The Halo franchise has been captivating gamers for the last two decades, gaining a large fanbase and even larger pool of lore to draw from. While the games might cover some of the biggest cinematic moments so far, the expanded universe of novels, comics, and TV shows released since Halo: Combat Evolved provide a much larger look into the canon. The most recent novel, Halo: Shadows of Reach, has fans wondering if there are a few hints between the lines that suggest some new details about Halo Infinite's story. The novel released in October 2020, and since then, fans have been scouring the pages for any details about the next entry to the Halo franchise.

There hasn't been a lot of details released about Halo Infinite's story. While dutifully listening to fans and giving them a natural successor to Halo 5: Guardians, Halo Infinite will also introduce Master Chief and the rest of the legacy to a new generation of fans. Parents who've been fans since the beginning will get to introduce their kids to the best alien-fighting Marine in the business, but tracking that lore can be quite the task.

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What Happens in Halo: Shadows of Reach?

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This novel is told from the perspectives of Master Chief and his Blue Team, and an alien Brute leader, Castor, as they each try to gain control of the former Castle Base on planet Reach. After a poor landing, Chief and his team are injured and are forced to get help from the Reach militia. While Blue Team can't tell the Colonial Militia why they're on Reach in the first place, Chief does get roped into helping them perform an attack on the Banished in order to prevent the militia doing something that would alert Cortana to their presence. After helping defend against the Banished forces, they are finally able to make their way to the former base, where they began digging to get to the entrance.

Once Blue Team enters Castle Base and gets what Halsey requested from her old office, they find Veta Lopis and her team of Spartan III's who had infiltrated the Keepers, and were working to take them down. She passed along a message without giving away her allegiance, and sent a member of Blue Team away. Shortly after, the Castor is able to open the portal when a Type-56 Lich comes through carrying a few Banished leaders, and Atriox, from previous novels. Castor boards the ship and heads to the Ark, ready for what awaits him on the other side. Master Chief delivers the packages to Halsey, and the human forces move outside of range before Cortana is alerted.

How It Affects Halo Infinite

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There is an AI that is introduced while Blue Team is at Castle Base called Kalmiya. This AI is a remnant of an older version of Cortana, and helps Blue Team find what they need from Halsey's lab. Some have speculated that this could hint that the package that Master Chief was picking up were old copies of Dr. Halsey's brain, which would be used to create a new AI to combat Cortana's dominion. Spartan Griffin, first introduced in Shadows of Reach, will be featured as a character in Infinite as well. Griffin is motion captured and voiced by Verlon Roberts.

Halo 5 wasn't reviewed the best by fans for what they saw as several issues with the gameplay and direction in which the story was going. Many people weren't happy that it took the focus off of Chief and tried to flip the perspective. While there were good individual missions, many fans are hoping that 343 Industries realizes where it went wrong. Perhaps it has too, as 343 has promised to pay close attention to where it messed up in the past in order to create a better future for Master Chief.

Halo Infinite releases Fall 2021 for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

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