Halo 3 had barely been released back in 2007 when rumours started about things happening at Bungie. Fairly soon afterwards, it was confirmed that the studio that had meant more for the success of Xbox than anyone else, was going to buy themselves and leave Microsoft.
The deal was to make two more Halo games, which was Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach, before trying their luck with Destiny, published by Activision instead, something that ironically also ended with a divorce after Destiny 2. But in an interview with Axios, the Xbox boss Phil Spencer reveals that he thinks Bungie's and Xbox' story would have ended differently today as "We've learned a lot".
"Could we do it today? I think we could. At the time they had big ambitions. They had sold their business for a certain amount of money. They saw what Halo turned into. And it's like, 'OK, Microsoft benefited more than Bungie did from the success of Halo.' There's no other story that can be written there."
Several prominent members from Xbox Game Studios has praised Microsoft's new stance to game development, but if it would have been enough that keep Bungie is of course impossible to tell. Rumour has it that Bungie is currently doing some kind of Halo work for a minor Destiny cross-over.
While this is yet to be confirmed, surely we aren't the only ones who would think it would be fun to see the original makers of Halo doing at least something with the franchise again?