Why 'Halo 6' May Finally Get an Official Reveal at E3 2018

Not to be outdone by the Fallout 76 rumor mill, there’s been some growing buzz about Halo 6. The upcoming title has been in development since at least 2015 but was a no show at E3 2017. Here’s what you may hear from Microsoft at E3 2018.

Will Microsoft announce Halo 6?

Most likely, yes. It may not be called Halo 6 but expect to see Master Chief front and center at the Microsoft presentation.

Why? Well, if 343 Industries has set a precedent with Halo 4 then Halo 6 is right around the corner. Halo 4 was released in 2012 and Halo 5: Guardians was released in 2015. Releasing Halo 6 this year would stagger the games with a nice three year break in between titles.

It also makes financial sense. Halo is Microsoft’s flagship gaming franchise and announcing a major Halo title in June would lead neatly into a fall release. Fall is the most profitable release season for AAA video game studios since sales, reviews, and hype all carry over into the holidays when consumers are looking for gifts to buy.

Every major Halo title (by major, I mean the FPS games) has been released in the fall, without fail. There’s no reason to believe this time would be different.

It might be coming to PC

Did you know that the first Halo game was supposed to be a PC game? It became an Xbox inclusive when Microsoft bought Bungie, those jerks.

Microsoft Studios is now correcting that and has all but confirmed that Halo 6 will indeed be getting a PC release.

The publisher has made some half-hearted attempts in the past with shoddy ports of Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, but ever since the company canned its horrific Games for Windows service, things have gotten much better. Gears of War 4 was released on Xbox One and Windows to a warm reception. It even featured cross-platform multiplayer.

This all bodes well for hopeful Halo 6 players who prefer a mouse and keyboard to a joypad.

Splitscreen is back

Service members rejoice. You will no longer have to rely on sketchy deployment internet in order to get your Halo sessions in.

Bonnie Ross, head of 343 Industries, confirmed that the game will indeed have splitscreen multiplayer. The decisions to omit a local multiplayer mode in Halo 5: Guardians was met with massive fan backlash.

Prepare for Battle Royale

You might think I’m crazy, but remember that the story of the Battle Royale genre is basically a long string of unlikely successors.

DayZ was a mod of the military simulator game ARMA 2 that had players scavenging for supplies and murdering each other in a zombie-infested landscape. Brendan Greene created his Battle Royale mod when he and several other independent developers realized that people played DayZ for the thrill of battling against dozens of other players in a huge open world. When Greene went on to develop PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (or PUBG), it made the Battle Royale genre an inescapable gaming sensation.

Then a modest little zombie-slaying game called Fortnite decided to make a spin-off mode, Fortnite Battle Royale. As a result, Epic Games is now worth $4.5 billion dollars.

The moderators of the Halo subreddit posted an April Fool’s joke about a hypothetical Halo battle royale mode, and guess what? People actually wanted it.

Mark my words: Halo. Battle. Royale.

Microsoft presents at E3 2018 on June 10, 2018