Making all the dudes jelly.

: Or at least a part of my brain.

: I believe that if the goal is to "be the biggest again" then Halo
: won't have the quality longevity that we're all hoping for.

I find that when games accept their place/role/niche, they can adequately communicate with the people who care about it. For example, The Transformers games of recent time were really just 3rd person shooters with a transforming mechanic. Not game of the year stuff. Not world ending blockbuster stuff. But they knew their audience, and made a game that spoke to them directly. To this date, it is still one of the best treatments of that franchise and it's history. The studio did the same thing with the Deadpool game, and though I'm not as versed with Xmen lore, it was wonderful. Was it polished as a blockbuster AAA game? well, actually maybe. It knew the audience it wanted to reach. It talked to them. An exchange was had.