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[dancrane212]

Update
Not a significant update but Bonnie Ross did mention the following about the next Halo FPS title.

"We want to give the team and the studio time to build the, right, next FPS big experience so you're not going to hear much from us for a while."

In the leadup to E3 I was surprised at just how much pushback there was from 343 on their social channels about there not being a new Halo title announcement at the show. In the months since that convention that message hasn't changed in the slightest with continuous ”not anytime soon" remarks in community updates, reddit posts and the like.

It's felt like it has been a notably long time since Halo 5 launched in 2015 so I took a second to compare all the announcement and release dates of the previous, mainline FPS, games. Looking at the results it has now been the longest time between mainline Halo announcements in franchise history, at almost two years going off the 'official' reveal of the 5th game, and going off those aforementioned remarks from 343 it may still be a good amount of time before we see a Halo 6 announcement come down the pipe.

Halo: CE
Released:
November 15, 2001

Halo 2
Announced:
August 8th, 2002. 8 months, 24 days after Halo: CE was launched.
Released:
November 9th, 2004. 2 years, 11 months, 25 days after Halo: CE was launched.

Halo 3
Announced:
May 9th, 2006. 1 year, 6 months. after Halo 2 was launched.
Released:
September 25th, 2007. 2 years, 10 months, 16 days after Halo 2 was launched.

Halo: Reach
Announced:
June 1st, 2009. 1 year, 8 months, 5 days after Halo 3 was launched.
Released:
September 14th, 2010. 2 years, 11 months, 20 days after Halo 3 was launched.

Halo 4
Announced:
June 6th, 2011. 8 months, 23 days after Halo: Reach was launched.
Released:
November 6th, 2012. 2 years, 1 month, 23 days after Halo: Reach was launched.

Halo 5: Guardians
Untitled Halo Announcement at E3 3013:
June 10th, 2013. 7 months, 2 days after Halo 4 launched.
Officially Announcement of Halo 5: Guardians:
May 16th, 2014. 1 year, 6 months, 2 days after Halo 4 launched.
Released:
October 27th, 2015. 2 years, 11 months, 21 days after Halo 4 launched.

Halo 6(?)
Announced:
TBA. So far it's been 1 year, 11 months, 2 days since Halo 5: Guardians released.


That isn't to say 343 has been completely mum on the topic of future titles. There have been a couple tidbits tidbits or small announcements that have popped since the release at Halo 5 that confirm some returning features for new games and some general info on how certain things were received in Halo 5 that you could see impacting the series going forward.

”Every Halo FPS will have Split-Screen going forward".
-Bonnie Ross

Confirmation of LAN support in the next ”fps Halo".
-Bonnie Ross

”Doubling down on Master Chief story and the amount of focus on him was probably the easiest learning from Halo 5."
-Frank O'Connor

”Halo 5's core MP is a thing that would be refined and tuned in the future, not rebooted, reinvented or reset.That doesn't preclude any number of improvements, additions or completely new modes and methods of play, but the team does recognize the core strengths, advantages and extensibility of the current MP tune. "
-Frank O'Connor

Next Halo will be ”biggest one yet...going to be ridiculous"
-Microsoft recruiter. Nothing to gleam from that but still fun to see at least a tease.

Speaking of hiring. Looking at job postings from the studio doesn't offer any notable insight on the next game from what I can tell aside from the Halo VR project likely running on UE4.

You have to figure, going off the recent series history, that if Halo 6 was going to be a 2018 release we should have seen more than just a Master Chief cameo at E3 this year. I first thought Halo 6 would be a guaranteed 2019 game after E3 going off how much 343 praised the beta of Halo 5 being a year before release, but if the multiplayer is going to be more of an evolution I suppose the studio wouldn't need one so far from launch again?

I'd like to think that a 2019 release is actually the target for 343 and that extra time is being put into the campaign in a big way. I love the Halo campaigns but we've gone through seven of them now with varying degrees of linearity and length (and a bigger deviation with ODST) and I'd love to see it get mixed up more than we've seen before. I don't know if that's an open world, RPG mechanics or something else but whatever it is I'd love to give it a try and hopefully 4 years of development would be enough to pull it off.

 

[Transistor]

Hopefully they're up to making a good Halo.
Maybe spending some time playing Bungie's Halo games and realizing what made them great.

I bet an E3 reveal on the One X

 

[VoltySquirrel]

Maybe they're just gonna reveal it the same year it comes out. That's been much more in vogue recently in AAA publishing, to great success.

 

[hotcyder]

Obviously hiring that level designer was going to be the final piece in the puzzle to get it ready

 

[Slightly Live]

They can take as long as they want. Halo 6 will be the last chance I give the franchise to hold me as fan.

 

[FUNKNOWN iXi]

I'm personally glad the franchise has been given a marketing break. Hopefully whenever it releases, the marketing push will carry a strong wave of positive momentum right into its launch.

343 has a lot on their hands with their 3rd major Halo title, not including TMCC. I'm looking forward to it; it's always a great time whenever a new Halo is in the air. Halo is still a behemoth of a franchise and is of major significance in the gaming industry.

 

[JDB]

Halo Battle Royale obviously.

 

[Flame Lord]

After two fuck ups, I'm fine with leaving the next one in the oven for awhile longer.

 

[dezzy8]

Halo Battle Royale obviously.

That would be great.

 

[hotcyder]

Halo Battle Royale obviously.

Don't play with me like that

 

[RichiRamjag]

They can take as long as they want. Halo 6 will be the last chance I give the franchise to hold me as fan.

Same here for the most part. Hopefully, it doesn’t take them years to fix aim issues in this one as well.

 

[Trup1aya]

Hopefully revamping their tech to deliver better visuals and performance, reconsidering their affinity towards mechanics that pull player out of combat, addressing story criticsm, and rebuilding all of the classics gametypes that are still missing from h5, and designing a rewarding Progression system.
9
Oh and doing all of that for PC too.

They need to take their time and make a masterpiece.

 

[Jumeira]

Honestly GAGGING for a new Halo, no other FPS can scratch that itch like Halo for me. Frothing at the mouth now with anticipation for Xbox X version of Halo 6.

As people have mentioned, get the level design right & better more varied enemies as the gunplay is just sublime. Still my favourite MP FPS.

 

[Rodelero]

Whatever they're doing, I really hope to see Halo 6 go back to multiplayer which features the beautiful combination of cooperative vehicle and infantry combat (without it being part of the pay to win, grind to enjoy Warzone mode).

 

[Zojirushi]

I hope they come up with something fresh. The last couple of Halo campaigns had me less involved than I would've liked.

The gameplay basis is still there but I don't think average linear shooter level design with familiar enemies and kinda lackluster sci-fi storytelling is gonna cut it anymore.

They should take their time.

Also PC version because no modern Halo on PC is just ridiculous at this point like wtf Microsoft?

 

[Hyun Sai]

Halo Battle Royale obviously.

Campaign perhaps coming later as DLC

 

[Nightengale]

Halo 6.

Announcement and released in the same year.

Next year.

 

[ClivePwned]

Obviously hiring that level designer was going to be the final piece in the puzzle to get it ready

lol

After two fuck ups, I'm fine with leaving the next one in the oven for awhile longer.

I didn't want to be the one to say it

Halo Battle Royale obviously.

Gasp!

I'd be up for Halo 6.

 

[CookTrain]

I don't envy their task. Seems like they have half a dozen different target audiences to try and please.

 

[a.wd]

I have loved every Halo since launch, some were better some were worse, the thing I always find is that Halo even on its worst day is still top 3 FPS, so I am ok with them taking time to craft something really ridiculously awesome.

343 know whats up, H5 gets a lot of hate, but the movement and gunplay in that game is like someone put a chemical drip of fun into my spinal column.

I liked the story, but if we are going to get HTT (series 1) level story in there, I wouldn't be upset at all.

 

[neurosisxeno]

Making sure they don't screw it up. As I recall there was a lot of backlash with their most recent entry in the series.

 

[ChazGW7]

The finale to their trilogy, I think they're gonna go all out on this one. Hopefully.

Halo 5 MP was the best it has ever been from a competitive stand point. It didn't have the close knit community and custom game potential of 3, but mechanically and fundamentally it was a blast to play.

EDIT: And for the love of god 343, please don't fuck up the PC version. The Halo 5 Forge edition is a mess, Halo 6 needs to be a much better effort than that, and it will sell like hot cakes if you put in the necessary effort for it to run well and feel good to play.

 

[KORNdoggy]

Maybe they're just gonna reveal it the same year it comes out. That's been much more in vogue recently in AAA publishing, to great success.

plus i imagine MS want to avoid any more situations like crackdown where it was panic announced with a CGi trailer, had no media released and fell off the face of the earth for a year or so, popped up again at another E3 with a crappy trailer and then got delayed.

just leave them to it. i'm sure they're well into development, but they'll likely want to release it within about 6 months of announcing it.

 

[Ricky Ricardo]

I say let them keep their heads down for another 9-ish months.

Halo 6 is, in a lot of respects, the final testament to whether 343i can actually deliver a Halo game.

There aren't any excuses I can make for them any more. They're experienced developing and shipping several Halo games now, they have a talented crew of engineers, artists, other developers on the team, they now have a strong hardware base, and they have have funding, because its HALO.

Halo 4 and Halo 5 had strengths and weaknesses in equal measure, but I'm waiting to see if they can pull off something that nets out to a positive, even with negatives factored in.

 

[Darkstorne]

I'd like to think that a 2019 release is actually the target for 343 and that extra time is being put into the campaign in a big way.

Fingers crossed! If Microsoft are going to rely heavily on staples like Halo and Gears then they have to slow them down, even if it's just down to one or two releases per generation (think Sony's God of War release strategy). Halo needs to feel like a juggernaut, and play like a juggernaut, and constantly announcing and releasing new entries in the series won't accomplish either of those feats.

 

[daninthemix]

Also PC version because no modern Halo on PC is just ridiculous at this point like wtf Microsoft?

Hear hear. This discrimination against the PC platform will not stand, man.

 

[Voidwolf]

Hopefully they're putting more resources and focus on the campaign while also trying to evolve the multiplayer, two huge overhauls like that would take time. They're also probably waiting for the X to be out in the wild before any sort of reveal.

 

[Snoopycat]

Halo 6 has to be 343's last crack at the series, so I think the real question is which studio will MS choose for Halo 7. Imagine what ID Software, 4A or Platinum Games could do with it.

 

[Raiden]

I don't envy their task. Seems like they have half a dozen different target audiences to try and please.

.

I love Halo but the amount of shit 343 gets is insane. Halo 3 wasnt all that great either imho. I actually enjoyed Halo 4 too.


Have not played 5.

 

[Brerlappin]

Halo 4 was a turd. Halo 5 seems to have gotten MP right but with yet another disastrous campaign. 343 just don't understand Halo. That was obvious when they ended Halo 4 with a QTE. They need to lose Prometheans altogether. They fucking suck. No one cares about them, no one enjoys fighting them, and Halo 4 & 5 could honestly be completely written off and no one would give a shit, so just make Halo 6 a complete reboot, go back to the covenant, lose Spartan Locke and that that crap that yet again, no one gives a shit about, and just give us a Master Chief focused campaign (or a spin off like we got in Noble team for Reach), and Covenant enemies only.

but this is 343 so we'll probably get a fucking on rails light gun game focused on Spartan Billys epic rivalry with Master Chief cause one time Billy ate MC's sandwich and every enemy in the game is that one guy from Halo 5 you fought like 20 times

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

They gotta get shit right after Halo 5. Man, did they fuck up Halo 5...

 

[Detective]

Hopefully they take as much time as they need to make an amazing Halo and not something like past games.

I don't mind waiting another year or two.

 

[GLAMr]

I haven't played Halo since CE on PC, but I was under the impression that there had been a couple of bad ones, plus there was some AC- level fatigue. Hopefully they are putting the time into making it shine, plus I'd assume they would want to release a new one to show off the power of the OneX.

Also, +1 for PC, but not on Windows Store (or fix Windows Store).

 

[Camp1nCarl]

Taking their time, which is fine IMO. I really hope they have similar marketing effort to Halo 5 though. Plenty of my friends and me absolutely loved the Hunt for Truth podcast, and the Sprint production series. Really love the marketing effort and insight the Halo series gets, and I can't wait to see what 343 has in store for Halo 6 even if Halo 5 wasn't my favorite iteration of Halo.

 

[mazillion]

I'll preface this by saying that the Bungie Halo games used to be basically the only games I played for years, easily over a thousand hours logged per game.

Halo is something I am very passionate about but I've lost a lot intrest in Halo since 343 got on board, they've dissapointed me so many times.

But despite that I am still optimistic. I actually liked the story in H4, it was more personal. It explored new territory with the Chief. I'll never forget the scene of Chief and Lasky on the Infinity looking out over Earth. You see how Chief never got to learn how to be Human, ripped away from his life at such an early age, being a soldier is all he has ever known. It's really powerful stuff.

And the core multiplayer in Halo 5 is so good. When playing the older Halos I actually miss all the movement abilities they added in H5. Only bad thing about it was that it was way too competitive focused. I mean, no real BTB maps? Really??

If they have all the game modes we expect from a Halo (and real maps for them) at launch, they can keep core H5 multiplayer in tact, and deliver a campaign thats more like Halo 4 less like Halo 5 I think Halo 6 could be great. I really hate fighting prometheans though. I wish we could just undo them entirely.

343 has been listening the the fans' complains and praises for 8 years now, I'm hopeful they have pretty good idea what we like and don't like now.

 

[SomTervo]

Holy crap Halo Battle Royale would be glorious, haha.

I haven't played the series for a couple of iterations but honestly I feel like a Halo taking place over several open worlds would be great. Or even one big open world. Like a substantial chunk of an actual Halo ring world, fully realised.

 

[m23]

Halo 6 has to be 343's last crack at the series, so I think the real question is which studio will MS choose for Halo 7. Imagine what ID Software, 4A or Platinum Games could do with it.

What? Why would 343 not make Halo 7?

 

[CookTrain]

I feel like a Halo taking place over several open worlds would be great. Or even one big open world. Like a substantial chunk of an actual Halo ring world, fully realised.

Now wouldn't that be something... Dropping you on a Halo ring and letting you explore. It'll never happen, but that would be intriguing.

 

[dragonelite]

Holy crap Halo Battle Royale would be glorious, haha.

I haven't played the series for a couple of iterations but honestly I feel like a Halo taking place over several open worlds would be great. Or even one big open world. Like a substantial chunk of an actual Halo ring world, fully realised.

You can bet that 2018 shooters will have a battle royale mode.

 

[nynt9]

What's the state of Halo 5 online? Are people still buying microtransactions? As long as that makes money they're incentivized to keep that train rolling instead of investing a lot into a single player campaign.

 

[Duxxy3]

I'd rather they take their time. 343 multiplayer has been good, but the single player... it just doesn't seem like they know what they're doing here.

 

[Jawmuncher]

Hopefully just making halo 2 again.

 

[dancrane212]

Taking their time, which is fine IMO. I really hope they have similar marketing effort to Halo 5 though. Plenty of my friends and me absolutely loved the Hunt for Truth podcast, and the Sprint production series. Really love the marketing effort and insight the Halo series gets, and I can't wait to see what 343 has in store for Halo 6 even if Halo 5 wasn't my favorite iteration of Halo.

Yeah, it'd be great to get more of the Sprint and HtT.

Hopefully just making halo 2 again.

Jackal snipers for everyone.

 

[leeh]

I feel like they're going to completely change up the Halo formula for the next release.

 

[MosquitoSmasher]

Hopefully them replaying Halo 5's campaign and realizing things that worked and things that didn't work at all. For example the ridiculous amount of times we had to fight those Wardens. Whoever at the studio came up with that.......jesus christ man. How?

 

[Akai__]

Not sure, what's going on over at 343i. Just like any company, they had a couple people leaving the studio, a couple new ones joining the studio and also lots of position switching. This year has been really weird, when it comes to Halo anyways. Not much happened and when Ske7ch said that there will be no "new Halo game trailer at E3" it was surprising, but I believed him. Just very weird to not see a Halo trailer a year before it's supposed launch and they also said "not at Gamescom" and "not anytime soon", which leads people to believe that it will be at The Game Awards, but even that is questionable.

When it comes to Halo, I can safely say that I lost interest in 343i vision of MP and Campaign. I haven't touched H5 for a pretty long time now and played way more MCC (Bungie Halo) over the past couple months. I feel like I gave them way too many chances with H4, MCC, H5 and HW2, which were all disappointing in some form. My purchase status for Halo 6 thus remains uncertain and after Halo 6, I will also probably decide, if I'm done with the franchise or not. Of course that is easier said than done, because there is just way too much to factor in. Maybe 343i will come to sence and stop chasing trends and demographics. Maybe MS will finally treat Halo like THE franchise again. Who knows...

As far as statements like these go:

Next Halo will be “biggest one yet...going to be ridiculous”

Not gonna fall for that ever again. Even stuff like playtime was exaggerated greatly during Halo 5's marketing.

Halo Battle Royale obviously.

I could see that pulling me back in, because the thought of ODST dropping into a Playground and having a Battle Royal... Oh my... But that's really not what Halo has been known for, so I don't really know. It would also mean that they can't use rechargable shields (or stamina) for those modes, because that would absolutely not work.

Halo 6 has to be 343's last crack at the series, so I think the real question is which studio will MS choose for Halo 7. Imagine what ID Software, 4A or Platinum Games could do with it.

MS is not going to cut a studio that was created solely for the purpose of making Halo games and they are not going to outsource it to a 3rd party, either. That's a guarantee.

 

[KageMaru]

Phil Spencer said they didn't want to be seen as just showing Halo or Gears at this year's E3, so they intentionally focused on what was shown. That doesn't mean Halo isn't keeping to the usual 3 year development cycle. I'd bet more eye we'll see it at E3 while it launches in fall 2018.

Hopefully just making halo 2 again.

Dear God I hope not.

 

[Ein Bear]

I'm glad they're taking their time with Halo 6. 5 offered up the best core gameplay in the series history, but was dragged down by a weak campaign and a barebones multiplayer suite at launch.

Halo 6 honestly has a lot of potential. If they use 5 as a base to build from, and focus on making a great campaign then it could be something really special. The main issue with the series at the moment in my eyes is that it still doesn't really look or tonally feel like 'Halo'. I'd love to see them revise the art-style to look more like Bungie's titles, and make more 'open' campaign missions like Assault on the Control Room from 1, or The Covenant in 3. The multiplayer is also crying out for some variation in location for it's maps. Give me more exotic, alien locations and less military complexes.

I'm very optimistic for the game. Fingers crossed.

 

[hollomat]

After the back to back disappointments of Halo 4, master chief collection and Halo 5, hardly anyone is willing to them a chance anymore. If Halo 6 is another disappointment, which seems very likely based on 343s track record, Halo and 343 are probably done.

It’s a shame since Halo 2 made me buy an Xbox and Halo 3 made me buy and Xbox 360 and both were worth it for those games alone. I’ve gone from one of the biggest Halo fans to someone who couldn’t care less about Halo 6, and won’t pick it up unless there’s positive word of mouth that it’s much better than Halo 5.

 

[Naudyboy16]

I'm excited for Halo 6. 343 has gotten better with every game so far, and this being their second game on the same platform with the ability to alter their engine, I don't see this game being anything but amazing.

I just hope they add enough new elements to spice up the game. I still remember the hype for Halo 2 and the intro trailer that leaked a couple days before the game came out. My goodness was the hype surreal for that game.

A lot of Halo now is nostalgia for the past games, I hope they can find a way to straddle that line of old and new to bring the hype back.


"They are those who said this day would never come, what are they to say Now" prophet Truth