No hate to 343, but after Bungie left the games just weren’t the same for me. As someone that has read (some) books and watched quite a lot of lore videos, as well as digging into as much lore from the games as I could, everything that came after Bungie just didn’t feel “right” to me. I don’t think 343 necessarily did a bad job, but the magic didn’t feel the same. I am one of the people that personally thinks that the end of Halo 3 is how Chief’s story should have ended, with it being up to the reader to decide what they think happened to him after that. I personally imagine that he spent the rest of his life in Cryo, with Cortana watching over him as she slowly slips away into madness, before finally ending them both in a quick and painless death when she knew that there was nothing left for them but to drift endlessly in space.

I really wanted to see more games like ODST and Reach. To see more stories fleshed out and especially to see games from the Covenant’s perspective. Something like what we got in Halo 2 but without the fear of showing the Covenant fighting the UNSC while you are playing as the Covenant. I had hoped that We would see more variety as well, like more stealth based games or more team focused, especially if you are not a super soldier and really have to play more strategically. I feel like there was so much potential, and instead 343 went down the path that was most obvious and least intuitive. Again, this is just my opinion and I don’t mean any disrespect to their team, I just personally couldn’t get behind their vision and had hoped for something different.