: After seeing them scramble to make interesting stories in the post-Covenant
: War universe, I actually think this could be a refreshing choice. I've
: joked about a Forerunner-themed spinoff game for a while, but never
: thought it would actually happen, let alone in a main game in the series.
: I just think there's way more potential for cool artistic choices and
: interesting worldbuilding. Plus just walking around Forerunner
: installations when they were lived-in and engaging with the Flood as they
: overtake the galaxy sounds compelling. They can really mix up the gameplay
: with crazy Forerunner tech, and the stories can get much more
: "literary sci-fi" in line with Greg Bear's trilogy.

: At this point I'd just be happy not to fight *another* ex-Covenant faction.

: Realistically they'll probably only do a level or two as Chief chases Atriox
: back in time, but I'd be happy with even a little first-hand glimpse into
: Forerunner society.

I think Halo 4 and Halo 5 were enough of a foray into Forerunner wackadoodlery. And there's no... there's no story there. Everything is so far removed from the present setting and the known characters that it would be tantamount to a game set during the Interplanetary War that was mentioned on the Xbox.com timeline.

If you want to tell a compelling story that's not just another hollow villain-of-the-week battle, there needs to be some meaningful conflict behind the story. The original Halo trilogy had three such conflicts: There was the mystery of the Forerunner, and what connection they had with Humanity. There was the war with the Covenant, and how to resolve it, and the mystery of how it began in the first place. And finally, there was the conflict with Cortana. Was she really loyal?

You'll notice that all three of these conflicts were wrapped up in Halo 3. 343 Guilty Spark said "You are Forerunner!", the Covenant was defeated, Cortana proved that she was loyal, and the Chief proved that he would wade into Hell to get her back.

Contact Harvest also addressed one of these conflicts by showing how the war started to begin with, tying it into the mystery of the Forerunner in a satisfying way. The most solid part of Halo 4 was when it tapped into that conflict with Cortana and dealt with something that hadn't been addressed yet: Her stunted mortality. The rest was just schlock, because even the writers never nailed down a concrete motivation for the Didact.

If the story had developed organically, it would have built on the existing conflicts by having the UNSC rebuild from the ashes, and showing the schisms in the Covenant as they dealt with the revelations from the last months of the war. We never got that, but I think the Banished are a step in the right direction.