: I see Halo as a game played by customers and that game also has story
: attached to its campaign play. I have no problem separating the non-story
: parts of the game from the story. This isn't a problem for me even if I'm
: in campaign. If someone wore a pig helmet whilst playing co-op with me I'd
: just know that the helmet was what my friend chose to wear.

: I wouldn't worry about the reasons that "real" Spartans in the real
: haloverse would wear such a thing or how it reflects on the
: professionalism of Spartan 4s. Thinking along those lines just undermines
: the haloverse for me.

I remember when Bungie redesigned the Elites for Reach, and they said that it was to make them scarier, and to change up the gameplay. Honest and direct.

And then 343 gave us their redesigns, and it was all just because the artists wanted to put their own personal touch into everything (it served no function), and then 343 was all "well, the other designs that you know still exist, but these are different variants! BTW you'll never see the other "variants" ever again... but they're canon, just not as canon as these new ones."
If they were straight up honest, I doubt it would have been as much of an issue as it became, and they wouldn't be forcing themselves to dig further into the hole.

That said, this does give them a chance to make Halo 6 their "Reach", where they handwave what they've done before in service of a more cohesive experience. Bring on the Brutes!