Never say never. It's not always about beating the past. It's about creating newer and more fun experiences. If Halo 7 comes out, it doesn't have to dethrone Halo CE, it just needs to be amazing in itself.

I was actually a fan of the 343 Halo games just as much as the Bungie games. In terms of Gameplay, 343 nailed them all, they just didn't have the epic story like Bungie had and the lack of content at launch always hurts. 

Like most trilogies, it always goes down hill, like we have seen with Star Wars or Indiana Jones etc. It's extremely hard to maintain such epic story telling when the best parts of the stories have already been told. Halo is going through that right.

But..

If the Halo Studio can nail the Gameplay of 343 and the story and content of Bungie, we will have an epic Halo experience on our hands.

Well, I was considering like a remake in the vain of REmake 2 or 4. Like properly remade and enhanced as if you were playing Infinite on those old maps. 

343 is underrated IMO. I really enjoyed Reach, 4 and Infinite. Perhaps I am remembering wrong, but they were 343 games, no?

Yeah those RE remakes are something special. Halo 2 anniversary graphically is a huge leap forward but the gameplay stays true to the original. They even added full Cinematic cutscenes. Have you tried it?

The move to UE5 is kind of disappointing to hear. Less bespoke engines on the market now.

But it should make it easier to port to PS consoles, and to get additional support from other teams also using UE5.

Halo: Reach was probably the last super good Halo FPS title.

Halo Wars was a good RTS for a console game... And Spartan Assault was a different take as well.

Halo 4 was a technical showpiece for the Xbox 360 console and gave the Xbox 360 a good send off... But it's Multiplayer and Story left much to be desired, I did like the inclusion of the Prometheans to mix up the flood/covenant stuff that we had experienced already for years.

Halo 1, 2, 3, ODST and Reach was made by Bungie.
Halo 4, 5 and Infinite were made by 343i.
Halo Wars was made by Ensemble Studios. (One of the best RTS developers... Microsoft closed them.)
Halo Wars 2 was made Creative Assembly.
Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike was made by Vanguard Games... With Spartan Strike being the only Halo game never to release on an Xbox console.
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary original game code made by Bungie, remaster done by Saber.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection gets tricky... As Saber Interactive did the remaster of Halo 2 with Blur Studios doing the cut-scenes which was incredible, Saber Also did the original Combat Evolved Anniversary Remaster...

343i work involved the combining of all the titles into a single package which ended up being a logistical nightmare, resulting in an absolute unplayable, buggy, terrible mess... Requiring a complete top to bottom rebuild of the set... Microsoft also issued an apology and a free copy of ODST, 1 month of free Xbox Live.

Without a doubt... Bungie made the best Halo FPS games, all of 343i games have fallen short.
Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike were good, albeit short low-budget romps... And Halo Wars 1+2 is a basic, simple, bare-bones, shallow RTS, but has it's charm if you can get around the lack of online population and support.

Here is the kicker... Did you know you can still connect the Original Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Xbox Series X and play the original Halo 1+2 over LAN via backwards compatibility on all the consoles still?

I do it with my consoles on the odd occasion... But I also have a ton of PC's so it's easier just to fire those up instead.

I think that's part of the issue... People are expecting 343i to be like Bungie.
They aren't Bungie and never will be... But 343i also needs to realize this and lean on it's own strengths rather than just trying to stick to a formula or continuously make the same mistakes. (I.E. Lack of Content and expected features with Halo 5 and Infinite on launch.)

One advantage of having their own in-house engine was that they could engineer the engine to the consoles strengths and weaknesses... I.E. Halo 3 used the Tessellation unit (Something Sony didn't have until the PS4) to make Tessellated water effects.
But they also pushed a ton of Alpha Effects which the Xbox 360's insane bandwidth was really amazing at handling.

And Halo 4 they leveraged the extremely flexible shaders on Xbox 360 to implement subsurface scattering on skin to give a very realistic effect... Which ironically is ray tracing.

What did Halo 5 and Infinite do that wowed people to want to buy an Xbox console? It wasn't class-leading graphics, Halo 5 was a terrible looking game and it didn't even have 60fps animations, it was built as a 30fps game.
And Infinite was ridiculed heavily for it's flat texturing and lighting, which forced a delay in it's release.

Technology matters, I just hope that a shift to UE5 isn't going to make the games feel "samey" to all the other UE5 games.

They didn't do Reach but I still agree with you. 343's biggest issues were seemingly being unable to put it all together in one package but they did show signs of greatness for each entry in one specific area. For example, Imo, Halo 4 had a great story but the multiplayer was meh. Halo 5 had a meh story but the multiplayer was great, however it was lacking content with missing Forge on launch and a lack of unique maps.

Halo Infinite actually came the closest for me to them putting it all together, a great story, a great multiplayer, the art-style and Chief model is among the best in the series, I'd also say the best Chief in the series, the core gameplay is Halo at its best. Unfortunately they fucked up on content again, a lack of biomes for the campaign, no Forge on launch and they utterly fucked the post-launch support of multiplayer.

When Forge finally arrived, it's by far the best Forge mode ever, the multiplayer at its core is awesome due to the gameplay but it's a multiplayer title and they shit the bed on the post launch support and that's where the vast majority of criticism came from, if they didn't fuck that up then we'd be looking back at 343i differently, they may not have been going through this huge revamp even.

Unfortunate it is too little too late for Infinite to recover but at least they still support it. Halo Infinite's core gameplay is the best in the series. I really hope they don't change that for the sequel, I also hope they don't change the art-style for the sequel or soft-reboot the story once again, Lol. They need to fix their content pipeline (which Unreal Engine should help with).

Also, I really hope they stick with Atriox, he is Imo one of the most interesting Halo villains, I loved him in Halo Wars 2 and Halo Infinite but they didn't have enough of him, his backstory is great and he is more complex of a character than the Prophet of Truth and more badass than Tartarus. He has a lot of potential as a villain. I also loved Didact (he's amazing in the books) but they shit the bed by not keeping him on as a villain and fleshing him out more, Didact should have been the villain in Halo 5 instead and it would have felt more like there was some sort of long-term story plan.

Halo 2 Anniversary was also led by Certain Affinity! The art-direction was led by 343i, Halo diehards were not happy with Halo CEA's art-style, Lol. By comparison Halo 2A's was adored. I think Sabre led Campaign and Certain Affinity led Multiplayer. Certain Affinity has some ex-Bungie vets and they've always been a co-development partner with 343i.

@Azzanation I did this research recently, maybe it will be better suited here

343 Leadership

CVP, Head of 343 Industries

• Old: Bonnie Ross (2007-2022)
• New: Pierre Hintze (2022-Current)

Pierre is known as the guy who fixed the MCC but it of course was a team effort. He joined 343i in 2018 as Head of Publishing in their secondary team working with external partners, the primary team being the mainline titles, Pierre was tasked with leading the Master Chief Collection repair efforts which he did so brilliantly. The MCC before 2018 was an absolute mess, since Pierre took over it was updated massively and added more content than was ever promised.

Pierre's expertise are mostly focused in production and producer roles as well so his experience is managing teams.

Franchise Development Director

• Old: Frank O'Connor (2008-2023)
• New: Corrine Robinson (2023-Current)

Frankie was essentially the 2nd in charge of 343i behind Bonnie Ross.

Head of Transmedia and Entertainment

• Old: Kiki Wolfkill (2015-2023)
• New: ????

I'm unsure who replaced her or if she simply moved outside of 343i, I have previously speculated that maybe the whole Transmedia team inside of 343i was moved outside of 343i to be less of a distraction for Pierre.

Kiki was essentially the 3rd pillar of 343i back in the day, alongside Bonnie and Frankie.

General Manager (New Role)

• New: Bryan Koski (2022-Current)

I believe Bonnie Ross was Studio Head, CVP, General Manager, etc. Bunch of roles mixed into one, Pierre upon taking over her role decided to split it up and spread it out, likely because it was ridiculous for one person to have all those roles and responsibilities.

Chief Operating Officer (New Role)

• New: Elizabeth Van Wyck (2022-Current)

This was another role in which Pierre decided to create upon Bonnie's departure instead of being in charge of everything.

Studio Design Director

• Old: ????
• New: Max Szlagor (2023-Current)

I'm not sure if this is a new role or simply an old role slightly renamed, I'm not a developer, Lol. I see 343 had a Live Design Director, Multiplayer Design Director and Narrative Design Director but I can't find a Studio Design Director before Max in Halo 5 or Halo Infinite credits. Could it be Chris Lee's role but with a slight name change? (Studio Design Director/Studio Director?)

Anyway, Max also comes from Pierre's former team, he joined the MCC team in 2017-2018 as Design Director and also credited for positively changing the MCC from the state it was in alongside Pierre and others.

Studio Director/Head of FPS Development

• Old: Chris Lee (2016-2020)
• New: ????

I'm not sure who has replaced him, I would speculate either it's Max Szlagor's role or Pierre has absorbed this role.

Head of Design

• Old: Jerry Hook (Halo Infinite-2022)
• New: ????

See below.

Lead Game Designer

• Old: ????
• New: Dan Gniady (2024-Current)

Did Dan Gniady replace Jerry Hook? Lead Game Designer and Head of Design sound like the same thing to me.

Multiplayer Creative Director

• Old: Tom French (Halo Infinite-2022)
• New: ????

I can't find his replacement yet.

Lead Multiplayer Designer

• Old: Andrew Witts (Halo Infinite-2022)
• New: 

I can't find his replacement yet.

Forge Lead

• Old: Tom French (Halo 5 Guardians)
• New: Michael Schorr (Halo Infinite-Current)

Head of Engineering

• Old: David Berger (2007-2022)
• New: ????

I can't find his replacement but I assume his departure was down to them switching to Unreal Engine.

Art Director

• Old: Nicolas Bouvier (2014-2022)
• New: Chris Matthews (2022-Current)

Cinematic Director

• Old: ????
• New: Josh Daniels (2024-Current)

Unsure who the previous Cinematic Director was.

Chief of Staff

• Rob Semsey (2017-2022)
• Melissa Boone (2022-Current)

Rob Semsey is still at 343i but he is now Director of Communications so he has replaced someone there.

======

This isn't an extensive list because it obviously doesn't include the 100+ layoffs from the Campaign team, it's largely focused on the leadership roles, the Campaign team was gutted so they're going to have to be rebuilt and the leadership team has been almost completely revamped, others have departed here and there too which I haven't listed.

Comes across like Pierre and the MCC (2018+) team took over the main team and he has switched some roles up, streamlined a lot of processes and some roles in the two years he has been in charge and now after clearing up some of the mess, he is preparing to gear up for the full-scale ramp up. I'm going to remain optimistic and let him cook, he clearly cares for Halo and understands a lot about it based on previous interviews.

As long as they fix the following issues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qfx9eoB-88

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt3yr4T2z1g

Then we should have a great halo game.