https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/halo-burn-the-road-home-cover-reveal

2560. Over seven years after Covenant forces invaded the planet Criterion, its human survivors are still struggling to rebuild amid mounting resentment toward the Unified Earth Government. When separatists ambush a reconstruction convoy and steal critical equipment, Colonial Administration Authority Marshal Imani Havel uncovers a conspiracy far more dangerous than local rebellion.

With contact from Earth mysteriously silent and Criterion’s defenses stretched thin, Havel’s pursuit leads through abandoned industrial ruins and a vast graveyard of human and Covenant warships orbiting the planet. But as shadowy off-world operatives emerge from the darkness, she realizes the stolen resources are only the beginning—and that an unimaginable threat has already been set in motion.

Outmanned, outgunned, and with no Spartans coming to the rescue, Havel and a battered UNSC assault force must expose the enemy’s true plan before Criterion’s violent past comes crashing down upon its fragile future....

Due to release later in 2027.

I'm just mad about it.

via: https://x.com/Tashi343i/status/2109718012240773196?s=20

Parasite's Wake (Oct 20), Master Chief Omnibus (Nov 10), and Fall of Reach full cast audio drama (Nov 10) are all confirmed to still be coming, Fireteam Noble (2027) is also very likely still releasing, though physical copies do not exist yet, and there is at least one new novella slated for 2027 that it is unclear if it is releasing at all.

Reminder that is all from “an inside source” and not confirmed in any way. Grain of salt.

TLDW:

• There were NO Halo games in full production at Halo Studios/343i, despite Halo Infinite being nearly 5 years old
• There were some Halo games in the very early concept stages with no major work done, these were: Halo 2 Remake, Halo 3 Remake, Halo 7 and a Halo spin-off game based on the "First Strike" novel
• First Strike takes place between Halo CE and Halo 2, and was intended to connect Halo CE and Halo 2 more effectively
• First Strike was planned as a smaller, quick release game in-between large releases, with only 5 campaign missions, a Firefight mode and was planned to be finished and released by next year
• Halo Studios was considering a strategy of adapting Halo novels into smaller games inbetween the major remakes
• Halo 7 was reportedly still many years away, only a small team was working on the concept and overall vision
• Right before the lay-offs, developers did reportedly present the concept of Halo 7 to Xbox execs, which included Campaign, PvP, PvE and Forge all at launch
• The remaining Halo Studios team wants to also exploring using AI tools to help create smaller Halo projects, while outsourcing development of Halo remakes and potentially still make Halo projects internally
• A source of Rebs claims that Activision has 0 intention to work with Pierre Hintze, the current leader of Halo Studios, Making it unlikely they'll ever work on a new Halo game again
• Reb's sources strongly criticize Pierre Hintze's leadership and Matt Booty's, with a general lack of accountability across Xbox Game Studios sited as a major issue
• They also speculate that Halo Studios will probably be eventually fully shut down

Summary via https://x.com/SynthPotato/status/2103279504806289784?s=20

I hope this means the remaining staff have been consolidated rather than let go, but this is 2026 after all. I'm sure employees at 343/hs meant well, had compelling ideas and goals, and were ultimately held back by management.

I don't revel in people losing their jobs, but I do truly hope they've finally ousted problematic figures in studio management like Pierre.

The Halo CE remake reuses many animations from across the series... But it isnt the first time Halo has done this. Let's talk about Halo's history with recycled animations! SEO, Clickbait, whatever

Halo has one of the largest and most dedicated speedrunning communities out there and with the release of the halo campaign evolved a remake of the first game we have been putting in the work. the speedrun is already faster than 1 hour, this is the story of how we have gotten to where we are 1 month post release

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/51752133

Today’s game is Halo. I admittedly didn’t have much I did today. I ended up booting Halo to play campaign. I figured I could grab some of the loose stragglers I have in terms of achievements for fun. I accidentally booted it up without Anti Cheat though. And that’s when i remembered “Oh yeah. I have mods”. I ended up spending all day just exploring them.

Like the one above was an incredibly faithful yet imaginative recreation of 2-fort. It was cool. I wish I had friends playing with me. But it did inspire me to see if I could do the same in Forge. Probably not. I imagine my skills are lacking and forge is less free than full on modding. But it’d be a fun challenge that I’d love to try.

Another map I played was one that was a tiny Halo Ring. I expected like a quick recap of a single level or an entire series of them. But nope. This thing was a full on recap of the entire campaign, ending in Chief’s escape.

I thought it was really cool that it denied my expectations like that. I guess I had just expected less and it delivered more.

The last level I looked at was this backrooms one. I went through it but I didn’t realize it was going to be horror. I don’t mind horror all that much, but If I’m going to be playing a Horror Halo Map I want to do it Co-op with my usual Co-op buddy. They aren’t nearly as tolerant to Horror as I am and I think it will make it infinitely more amusing.

I ended up just cutting it short because of that. I really didn’t want to spoil myself for the rest, as I still enjoy getting scared by horror. I feel like that’s the major appeal of horror. To get scared by it (at least on a surface level. On an analytical level it means a lot more to me). Or at-least for me that’s what the appeal is. So I think I’ll save it for later. I fully expect to be coming back to this though, and may even make it a screenshot.