343 Industries created a cool roadmap to continue H5’s story but decided to drop the story because of negative reactions from Halo fans.

And this is the problem people have had with 343 since the beginning.

They don't have the balls to stand by their creative decisions so there's never any payoff. Sure, a lot of people didn't really care for 5's story, but it had stuff there that would have been interesting. I remember seeing concept art from Halo 6 before it was Infinite, showing a human refugee city patrolled by Spartans. It looked pretty intense, and it would have been such an interesting premise for "what if all the AI slaves turned on the humans?" They control everything, so it would have sent humanity back into a new Dark Age.

Nothing is cannon after Halo 3 for me, in my head chief still floating on that frigate. I wanted 343 to succeed so badly but I honestly think a handful halo lore nerds could have come up with a better plot direction. What is so frustrating is its so rich. there are so many directions they could have gone in and this is what they came up with?! its just sad.

I always wanted a battlefield style halo game with massive maps, player counts and space battles.

At this point I'm wondering if there's any hope for a complete retcon of the 343 fever dream era.

Honestly Halo should just be done by this point. We don't need "forever franchises" where people are playing the same damn game for ten years. Halo had its hay day with the first 5 games made by Bungie, and they were honestly perfect.
- I don’t agree, I think there is plenty of room for interesting stories in the universe. You could do a prequel set during the rainforest wars, or a game centered around first contact with the Covenant at Harvest. My personal favorite pet idea is a a Dead Space like game where you’re stuck in a flood infected ship a la the short story Mona Lisa.
- Seriously - they can make a game that plays similarly, set in a different world. It doesn't have to be the same franchise over and over again

Oh, please. Was the "cool roadmap" gonna end with fighting the same boss SEVEN times? But wait! He cycles thru red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet in each subsequent fight! Isn't that cool?!?1?

Would have been nice to see these ideas in a new IP, because I totally understand why fans reacted poorly to them in the context of Halo.

Halo was exhausted and they should never have continued the franchise after Bungie left.

for me the decline started with the introduction of boss fights in Halo 2. CE blew my mind with zero 'supervillain' level boss fights most games that i played at the time resorted to. i really liked the concept that the three big antagonists were an advanced civilization of never ending zealots hellbent on ending the universe for their religion, then there's the hive mind of mindless swarming parasitic alien lifeform hellbent on eating/becoming the universe aka its own religion, and the ancient remnants droids that watch over it all like an endless production line metal monks guarding and maintaining said remnants like a religion...

anywho by the time of 5 the "villains" were so Marvel level of cheese/boring i was willing to press halo's big red button and just be done with it all.