As pointed out in a earlier post/reply, Halo has more or less become Sonic The Hedgehog. Started off great, then started to fizzle out as it tried new things that the company THOUGHT fans would want. Or simply to attempt to keep it fresh in a ever changing world. Sonic is on the rise again because it returned to it's roots and branched out.

Doom, Fallout, & Half Life have become classics that have kept a large fan base for a very long time. Why? Because their game releases are stretched out over a very long waiting period. Development of these games are being stretched over that time period as well. Their respective developers are shooting for the stars and simply waiting for the tech to catch up. Games like Sonic and Mario have kept most of their fan base because they also branched out. Mario gameplay has not really changed over the last 20 off years, they simply changed the environment. But both of the plat-formers have gone into other mediums like racing, fighting, and puzzle games.

Should Halo go the route of Mario and Sonic? Maybe it should. Halo has been a FPS since 2001's release. It has ventured into a top down game and it does work pretty well. But in the end, it's still a shooter. Like Mario and Sonic, Halo has also been a cartoon (sorta) and a video series. But unless you stick with the main characters, you;ll have a hard time gathering/keeping a audience or fan base.

Halo's Forerunner and A.I. stories have great potentials for puzzle games. I'm not at all talking about a Mario Party style, but that of Geometry Wars combined with a maze type of interface (maybe). Halo also has a great potential for a racing game ( http://sespider.deviantart.com/art/Halo-Circuit-30123646 ). It doesn't have to have a story nor even make a lick of sense. It just has to be a fun game. Should Halo also branch off into a fighting game? NO!! Those games require a story of some type and with a universe filled with guns, there's just no story that will make the lack of weapons believable. I have no issues with characters cameoing in fights. I love seeing and playing a Spartan in Dead or Alive. I would also love to play as a Elite or Brute that sends out a Grunt Suicider as one of my attacks.

Want a sure fire way to keep Halo alive over the years? Then tell the story (in fps format) from the perspective of the Covenant. Imagine playing as a Unggoy in a large army as you fight against the Kig-Yar and then the Covenant in your species' uprising. Or a game playing as the Kig-Yar as you hijack ships and fight the Covenant. Or simply go the route of the Foreunners as they discover and fight the Flood. The possibilities are limitless. It's clear that the Master Chief story is going to end at some point. Why not start new games that might include him in cameo?