I'm concerned. I'm all for new Halo content, and that trailer blew me away (give me more cinematic CGI!), but there are some concerns I'd like to toss out there to see if anyone else feels the same.

New Hands.

For starters, Halo has always been Bungie's child. Getting someone else to raise your child after so many years would surely be a sticky situation. Despite the fact that I am assured that Ensemble, and soon to be Wingnut, are a very capable studios, I still feel the need to voice some concern. I described the situation best in IRC actually; having Halo reimagined by another studio is like having Peter Jackson, for example, directing one movie, and having George Lucas direct the sequel. Both very capable directors, but both have their own distinct way of doing things.

These new games, developed externally, will no doubt feel like an external addition to the Halo universe. I will have a very hard time accepting these two new games, no matter how good they are in their own element, as part of the true Halo experience.

Perhaps Bungie will play a strong role in making these studios adhere to their guidelines, but it's just unneccessary deconstruction and reconstrucion of ideas. Bungie imagines Halo, breaks it down for the external partner, the external partner interprets it and uses a team, who, while skilled perhaps, has never dealt with the IP before. There's definitely room for error. I would imagine that there is already room for error within Bungie itself, but constant overseeing seems to stamp that out, would that exist with these new 'capable' hands?

Genre Hopping

I'm unsure about the 'unannouced' Jackson game, but the RTS game will, undoubtedly, raise an issue with me personally. While Halo sure did begin as an RTS, it has become an FPS, and quite frankly, I find it hard to see it "coming 'round full circle."

The Halo universe has always been experienced from the ground based perspective... It seems as though any other perspective would feel like gimmicky or like a fan made mod... not an "offical" Halo experience.

One of the main pullers of the Halo series, for me, was the amazing story telling. Aside from beautiful cinematics, much of the story was conveyed through the game. With an RTS, I find this a bit hard to fathom. The perspective seems a bit disconnected. You are not a Spartan battling the war on the field, you're this presence commanding an army and watching it blindly do your bidding. I have never played an RTS myself, so I may be way off here, but from what I've seen, it's basically "team A here, team B here, fight." Cool... for about 20 minutes, at least story wise. I can't see any story being more than "Humans and Covenant are fighting over this land! *match occurs* Humans/Covenant have won this territory!"

No cool operation. No finding the "Silent Cartographer," obtaining an "Index" or foiling some diabolical Monitor AI from eons ago...

Also, I'm curious as to how Spartans will be incorporated. The mainstay of Halo's story no doubt. RTS games seem to focus on large scale battles. That's cool. But Spartans, to me have always been the covert guys running very dangerous and specially important ops that you just don't see in RTS games. If I end up seeing a Spartan just battering his way down the field, I think I might tear up a bit.

Now what I'd love to see, is my good old trusted FPS field view of these battles at the side as I run a harrowing mission to cripple Covenant communication and allow reinforcements to make one final drive that I have the chance to partake in. Badass. A guy can dream...

Perhaps I'm too afraid of change, but as the saying goes "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Slight changes to Halo occured on its way to Halo 2 and it caused an uproar. An entire genre switch can only mean a can of worms in this respect. While it's interesting to see the Halo universe from this perspective, it would seem that it was just never meant to be viewed and experienced this way (or at least ever since it became an FPS).

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If there's one thing to pull from my incessant rambling here is that, while more Halo would appear to be a great thing, that's not always the case. Star Wars Episodes 1 - 3? Rocky 6? Die Hard 4? Final Fantasy One-fucking-Billion? Halo 4?.... nah, not even that.

Maybe I'm afraid of change here, but I'm worried that Halo's direction is going to be derailed in the near future. Yeah I know... my glass is more than half empty. The bottom line, however, is that despite my fears, I will buy these games. No denying that. So maybe the direction for Halo envisioned here (evidently not Bungie's vision, I'd hope) is a "good" one. And by "good" I definitely mean "lucrative to the max."