It’s been a bumpy road for Halo developers Bungie over the last few years. After releasing its last big game, Destiny 2, in 2017, the once-industry leading studio has mostly focused on frequent updates and upheavals surrounding the cooperative online shooter — which have fluctuated in quality between middling (2023’s Lightfall) and groundbreaking (2024’s The Final Shape). Despite having helped define the last 25 years of first-person shooters with the original Halo trilogy, Bungie has spent the last decade focusing exclusively on live-service games like Destiny.

And while the franchise helped usher in...