I find it unlikely that the Covenant war is just out and out over. Microsoft is going to be too afraid to fix what isn’t broken to go tossing out Elites, grunts and jackals after they’ve worked for this long.

Nonetheless, I do agree that now is the time to get some new blood in there.

I like your idea for an 8 v 8, although I think Spartans and Elites would need a wider disparity between them to make that interesting. If they were as similar as they are now, it’d just be 8 v 8.

I think rogue Spartans would be pimping, especially because I seem to remember hearing somewhere that Master Chief is really only a so-so Spartan when stacked against the others. Could make for dynamite drama.

I think we’ll get new enemies. But you’re right, space combat is less likely.

Personally, I intend to keep my expectations high, and hold 343 to a VERY high standard of quality.

Maybe some rogue spartans that we didn’t know survived Reach or were “defective” and thopught terminated or something…

How does/would Master Chief handle fighting another spartan?

Maybe a hybrid Elite-Spartan?

Or Zombie Spartan/marines/others, everything is better with zombies right?

I would not suspect much if any space combat and I would rather see a great non space combat having halo game then one with second rate regular and space combat. I just hope Microsoft lets them take the time to make a quality game and not force them to churn out a new one every year. But I will just keep my expectations low and take news as it comes.