Microsoft put on a fine E3 this year, with Sea of Thieves looking absolutely delightful and the Xbox One X surprising us with its compact size and third-party 4K support, but one game series was almost entirely absent from the show this year: Halo. It has been nearly two years since the release of Halo 5: Guardians, but don’t expect to hear news on the game’s sequel anytime soon.
Writing on Halo Waypoint, 343 Industries writer Jeff Easterling tempered fans’ expectations for an announcement to arrive within the next few months.
“While there’s little to nothing that can be said on that front, it’s been made clear that we won’t be talking about Halo’s next major title for quite some time. And no, that doesn’t mean Gamescom. Or PAX. Trust us, when we’re ready to begin pulling back that proverbial curtain, you’ll know. It won’t be soon,” Easterling said.
“Major title” implies that there could be a smaller game to fill in that gap. We’ve seen twin-stick shooters Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike release in off-years, so it’s possible that this is what Easterling is referring to.
Microsoft did show off the latest expansion for strategy game Halo Wars 2, called Awakening the Nightmare, which features the return of the zombie-like Flood enemies. What’s interesting is that a fake teaser image for a game called “Halo: Gravemind” was shown off just prior to E3, and it focused on a Flood-themed horror story. Great minds think alike, we suppose.
Extra time in the oven is exactly what Halo 6 needs to put the series back on top. While Halo 5: Guardians‘ introduced innovative multiplayer ideas and took a few characters’ stories in exciting directions, it felt far too linear, and its focus on Spartan Locke didn’t help to hold players’ interest. This shouldn’t be a problem for the sequel, as 343 Industries plans to return the focus to Master Chief and, presumably, his struggle to bring Cortana back from total insanity.
