[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Madness87 You only believe that Halo 3 left a lot of things unfinished because you look at it in hindsight from future games and info.[/quote] It's a matter of some contention to me that you [b]assume[/b] this when I've been arguing that Halo 4 was inevitable ever since I finished Halo 3. [quote]With the effective end of the Covenant, and the removal of the main threat humanity faced, the story should have ended for the time being.[/quote] No. 1) The Covenant has been identified as simply a MacGuffin for the real threat - the Forerunner legacy and the Flood. Halo CE-3 were constantly building towards the opening up of the larger picture. 2) Even in Halo 3, there are a number of hints which imply that the Covenant weren't defeated. Again, it's the illusion of closure you're taking at face value - Cortana's "it's finished" line. It's not, and anyone who paid attention to Halo 3 knows this. [quote]Yes, anything could arise in the future. But Chief was drifting in space for who knows how many years. In the end, we see it enter near a planet. But who's to say that it hadn't been hundreds to thousands of years at that point?[/quote] This point is utterly irrelevant. The passage of time he may or may not have been in space is irrelevant, we know what he was heading for because Mendicant Bias outright told us in the final Terminal. [quote]And the only reason is because in 2006 when they finished up the Halo 3 story for release in 2007, Bungie wanted to end Halo in a way that the main story is done so they could focus on other aspects, but to leave it a little ambiguous for the future.[/quote] What they wanted to do is irrelevant, since it's clear that they [i]didn't[/i] do it. [quote]What major plot points were left unfinished after Halo 3? The tidbits are anecdotal on what you, as a fan, wanted to know more about.[/quote] Note: * refers to plot points introduced/left hanging in Halo 3. (credit to Roberto for this comprehensive list I've altered.) *1) 6 of the 7 Halo rings are still primed and ready to fire - a shadow that will forever loom over the Halo universe as long as it's unresolved. *2) The Gravemind tells us that defeat at Installation 04B only delays his return at the end of Halo 3. *3) Medicant Bias virtually screams to the player that the Chief's story is not done, informing us that: *4) The Forerunners are not dead... *5) ...and that the path to the Forerunners is "frought with peril," suggesting a new threat. *6) No explanation whatsoever was given to these mysterious new beings referenced by the Didact called the Precursors. Later forming the basis of Greg Bear's 'cosmic game' in the Forerunner Saga, and which we now know is feeding directly into Halo 4. *7) Nor was any explanation given as to what "following in their footsteps" means when the Didact started talking about the Great Journey he will go on after he fires the Halos. *7.1) Therefore, The Great Journey does in fact exist, but has been misinterpretted by the Prophets. What is the Journey, and what is the signifigance? 8) Mankind has yet to uphold their destiny as the guardians of the universe (as mankind's destiny is the entire thematic point of the series, not continuing the story would mean voiding the relevance of the franchise as a story). This forms the thematic basis for the Reclaimer Trilogy, as the name itself implies. The Reclamation period has begun. 9) We do not know if humanity can survive the inevitable tensions between the Covenant client races, the Elites, and themselves. *10) We did not know (at the time, until Cryptum) what made humanity so special and worth saving in the eyes of Librarian. She said that we held the answer to many Forerunner secrets. *11) Cortana, who holds the largest wealth of Forerunner knowledge in the universe aside from the Forerunners themselves, is slowly drifting into insanity. How can anyone claim that Halo 3 provided any kind of satisfying closure when we spend the whole game building up to her rescue only for her to be discarded and left to rot into insanity half an hour later? *12) And finally, Master Chief, the selected messenger of Medicant Bias, is drifting near an unknown Forerunner world at the very end of Halo 3. The novels have since added plenty of substance to these plot points and have developed them to set up answers in the Reclaimer Trilogy.