I've been seeing a lot of bitching recently about the Halo franchise and how Bungie isn't "trying for anything" anymore or how they are just "milking the cash cow." Let me offer some ideas for those of you turned off by the Halo franchise and Bungie's seemingly lack of "pushing the envelope."

First let me say that I love the Halo Universe, the lore, the history of the war, the characters, the novels, all of what Joe Staten and his team have created is truly an inspiring work of Science Fiction. Familiar archetypes? Of course! The nuances, however, are extremely well done.

Now to my notion of whether or not they will "try for anything" anymore. The short answer seems to be no, unfortunately, because as has been stated by many people they can sell Halo: Dog Poop and everyone will be anxiously waiting at midnight for the chance to open their wallets. However, there is always hope that they will not stray from their really deep story they have created from the inception of the Halo franchise. Here a few things I'm hoping will happen.

1. Halo: ODST is a cool new take on the war versus the Covenant and I really hope they somehow include a "hidden" meter and make it a true stealth-based FPS. If you can recall the mission of Assault on the Control Room in Halo:CE. The grunts asleep, a few elites patrol slowly back and forth. Legendary. The felling of every jackal, elite, and grunt without cracking a single round with only one bar of health and extremely sweaty palms. If they can nail an experience like that with ODST then I will be extremely satisfied. So far though, I have no idea what to expect. First it was survival + sneaky and now it's all Firefight and automatic pistols? I hope they stick to their original intent ("Halo: Recon" if you will) and keep it stealthy.



2. Halo: Reach's potential is nearing the limitless spot in my book. They could really go off with shield worlds, space combat, even one of the covenant's homeworlds. Really, they could go anywhere and I hope they make that their focus and not more standard FPS garbage for the MP scene. That's about all that can be said about this game as it only has a teaser.

3. Master Chief's story can be continued in a very compelling way. At the end of the legendary campaign in Halo 3 we see MC and Cortana drifting to what appears to be a shield world. Could this be the same shield world Halsey and the other Spartans are currently residing in? Is it possible that other threats could loom in the galaxy? The Covenant seem to be at peace with themselves and humanity. The Flood appears to be wiped out. Not to jump the shark with the Halo franchise but there could be a more RPGish element and adventure/discovery take they could spin MC in about finding the roots of the Forerunner and the history of how modern humanity came into existence. Intriguing.

From a story-telling perspective the Halo franchise seems alive and kicking. Obviously, all of this is moot if Bungie simply wants to milk the cash cow with shitty, redundant games however. They really need to show some motivation like the hype-wagon that was Halo 2. The ARG (ilovebees), the new structural systems (bump-mapping, physics, etc.), game-mechanics (dual-wielding, off-weapon zoom, etc.), crazy stuff like that! I have hope for these two new Halo games but hope doesn't always get us where we would like to be.