Halo 4

Halo 4 is the recently announced seventh installment in the best-selling Halo franchise.[1] The game was first revealed on Microsoft's homepage, hours before the start of their E3 press conference, due to a mistake in the editing department, which revealed Halo 4 and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary. The game was officially announced at the end of Microsoft's E3 2011 press conference. It is said to be the start of "a new trilogy", devloped by 343 Industries, Microsoft's new internal development company.

Little is known about the game except that it will continue where Halo 3 left off. In the trailer John-117, still in his resting place, awakens to a frightened Cortana pleading him to wake up and assist her. John, although slow to awake, characteristically snaps into action, approaching Cortana and confirming that he is up. Taking Cortana with him, he drifts through the burning corridor of the, with the aid of a thruster pack and what seems to be a pistol that fires off a single-use explosive projectile. He exits the torn aft section of the ship, prepared to face whatever frightened Cortana and warranted his awakening, and looks out into abyss of space, while the Dawn approaches a mysterious planet/ unknown construct, with a portal/tunnel leading into it. It has been said by Frank O'Connor that the planet is the Legendary planet seen in Halo 3 (seen during the Legendary ending cutscene). Also, if you look closely, Master Chief's armor has changed once again. The details on his armour have been increased and the look and feel has changed, but with close similarities to the Halo 3 Mark VI Armour, probably because 343 Industries didn't want to stray too far from the original. The armor is the same armor Chief used in Halo 3, as the scratch on the chestpiece that he got when he fell from the Forerunner dreadnought is still visible.

There is also rumors on there being a new voice actor for Cortana, because during the trailer, Cortana's voice is distinctly different from the voice actor, Jen Taylor, in Halo CE, 2, and 3, but they may have just used a replacement for trailer purposes only and Jen Taylor may be voice acting for Cortana in the actual game, or it was because when her voice was heard, the video was panning 'inside' Master Chief's body, and therefore muffled her voice.

If one has read the Halo book "Ghosts of Onyx", one may believe that it is Onyx, and the portal is opening to release what is left of the Spartans-III's and Kurt, and the rest of Blue team, but this is based on speculation and may not come to be. However this is unlikely primarily because Onyx's planetary shell was destroyed by the trillions of Onyx Sentinels that comprised the superstructure of the construct leaving only the slipspace rift. The game is currently expected to be released in "Holiday 2012", following the release of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary on November 15th, 2011. This ancient evil, stated on the leaked Halo E3 page, could be the Precursors, the Forerunners, the Flood, or something entirely new. It also should be noted that the construct shown in the trailer looks neither Human, Covenant or Forerunner in origin although many ideas have sparked about the Forerunners arriving from a different galaxy after the first activation of Halo.