The Halo universe has seen its fair share of ups and downs. The franchise’s home of Xbox has had everything from the original trilogy from Bungie that first garnered the fan’s hearts. From there, we’ve seen other studios pick up the mantle with more sequels, RTS spin-offs, and even a canceled Halo MMO.
However, 343 Industries has confirmed repeatedly that they have a commitment to the franchise even if it means improving on their own failures. According to a report by Eurogamer, Halo director Frank O’Connor and Kiki Wolfkill from 343 revealed during an interview that they realized a little too late what fans wanted from Halo 5.
“We very much realised that people wanted Master Chief’s story of Halo 5. We definitely marketed [Halo 5] in a way that we hoped was going to bring surprise, but for some fans and certainly fans of Master Chief, it was a huge disappointment because they wanted more Chief. And that has been a big learning.”
Master Chief is an adored constant in the Halo franchise acting as the avatar for the player. It’s safe to surmise from the interview, fans were severely disappointed in Halo 5’s lack of developing him further.
As a response, both confirmed that Halo 6 will nurture this connection that fans have to Master Chief.
“Instead of focusing on bringing new characters into the world and expanding the playable characters we’ve sort of shifted the focus a little bit to making the world a little bit more realistic and compelling and, I would say, more fun for players who get to inhabit the Chief in the future, pretty much as they demanded.”
Halo 6 was first announced at E3 in 2011 as the last chapter of the Reclaimer trilogy, laying out the franchise’s future with 343 Industries. Beyond that, details have been rare. The sequel isn’t expected to launch before the end of the year, but many are hopeful that we’ll see a projected release date before then at least.
