Disney/Lucasfilm made arrangements with James Earl Jones so the iconic voice of Darth Vader could continue through AI-assisted technology. I honestly think Halo should explore something similar with Steve Downes with Steve’s full consent and control. Master Chief’s voice is inseparable from the character. Steve has been the voice of Chief for 25 years. If he ever wanted to, an agreement could preserve his iconic performance for future Halo projects while ensuring he and his estate retain control over how it’s used. The goal shouldn’t be to replace Steve Downes. It should be to make sure Master Chief always sounds like Master Chief. 🫡

My List for Making a Great Halo Game 1. Retcon Everything After Halo 3 Start a completely new trilogy from the end of Halo 3. Keep the original trilogy as the foundation and return to Master Chief and Cortana as the central characters. Build forward from the universe fans already know rather than reinventing the core identity of Halo. 2. An Epic Campaign Story Create a campaign that keeps players on the edge of their seats from beginning to end. Give it memorable characters, emotional moments, major twists, huge set pieces, and genuine badass moments that players will remember years later. 3. Destructible Environments & Vehicles Push destruction further than Halo has ever gone. Buildings, structures, cover, vehicles and battlefield environments should react to the player's weapons and the surrounding combat. A Warthog shouldn't simply explode because its health reached zero. It should become progressively damaged, lose parts, catch fire and eventually be destroyed. 4. Realistic Weapon Damage Every weapon should visibly affect whatever it hits. Bullets should leave meaningful damage on enemies, armor and environments. Plasma should burn and deform targets. Explosions should tear apart vehicles and structures. Plasma grenades should be devastating enough to blow enemies apart, with a much more physical and visceral damage system than previous Halo games. 5. A Soundtrack That Lives Up to Marty Create a soundtrack that captures the epic, emotional, mysterious and instantly recognizable musical identity of the original Halo trilogy. It doesn't have to copy Marty's music. It needs to create new themes that feel just as iconic. 6. The Master Chief & Arbiter Team-Up Give players the full Master Chief and Arbiter partnership that Halo 2 and Halo 3 set up. Don't just put them together for a few missions. Make their relationship and teamwork an important part of the trilogy. Let them fight side-by-side, have different perspectives, and develop the relationship between humanity and the Elites through the two characters. 7. Dark, Gritty & Realistic Keep the Halo 3-era universe designs, armor, weapons, Covenant, vehicles and overall visual language, but bring them into the modern era. Don't redesign everything just for the sake of redesigning it. Make the Halo 3 universe look photorealistic, detailed, worn, dirty and believable while preserving the designs that made the original trilogy recognizable. 8. Massive Battles Take advantage of modern hardware to create enormous battles. Scarabs, Warthogs, Ghosts, Wraiths, Banshees, Hornets, Marines, Elites and other Covenant and UNSC forces should be fighting simultaneously across massive battlefields. The player should feel like they're participating in an actual war—not simply moving through a series of small combat arenas. 9. The Prophet of Truth's Son Introduce a new central antagonist: the son of the Prophet of Truth. He inherited Truth's fanaticism but has become an even more dangerous leader. Unlike the Prophets we've seen before, he's physically capable of fighting alongside his forces and is skilled enough to wield dual energy swords. The Covenant has returned, more unified and dangerous than before, with its eyes once again set on Earth, the Halo rings and the wider galaxy. The deleted Halo 2 concepts showing the Prophets in their prime could also inspire the visual design and history of this new Covenant. 10. Bring Back the Mystery of Halo Bring back one of the most important elements of the original games: The feeling that we don't know what we're walking into. Halo rings shouldn't just be familiar locations. They should feel ancient, enormous and mysterious. Alien worlds, Forerunner installations, Covenant worlds and unknown regions of the galaxy should constantly make the player wonder: What happened here? Who built this? Don't explain everything

In the deleted scenes on the Halo 2 bonus disc, we get a glimpse of the San’Shyuum in their prime. Considering they once rivaled the Sangheili, this could be a really interesting path to explore.