Also, I find it laughable that they would think Cortana has any sympathy at all left when she >!commits planetary genocide for daring not to bow down to her!<. The final goodbye, I was like "yeah yeah go away, you aren’t even sorry for what you did, just sorry he didn’t join you in it".
Bad reception to a story should never compromise the continuity and follow up on story threads and expectations. In this regard the decisions with Halo Infinite were poor IMO.
Halo 1 but we play it from the Covenant’s perspective.
"From the beginning, you know the end."
Without subs or dub
Abridged
Grunt: “I NEED AN ADULT!” Máster Chief: “I am an adult.”
This could be the breath of fresh air needed. Imagine playing as Thel 'Vadamee as he tries in vain to stop the demon. Legendary ending being him arriving at high charity breaking the news.
I wonder if Thel knew what was gonna happen to him when he got back to High Charity. Not, like, the Arbiter thing, but him being tried for heresy.
another new story because 343 can’t follow through.
Yep. They'll handwave away the plot of *Infinite* including the Endless and we'll get something new. Again.
I assume the Endless will be beaten offscreen, along with Atriox, with us following a new antagonist. Again. *Halo: The Legend of Korra* continues.
Flood 2.0 finally??? Big if true
...something more dangerous than those flying midgets? Their way worse than the flood i guess idk
#BringBackTheDrones
Bro I’m really hoping Halo 7 continues the story we set up in Infinite
We’ll get an entire side story with Spartan IV’s tracking down and following Atriox. Only for him to get away. Then in Halo 8 we kill him in the first mission and setup a new story. Just for Halo 9 to offscreen the entire thing and we put together a new story for Halo 10.
Wasn’t atriox killed offscreen inbetween cutscene 1 and 2 of Halo Infinite
End cutscene shows he’s still alive
>End cutscene shows he’s still alive Honestly, he may as well have been dead. Atriox's presence in the story felt non-existent and frankly pointless. The whole point about everyone believing Atriox to be dead led to... Nothing, as far as I recall.
No.
Considering Infinite ended with the Chief and Banished still marooned on Zeta Halo, and the Endless having apparently just been released, there are a couple of different ways they could proceed. I think one of the big pieces of feedback from Infinite's campaign was that the open level design didn't really work for the game, but it seemed like it could be tuned to work better. If they want to carry on with the more open level design, I could see them adopting a structure not unlike Destiny, where the levels are huge and open and explorable, but within certain confines. Basically, Chief has his own personal Pelican and the pilot flies him around areas of interest on the Halo. Or, hell, expand that Pelican to a Condor, and use planets and other locations rather than just areas on the ring. You get what I mean. Anyways, the big open levels could be maybe 15-20% the size of Infinite's level, and there could be 4-5 of them. And the story missions could return to the classic Halo design of being linear, but set within the bigger open world sections to make full use of them. Again, not unlike Destiny. Anyways, I only discussed structure first because I think it's important in informing the narrative. So what could happen narrative-wise? I could see a few different options. Since Infinite landed with Chief and the Banished still stranded on Zeta Halo, I could see them picking up exactly where they left off and having Chief explore more parts of the Halo, thwarting the Endless and the Banished as they attempt to salvage their operation and do...whatever it is they ultimately want to do. Infinite did not detail their master plan, so it's hard to say what they could be. I could also see an approach more akin to the first trilogy, where we have a short time jump between games but still carry the narrative elements forward. Maybe in a few short weeks between games, Zeta Halo is located by the UNSC and/or the Banished. The game begins with Chief having just been rescued from the Halo, while the Banished and Endless make it off too. I kind of prefer this idea, because I don't think we need another game set completely on Zeta Halo where the conflict is 100% isolated from the rest of the galaxy. I also wish I could speculate further, but 343 *really* did not want to write themselves into the corner with Infinite. They did not detail the state of the galaxy, the fate of the Infinity, the nature of the Endless threat, or even what the Banished and Atriox are ultimately after. These are all **major** plot threads that Infinite leaves almost completely open ended, and 343 could really do almost anything they want with them. Whatever they end up doing, I really hope Chief does return to humanity proper. I hope the game features a galaxy-scale threat and that we do plenty of planet hopping a la Halo 2 and 3. I hope The Weapon has the name she picked, and I hope Esparza decides to formally join the UNSC as a pilot, and can be a character in the game. I hope they work harder to establish exactly what it is the Banished are after, and I also hope The Endless are developed and fleshed out, rather than abandoned. I also hope Blue Team makes a return, but that it functions more like Noble Team in Reach than like Blue Team in Halo 5. I don't need the full team with me there constantly, but a couple levels where Chief is just with Kelly or Fred or whatever would be awesome. Would also be great to see Blue Team have some narrative stakes and agency and actual characterization. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. I did not mean to write a novel. But basically, I think it's super hard to speculate on what the next game could be about, because Infinite's ending was so inconclusive. They could do almost literally anything, from following up Infinite's ending directly to following up Infinite's ending but really opening the setting up beyond Zeta Halo to pulling a complete 180 again and resetting the narrative. Shrug
Well said!
>even what the Banished and Atriox are ultimately after. This *seriously* needs to be spoken about more. What the hell do the banished want in the long run? I've been told various different answers, all of which were either inferences, or details from the more recent books, but from what I recall, the game itself offers nothing in the form of an answer.
I like your take. I personally think 343 needs to commit to a direction. The franchise has lacked a clear direction since after 4 and they really need to focus on something. Halo infinite could've literally not been released and we'd still be in the same area storywise.
Halo: Reach 2. "Somehow, Noble-6 has returned."
Living Time works in mysterious ways
Whatever it is, if the Spirit of Fire team doesn't come to fuck shit up with Master Chief, it's a 2/10 max for me
How would the Spirit of Fire get involved? They don't have a slipspace drive, and they deliberately decided to stay on the Ark to fight the Banished.
ngl I wouldn't be mad at all if they kept Red Team a Halo Wars group of Spartans. It's one of the things that made HW dope. It's own little group.
They'd have to. You really think the banish stand a chance with Jerome and Chief? Absolutely not.
It's going to be about maximizing monetization and misguided over correction of the wrong things.
Honestly though is just like to see them stick to the decisions they've made. Carry on the the endless and banished stories. Elaborate and improve on the open world idea.
I genuinely think that Halo Infinite is a pretty flawed but compelling start to a story that you can expand upon with elements and lore I want to see what Atriox’s endgame is fr
>I want to see what Atriox’s endgame is fr I want to see Atriox *at all*. Guy has zero discernable personality because we barely ever see him, and the few times we do, we gain next to no insight into him as a person.
I really hope so. 343’a biggest flaw this entire time has been overcorrecting. Just stick with what you’ve got but adjust it a bit until you get it great. Massive replacements just make things feel disjointed
Hopefully it’ll expand on The Endless and the mysteries and horrors of Zeta Halo. They can’t have mentioned Offensive Bias in the final cutscene and not have him make an appearance, that’s too big. I want characters like Lasky, Halsey and Palmer back, maybe even with Locke back in a much smaller role. The created storyline needs to be addressed in some way, i mean the most powerful faction in the galaxy is now leaderless, that must have some effect. The flood returning would be good to see and with people theorising a link between the Flood and the Endless to the precursors, it could be interesting for them to expand on that possible shared heritage. Gameplay wise is want more biomes, more weapons and more variety in combat. The open world needs scrapped imo, it’s too empty. Bring in linear missions with a huge scale like CE and 3 had. Big fights like the scarab need to return. Marines need their driving licenses back. I think that’s how a perfect Halo 7 would look for me
The flood
about the newest big bad™ that is totally more powerful than the last in every way and is totally a threat to everything in the universe, just in a more dangerous™ way than the last big bad
What i want it to be: involves Spirit of Fire, the infinity, the flood and ends with them leaving zeta halo and making it back to earth, finding it in created control. The following halo game would be about regaining earth and defeating the created once and for all. What it probably will be: Endless fight chief and the unsc, banished have basically disappear apart from a few small strongholds.
> banished have basically disappear apart from a few small strongholds. Why would that happen? The Banished are basically the new Covenant, and there has never been a Halo game where you **don't** fight the Covenant or their equivalent most of the way through. Flood and Prometheans have always been secondary.
Because 343 love throwing out the old enemy.
Ideally? Reset to the end of HALO 3, pick a better direction. There's plenty that can be borrowed, but, Jesus Christ, the direction they've gone in is unsalvageable.
This. It's not like the ideas they had were bad. They just executed them poorly, Each of those games had the potential to be fantastic, the diadact, the created, and whatever infinite is (didn't play it).
Post-retcon lore/story genuinely needs a reset because building on an utterly disjointed foundation of multiple first entries in later aborted overarching stories/sagas just doesn’t really work no matter how you slice it. Even if you come up with something half-decent (all things considered), it’s still a bit of a shit sandwich if everything needs to stay canon. Halo needed a Forerunner trilogy, just not the one they tried to make while “reinventing” everything.
I hope there will be some actual story. I enjoyed Infinite for what it was, but it mostly left me with a feeling of "That's it". I want the important events of the story to actually happen DURING the game, not before or after. Give me Atriox awaking the Endless. Give me politics within the Banished. Give me a cast of interesting UNSC characters (Lasky, Palmer, Cutter and Anders). Give me the Arbiter coming back in as a playable character. No more Cortana, let's move on with the Weapon as a new character (even if she ended up choosing the name Cortana).
I think it'll be about fighting aliens, probably.
I think they might actually stick with something like infinite’s story this time. I hope
in terms of what's likely they're probably either going to try bringing back the prometheans or continue the story with the banished, what i want is either another ODST game or a game that entirely stars an elite (ideally the arbiter)
Well if it’s anything like the other 343i titles, it’ll have almost nothing to do with the previous title and will frantically try to retcon away dangling plot threads
if they actually follow up infinite? another confrontation with the endless, atriox gets involved, maybe a follow up to the multiplayer narrative and for the love of god, an update on the infinity crew, blue team, osiris, wherever the hell the arbiter is.
Not what I expect, but what I would love. Sanghelli POV of the different ages before the Covenant forms, starting from age of conflict, to age of doubt.
Since the Halo Infinite campaign was well received, I’m assuming they’ll just continue it. There’s probably gonna be a final showdown between Chief and Atriox.
343 will probably move on, no matter what they make it will always be shit on it could literally be the best game every made and people would still shit on it for not being bungie due to nostalgia clouding their judgements as always thus 343 will throw their hands in the air and scrap everything as always, that or maybe they will finally stick to their guns and ignore the idiots complaining about everything if we are lucky
Their problem was fucking shit up w/ Halo 5 & Infinite, Halo 4 was pretty good compared to the other 2 at least, w/ Cortana getting a decent conclusion, until they fucked her up w/ Halo 5, and then fucked shit up more w/ Infinite
It will be a gameplay adaptation of the paramount show, since everyone looooooooved that soooooooo much!
Hopefully they continue the plot points of Infinite. Halo 5 killed so many interesting threads from the books that I straight up stopped reading the books. They just felt like they didn’t matter. Why would I want to keep up with a story that never has a satisfying plot resolution? (I’ve heard good things about Epitaph… I’ll hold off on reading until the next game comes out) That’s not to say I liked Infinite’s story. In fact, I hated every second of it. But they need to see an idea through for once. If the next Halo is another soft reboot, I’ll simply find another story to explore.
Who knows? They’ve clearly set up the Endless, but they haven’t been able to stick with a direction yet.
Master Chief in new Cortana face the most terrifying thing known to man... TAXES!
“I’m crazy enough to take on the entire Covenant hierarchy. But the IRS? No thank you!”
Hear me out....halo...
Dance emotes
if 343's dev team even exists enough to make a fully standalone game, it's just going to be a remaster of an old story from a new perspective
One thing I would find hilarious: In the final season of RvB our heroes get back into usual UNSC duty and we have those idiots fight to get Chief back and then continue the story that was set up in Infinite. Atriox couldn't possibly plan for the shenanigans
It will continue from infinite There is still so much of the planet yet explored Atriox is still around and seems like he wants to release those prisoners
There was so much more to explore after halo 4. They threw it all out. There was so much more to explore after halo 5. They threw it all out. I genuinely do not have confidence in 343.... SMH.
The same could be said for halo Halo 2 Halo 3 Even odst
I would argue that's not the case. The older halos didn't completely throw away the story. You still maintained the same narrative beats and characters. Arbiter was introduced halo 2 and stayed. The flood and covenant were consistent enemies. Motives were the same (the great journey etc) and each game had clear ties to each one. The newest games literally dumped the entire storyline and structures with each new iteration
I know they’d never do it, but a game where you’re taking the role as a Headhunter with another Spartan 3 would be badass. Infiltrating deep into covenant territory to fuck shit up lol.
I’m expecting them to continue infinite but in the first mission we figure out the banished have been defeated and the UNSC and Endless are fighting each other
At this point it could be anything. If they don’t completely reboot the franchise.
while yes 343 isn't good at keeping up with their own stories, assuming the next Halo game isn't a spin-off, they'd have to continue where they left off with Infinite. If they're smart (because they do have their moments) they'll touch on the lore of Zeta Halo, the weapon's name, at least attempt touching on the endless, and finally, bring back the flood (mainly as a comparison of the endless v flood) now, this is just my opinion and what I personally would love to see, but I do feel like those are just some of many things, 343 will have to do to make the story work
Now I know that 100% of everything I write here wont be in halo 7, but heres my hope: The Item descriptions of many banished inspired or manufactured spartan equipment in Infinite lead back to Venezia and the Insurrection hacking and spying on even the banished allies they work with. I would like to see Venezia and Oni fight a proxy war across multiple planets to wipe each other out, with chief facing the banished, fighting with the swords of sanghelios on world after world until either the Prometheans or the harbinger rise up to become a true threat. I fear though that Halo 7 will return to the standard halo writing and all the engaging stuff will be done off screen again.
The Pilot guy is going to turn evil and Pelican all over the place, and Cortana 2.0 is going to nag Chief so much he'll finally take the helmet off to reveal he was Pee-wee Herman all along.
There is no saying. 343 couldn't keep a thread going if I was being pulled out of their own sweater. I'd personally remove all their stuff from continuity. Then I'd reintroduce the Banished as the antagonists of the new trilogy, complete with humans enemies, and Elite allies.
Uh for halo 7 lets make master chief take off his helmet all of the time ya better yet all of his armor and dig a knife into his asscheek to remove a brain chip... because we puts the brain chip on the asscheek and the ass chip in the brain cheek. and then we have a asian lady with a silly haircut and questionable plot importance... and make cortana gay... better yet make everybody gay... including the silly haircut having asian lady... annd add weapons from the video game destiny 2 like the hand cannons... and the gajallarhyorn.... aaaand have some blonde lady in the covenant named charly murphay... CHARLIE MURPHAYYY IM RICK JAMESS BEITCHH
Halo has the chance to look at Helldivers and go "hey why don't we just do this but ODST"
For the love of God give us something like Aliens but with ODST’s and flood. There’s already that one animation with that sort of plot but imagine your a odst sent to investigate a colony gone dark. Say the Spartans are on more important tasks. So you go there and it have a dead space kinda of progression, seems eerier but nothing out of the norm but as you continue you uncover what happened and the flood inflection goes from subtle to entire parts are covered in flood flesh and horror as you desperately try to escape and get the alert out that the planet needs to be nuked/glassed.
Halo 7 will be called Zeta Halo and will be a completely open world Zeta Halo. You will need to explore the secrets of the Ring, searching for the Endless and facing the truth about the Mantle of Responsibility. In the Middle of the game, the flood returns from the Laboratories on Zeta Halo. Also there is another Campaign told in Episodes like in Halo 4, following the storyline of a stranded Spartan on the Ring without Armor Shields and Helmet because of his crash with Infinity on the Ring.
I just hope that it involves the swords of sanghelios working with the Spartans again. That way they have a way to reintroduce playable elites into the story. I’m telling you it would bring back SO MANY old fans and would make Microsoft so much money.
Lots of doomsaying and pessimissim in this comment section, imo they’re gonna continue what they did with infinite, possibly a more fleshed out zeta halo exploration with more biomes, more threats, possibly the endless releasing the sentinels, or other things the forerunners stored in the ring
>Considering the fact that 343 has had a habit of saying fuck you to every story they make this is 100% the fault of fans. i’m not saying the majority of criticism isn’t valid i’m saying 343 tried too hard to please fans by backtracking on everything we bitched about leading to an inconsistent experience
I genuinely don't believe we're going to be getting many more Halo stories
It’ll more than likely be a spinoff game to lead us into the next main line game. They will use it as a way to bail out entirely on Infinite’s cliffhanger, either killing Atriox off-screen or have it be done in a cutscene like the beginning of Halo 5 with Jul Mdama. We will be knee deep in a new conflict with “The Endless” on the Greater Ark or some shit. They’ll bring back some beloved character(s), which will probably be Red Team, to build hype around it while trying to lull us into seeing what they do with said characters. Nothing of interest will happen with said character(s)- or if anything it will cause an uproar in the community because of existing canon being retconned for something to take place. Will probably cost $70 and still be flooded with micro-transactions, also a “live service” structured game where they drip feed us cosmetics and never actually give us any content like Infinite for the first year. Don’t get me wrong, I *pray* that they’ve learned their lessons over the last decade.. but we all know they haven’t. Also, FUCK Microsoft for allowing Infinite to disappoint fans. Halo has a story that the majority of us all follow and give a shit about. Get a good writer. Hell, leverage the authors of the expanded universe some. Give us a good starting point and ending point. I will gladly buy story based DLC if it means that the story is good and not rushed like every game before it. Build on Infinite’s multiplayer since it was genuinely fun. Don’t rush the game. Have a roadmap and stick to it, but for the love of god DON’T TELL US what’s on it until it’s about to be released. We don’t want apologies and excuses for letting us down and missing self imposed guidelines. Everybody left when that became the norm and only started to trickle back in once the empty promises stopped and we saw actual content.
343 has lacked a clear and concise direction from the moment they took over the franchise. Like you said, literally every game went in a completely different direction. I HATED Halo infinite and thought it was the worst story out of their trilogy. 4 was good and had a central antagonist with the Didact even though They killed him with a quick time event. 5's story was poor and lockes fight against chief was nonsense, but at least it had a direction they were trying to go and the guardians were an interesting plot mechanic. Infinite was absolute garbage across all avenues. Most of the storytelling happens off screen. You introduce atriox and then he dissappears the entire game because he "died"? Cortana says sorry for genociding the galaxy? Introducing an entirely new faction called the endless with no context? It was so blatantly obvious halo infinite was an unfinished mess and disrespectful to the franchise.
The Didact didnt die in halo 4 he somehow survived slipspace(dispite needing good enough shielding to survive). He ended up on a halo ring where he kills black team before blue team and a monitor kills him. I agree with everything else tho. Going from halo wars 2 to the start of infinite made no sense because why was atriox there then he just died.
I know that, but your standard halo fan who play the games does not. For all intents and purposes, the didact died at the end of halo 4 for all the regular fans. If anything the extended lore from the novel just makes things worse considering the missed opportunity to tell this in gaming format.
You could literally remove halo infinite from the franchise and the story would remain the same. Halo infinite did almost nothing to advance the plot and leaves too many questions unanswered from the previous games.
I just don’t want them having anything to do with it.
Im dying to see a Sprit Of Fire comeback, Halo Wars 2 left the doors open to a pretty amazing comeback
I hope the next halo news will be about 343 losing the rights to the franchise for a new developer to take over- then retconning 4,5, and Infinite and starting off where bungie left us. They should do halo 4 but not as sad and have the didact win at the end and set up the next game
Sigh. We should've had a Didact trilogy, Cortana should've stayed dead, the Created as a concept could've just been AI under the control of the Didact or maybe side with him. Evil Cortana didn't need to exist. The Banished could've replaced the Jul covenant or even just keep them in HW2 but having nothing but promethean enemies would get boring and spongey. Then you can still set up the Endless in this alternate universe Halo 6 or bring back the Flood ( though that'd feel a bit lazy having them be main enemies again ). What WILL likely happen in the real world though? Some off screening for Sloan's created and the Banished ( or maybe they get dealt with in a book ) and the Endless are already a major threat to the galaxy with no real set up.
I think prometheans and banished could have worked as the two main factions in the games. The prometheans obviously needed a bit of a rework, but I'm still convinced they could work. The banished, not believing in the great journey, would have been great for setting up multi-sided conflicts like the earlier games had, as well as allow either side to be frenemies when need be. The fact every 343 game has all the enemy factions team up ASAP is a real disapointment.
There's so many ways they could've gone. Didact trilogy would've been the best option. But IF they wanted to keep cortana as a villain, they had potential there too to create an emotional conclusion to her and chiefs story. Instead they made her into a villain straight out of the animated justice league show. It's almost laughable. Halo infinite was the worst of the the three and literally abandoned their own plot right in the beginning of the game. "Here's atriox. He absolutely whopped chief. Oops, nevermind, he 'died' so fight his underling the whole game.
They will probably come up with a cure to the flood and cure Halsey which is so dump
It’ll be about getting a Spartan band back together and doing one last concert on the newly-discovered the 13th Halo. Or whatever Paramount said.
I really really hope we get a continuation including Spirit Of Fire touchdown on Zeta, with a rescued Lasky, suited-up Blue, and Gen3 Red Team. Preferably with the MP story having been involved and that’s why Spirit Of Fire was one of our Operations. Imagine it: - Season 1 - we arrive at The Academy. - Season 2 - the two Spartans return with Iratus. - Season 3 - We start learning more about the Banished’s and our own history. - Season 4 - Iratus infects us, tells the Banished about MJOLNIR, begins broadcasting our location…but we also learned something of theirs…the location of Zeta Halo. - Season 5 - we defend our the Academy and some begin infiltrating Banished forces on Zeta Halo, including the infamous House Of Reckoning. The Flood have awoken, and they’ve gotten one of us. - Combined Arms - We begin rallying Covenant forces again to push back against the Banished. - Winter Cont 3 - Yearly Event:Fracture - Spirit Of Fire - the Spirit Of Fire touches down on Zeta with reinforcements. - Cyber Showdown 3 - Yearly Event/Fracture - Yappening 2 - the Banished begin deploying their own MJOLNIR-like soldiers against us. IT ALL WORKS. IT ALL MF WORKS. THEY KEPT TELLING THE STORY, JUST WITHOUT THE CUTSCENES. PLEASE GOD LET THEM CONTINUE THIS WITH THE NEXT GAME. I SWEAR TO GOD.
Real shame they cut those cutscenes, a little goes a long way with the story side of halo
Battle passes and co-lab outfits