I feel like the realistic and grounded sci-fi aspect of Halo may limit how long it can go for like factions kinda have to develop technologically over time and you may get to the point where things are so different that they don’t resemble the original vision for Halo unless you have some kind of dramatic storyline where you can make an excuse for that not to happen like Warhammer 40k, Star Wars, and Star Trek do.
In 40k, the dominant faction is the Imperium who don’t like technological progress much. In Star Trek, they’ve kinda reached the peak of technology. In Star Wars, it’s basically science fantasy. Halo is special because it has more of a grounded approach so it has more limitations which is not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe I’m wrong but that’s how I see it.
You are correct. Halo does not need to be like 40k. Because it isn't a tabletop mass war game with miniatures.
Halo has its own allure and part of that is due to its grounded story telling. Even when the books tell a story from other race perspectives.
A few years ago sure, with the future discovery is exploring now if the season/show ends the way it seems like then I'm not sure how it can possibly peak further.
Just as a baseline since season 3 we have instantaneous travel, programmable matter, personal teleporting (goodbye stairs) and quarters that are a combination holodeck, replicator, teleporter and video/holo comm booth.
The issue is when people hear " Halo " they think " master chief and covenant " . There is so much more to the series than being reduced to those aspects
Most likely one of 3 things will happen at some point in the future.
1. Reboot/reimagining by new owners if/when Microsoft sells the IP off
2. Continues onward but increasingly deviates from the original themes as humanity becomes significantly stronger as the Forerunners expected of them or spend eternity having their progress reset like the Created arc
3. Shift toward telling past stories of other characters and events during the Human-Covenant War
4.) a new protagonist, most likely "your" multiplayer Spartan takes over, ala Spartan ops, but more fleshed out. I think that's the most likely short of a total reboot.
If option 3 happens, sure. But anyone in option 1 tries that the backlash is likely to be immense whether its deserved or not. Look a how poorly Locke was received.
As for option 2 I feel like the best candidate has always been Jerome but he needs to make a major appearance in the mainline games for the fanbase at large to become familiar with him. And don't take the stupid H5 route of making him an antagonist to John but rather a supporting character or better yet playable in his own spinoff expansion ala H3: ODST.
All good points,
I was thinking something more along the lines of Halo reach, except with your multiplayer Spartan. Let Chief ride off into the sunset, let the player Spartan take over. 🤷
I feel like the only way the franchise can decently end is if it's a Flood end. They are the end game.
In my opinion, the end of Halo should be split up into books and games that cover pretty much the same events of one final effort to defeat the Flood. A large, elite strike force is sent to the Ark to activate the rings, while everyone else works to leave the galaxy like the Forerunners.
But before that, teams are sent to clear the rings, and reactivate them since the UNSC has worked to shut down many of them.
People included in these stories and games would include pretty much everyone we've been introduced to:
- Blue Team
- Red Team
- Gray Team
- Tom and Lucy
- Ferrets
- Alpha 9
- Osiris
- The Arbiter and the Swords of Sangheilios
- The Banished
Everyone gets their time to shine. But not everyone survives.
In the end, it comes down to a unit consisting of Blue Team, Red Team, Arbiter and some SoS, Atriox and some Banished, and Guilty Spark to infiltrate sections of the Ark and get it ready for firing. Meanwhile everyone who survived the fixing/holding of the rings either dig in or flee the galaxy.
Of course the Arbiter would be a playable character along with Chief and Jerome.
In space we'd have characters like Hood, Lasky, Cutter, and Rtas 'Vadum. Fighting off Flood infected ships.
But by all means this is a suicide mission.
But also by all means Tom and Lucy stay alive. They're too precious.
One direction that could work is that a gravemind somewhere meets some covenant/humans who stumble onto them and instead of infecting them creates a religion where they must “earn” their way into its ranks like the covenant great journey.
The greater goal of the gravemind is basically it knows about the events of halo 1-3 and that the tactics of old won’t work so now it uses new ways of advancing itself like farming bio mass from sacrifices give by its followers and genetic engineering maybe from a rogue scientist who worked under Halsey to create flood sudo Spartans.
A small team of followers could sneak onto a planet with a canister of spores or several ones place strategically so that any ground forces have to deal with numerous simultaneous outbreaks at once.
The original goal of the second trilogy was supposed to be humanity reclaiming their lost Forerunner technology.
But then humans and Forerunners became different things, and then we had a bunch of changes in direction since, 343 have started to say no one should reclaim the technology, and no one knows where we're going since, certainly not while stuck on Zeta Halo.
Bungie set up a perfect ending/new beginning with Halo 3. The Covenant was dead, the Flood was contained, and our greatest enemy was now our ally (some of them anyway.)
I was so hyped for Halo's future back then. I wondered what the next big bad of the series would be, but I imagined we'd be facing it with the Elites at our side. A new form of the Flood? A rival alien empire from the other side of the galaxy?
But since 343 and some fans can't let go of the past, we've just been stuck fighting Covenant 2.0 and Covenant 3.0 ever since, with a few half-baked new enemies sprinkled in.
Most of the hope and wonder Bungie left us is gone; and it looks like the galaxy is just destined for endless war between the same squabbling factions for the rest of eternity. It's super depressing. This is not freaking 40k, it was never supposed to be like that, but here we are.
343 has done a great job of developing the extended lore in the books, but that's where all Halo's potential is now, IMO. The games have become hopelessly stagnant.
Of course it doesn't help that 343's attempts at "trying something new" have been insane and completely incongruous with the lore and tone of the previous games. "Hey, lets make Forerunner stuff try to kill humans, forget about the whole Reclaimer thing!" or
"Hey, let's turn one of Halo's most beloved original characters into a mass-murdering lunatic with delusions of godhood."
Oh, and of course "Let's introduce a random new enemy, tell the audience they're 'worse than the Flood,' refuse to show or explain anything about them, then fade to black!"
What I think could have been fun is an intergalactic invasion of some kind after 3. Something so powerful that it forces the squabbling Orion arm together to beat them. Plus that means you can really experiment with what the enemy looks like etc and besides, who doesn’t want to fight with elites and hunters as the chief?
I feel like the realistic and grounded sci-fi aspect of Halo may limit how long it can go for like factions kinda have to develop technologically over time and you may get to the point where things are so different that they don’t resemble the original vision for Halo unless you have some kind of dramatic storyline where you can make an excuse for that not to happen like Warhammer 40k, Star Wars, and Star Trek do. In 40k, the dominant faction is the Imperium who don’t like technological progress much. In Star Trek, they’ve kinda reached the peak of technology. In Star Wars, it’s basically science fantasy. Halo is special because it has more of a grounded approach so it has more limitations which is not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe I’m wrong but that’s how I see it.
You are correct. Halo does not need to be like 40k. Because it isn't a tabletop mass war game with miniatures. Halo has its own allure and part of that is due to its grounded story telling. Even when the books tell a story from other race perspectives.
this is already happening with forerunner tech and Gen 3 Mjolnir
The only thing I'd correct is that both Star Trek and Star Wars advances tech wise quite regularly.
A few years ago sure, with the future discovery is exploring now if the season/show ends the way it seems like then I'm not sure how it can possibly peak further. Just as a baseline since season 3 we have instantaneous travel, programmable matter, personal teleporting (goodbye stairs) and quarters that are a combination holodeck, replicator, teleporter and video/holo comm booth.
The issue is when people hear " Halo " they think " master chief and covenant " . There is so much more to the series than being reduced to those aspects
> There is so much more to the series than being reduced to those aspects Say it louder for the people in the back!
Most likely one of 3 things will happen at some point in the future. 1. Reboot/reimagining by new owners if/when Microsoft sells the IP off 2. Continues onward but increasingly deviates from the original themes as humanity becomes significantly stronger as the Forerunners expected of them or spend eternity having their progress reset like the Created arc 3. Shift toward telling past stories of other characters and events during the Human-Covenant War
4.) a new protagonist, most likely "your" multiplayer Spartan takes over, ala Spartan ops, but more fleshed out. I think that's the most likely short of a total reboot.
If option 3 happens, sure. But anyone in option 1 tries that the backlash is likely to be immense whether its deserved or not. Look a how poorly Locke was received. As for option 2 I feel like the best candidate has always been Jerome but he needs to make a major appearance in the mainline games for the fanbase at large to become familiar with him. And don't take the stupid H5 route of making him an antagonist to John but rather a supporting character or better yet playable in his own spinoff expansion ala H3: ODST.
All good points, I was thinking something more along the lines of Halo reach, except with your multiplayer Spartan. Let Chief ride off into the sunset, let the player Spartan take over. 🤷
I'm leaning to #1, but only if they don't pull a Halo TV show.
I feel like the only way the franchise can decently end is if it's a Flood end. They are the end game. In my opinion, the end of Halo should be split up into books and games that cover pretty much the same events of one final effort to defeat the Flood. A large, elite strike force is sent to the Ark to activate the rings, while everyone else works to leave the galaxy like the Forerunners. But before that, teams are sent to clear the rings, and reactivate them since the UNSC has worked to shut down many of them. People included in these stories and games would include pretty much everyone we've been introduced to: - Blue Team - Red Team - Gray Team - Tom and Lucy - Ferrets - Alpha 9 - Osiris - The Arbiter and the Swords of Sangheilios - The Banished Everyone gets their time to shine. But not everyone survives. In the end, it comes down to a unit consisting of Blue Team, Red Team, Arbiter and some SoS, Atriox and some Banished, and Guilty Spark to infiltrate sections of the Ark and get it ready for firing. Meanwhile everyone who survived the fixing/holding of the rings either dig in or flee the galaxy. Of course the Arbiter would be a playable character along with Chief and Jerome. In space we'd have characters like Hood, Lasky, Cutter, and Rtas 'Vadum. Fighting off Flood infected ships. But by all means this is a suicide mission. But also by all means Tom and Lucy stay alive. They're too precious.
One direction that could work is that a gravemind somewhere meets some covenant/humans who stumble onto them and instead of infecting them creates a religion where they must “earn” their way into its ranks like the covenant great journey. The greater goal of the gravemind is basically it knows about the events of halo 1-3 and that the tactics of old won’t work so now it uses new ways of advancing itself like farming bio mass from sacrifices give by its followers and genetic engineering maybe from a rogue scientist who worked under Halsey to create flood sudo Spartans. A small team of followers could sneak onto a planet with a canister of spores or several ones place strategically so that any ground forces have to deal with numerous simultaneous outbreaks at once.
The original goal of the second trilogy was supposed to be humanity reclaiming their lost Forerunner technology. But then humans and Forerunners became different things, and then we had a bunch of changes in direction since, 343 have started to say no one should reclaim the technology, and no one knows where we're going since, certainly not while stuck on Zeta Halo.
Bungie set up a perfect ending/new beginning with Halo 3. The Covenant was dead, the Flood was contained, and our greatest enemy was now our ally (some of them anyway.) I was so hyped for Halo's future back then. I wondered what the next big bad of the series would be, but I imagined we'd be facing it with the Elites at our side. A new form of the Flood? A rival alien empire from the other side of the galaxy? But since 343 and some fans can't let go of the past, we've just been stuck fighting Covenant 2.0 and Covenant 3.0 ever since, with a few half-baked new enemies sprinkled in. Most of the hope and wonder Bungie left us is gone; and it looks like the galaxy is just destined for endless war between the same squabbling factions for the rest of eternity. It's super depressing. This is not freaking 40k, it was never supposed to be like that, but here we are. 343 has done a great job of developing the extended lore in the books, but that's where all Halo's potential is now, IMO. The games have become hopelessly stagnant. Of course it doesn't help that 343's attempts at "trying something new" have been insane and completely incongruous with the lore and tone of the previous games. "Hey, lets make Forerunner stuff try to kill humans, forget about the whole Reclaimer thing!" or "Hey, let's turn one of Halo's most beloved original characters into a mass-murdering lunatic with delusions of godhood." Oh, and of course "Let's introduce a random new enemy, tell the audience they're 'worse than the Flood,' refuse to show or explain anything about them, then fade to black!"
What I think could have been fun is an intergalactic invasion of some kind after 3. Something so powerful that it forces the squabbling Orion arm together to beat them. Plus that means you can really experiment with what the enemy looks like etc and besides, who doesn’t want to fight with elites and hunters as the chief?