Halo 5: Guardians drew quite a bit of fire over its relative lack of action from the franchise's signature protagonist, Master Chief. In a new interview with GamesTM magazine (via Eurogamer), Halo director Frank O'Connor has acknowledged the problem alongside the promise of more Master Chief in Halo 6.
Speaking on Halo 5, O'Connor said:
We definitely marketed [Halo 5] in a way that we hoped was going to bring surprise, but for some fans and certainly fans of Master Chief, it was a huge disappointment because they wanted more Chief. And that has been a big learning.
Turning towards Halo 6, O'Connor hints that the iconic Master Chief will play a much more prominent role in the story:
The volume of 'give us more Chief' at the end of Halo 5 was significant and so I think if anything he's slightly more important now than he has ever been, certainly to our franchise. Instead of focusing on bringing new characters into the world and expanding the playable characters we've sort of shifted the focus a little bit to making the world a little bit more realistic and compelling and, I would say, more fun for players who get to inhabit the Chief in the future, pretty much as they demanded.
Halo 6 currently doesn't have a release date, an O'Connor indicated it won't come this year, confirming that 343 doesn't have a triple-A game coming out this holiday. That said, it's entirely possible we could still see an announcement or teaser before the year is out. Either way, it sounds like fans of Master Chief have a lot to look forward to.