Halo's Next Game Could Be A Master Chief Origin Story

Activision Is Reportedly Considering A Master Chief Origin Story For Halo's Next Game Published Oct 2, 2026, 2:09 PM EDT Joshua Robertson is an editor for TheGamer, having working in news, guides, features, and reviews since 2022. They have written thousands of news stories, ranging from industry-breaking events, to smaller, more personal community pieces, and have covered several high-profile showcases such as The Game Awards and Nintendo Directs. Joshua is considered an expert in soulslikes, horror, JRPGs and everything Final Fantasy, having written extensive coverage for massively popular online titles like Final Fantasy 14. Sign in to your TheGamer account Halo can't catch a break these days. It was off to a good start with Halo Infinite, but the game has slowly deteriorated over time, and the recent release of the Halo: Combat Evolved remake hasn't blown many people away either. All of this has resulted in Halo Studios being gutted and having the very game it's named after ripped away from them as part of Xbox's massive restructuring. Halo now belongs to Activision, and there are plenty of questions now flying around about what an Activision-led Halo game is even going to look like. Will Activision carry on the already established story, or go for something completely different and scrap all the work 343 Industries and Halo Studios have done so far? According to one insider, it's the latter. Halo Might Be Getting A Hard Reboot, Starting With Master Chief According to a well-known Halo insider called Rebs Gaming, Activision's original plans for Halo were for two games to developed, one of them being a free-to-play multiplayer title, and a more traditional campaign. It was reportedly Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 developer Sledgehammer Games that did a lot of the concept work for these titles, such as mechanics and movement features. For the campaign, Rebs claims that Activision originally had a plan to launch a soft reboot of Halo that didn't follow on from Infinite's story, but all of these plans have apparently been scrapped. Instead, Activision is now reportedly just going to make a full Halo game rather than two separate projects, and that the company is "considering" making it a full reboot and "Master Chief origin story." However, Rebs' source also says that "nothing is set in stone" just yet, which makes sense if the game is in the extremely early stages of development. Ideas change all the time, and it's very possible Activision could go back to making two separate games if it feels like that's the best move to help Halo multiplayer shine. That being said, a Halo reboot might be best given how confusing the overall lore is for the series, and going back to Master Chief's origin story could be a good ay to get that hard reboot going. If they do go that route, I just hope they don't make the Spartan program an unrelenting force for good, instead of the horrifically violent and unethical system that it actually was in lore.