After A Five-Year Absence, Will 'Halo Infinite' Be Able To Carry On The Franchise's Relevancy And Rich Meme Culture?

After a five-year hiatus, the legendary Halo franchise is finally getting a new entry, Halo Infinite, and that makes it a good moment to look at its long-standing contribution to memes and internet culture. Ever since Halo: Combat Evolved released in 2001, the franchise has had a major impact on the Millennial generation from its gameplay to its function as an inroad for creative expression. This aspect has been shown through both in-game custom matches to Machinima videos, cosplays and many other ways the fandom has expressed their love for Halo over the years.

However, in recent years, the game franchise has seen better days, with Halo 4 and 5 not garnering nearly as much critical acclaim as their predecessors. The memes that have spawned from the franchise are a good way to look at the new game's potential for cultural impact, so let's take a look at some of Halo's most prominent examples from the past, and how Halo Infinite might play a role in that future.

Memes from the franchise proper are a good place to start, as these form the bedrock of Halo's rich meme culture. Dating back to the first game, Halo: Combat Evolved, the sounds the Elite enemies made became an instantly recognizable meme early on. Halo's iconic title theme with chants and strings is a similarly recognizable piece of music that acts as an ear-worm type of meme, spawning various parodies even to this day. Additionally, the game's multiplayer mode helped to popularize such gaming terminology like “teabagging” and “camping” -- slang that remains common even up to the modern day.

Jumping forward in the franchise to the final mission in Halo: Reach, called "Lone Wolf," this famous level also became a meme years after its original release in 2010. Some of these memes would become so synonymous with Halo that the franchise itself ended up adding references to big-name creators, such as Rooster Teeth, who created the massively popular “Red vs. Blue” series.

Although Halo's fandom has created countless memorable content over the years, nothing quite compares to the success of "Red vs. Blue." In April 2003, the first episode of Halo's iconic Machinima series was released, poking fun at both the multiplayer setting as well as acting as a vehicle for the production crew's lasting comedy. The series was so popular within the fandom that its developer, Bungie, even added some of the crew's voices as an Easter Egg in Halo 3.

Certain "Red vs. Blue" references eventually went on and became memes in their own right, such as the character Sarge’s line, “We've been tricked, we've been backstabbed and we've been quite possibly, bamboozled!” Similarly, a line from the character Church, “Wait, that’s illegal,” would emerge as a reaction image within the last year. The series remains popular and has plans to move into its 18th season, acting as an endless ocean of potential memes.

The franchise's accomplishments in gaming and storytelling ultimately helped to propel it as an inspiration for people to enjoy Halo memes. Beyond "Red vs. Blue," there have been other successful memes created from Halo's characters and imagery. Another classic Machinima series, “Arby 'n’ the Chief,” explored live-action parodies, unlike the in-game "Red vs. Blue." In the series, it referenced an old 4chan meme known as “Pretty Cool Guy,” which created thousands of other iterations. Transcending beyond Halo, Pretty Cool Guy would become a viable meme template for any video game or movie character after it originated. It's possible to keep referencing and digging into the franchise's extensive history of memes, but what does all this mean for Halo Infinite's release this holiday season?

One thing is certain about the history of the Halo franchise -- the games developed exclusively by 343 never got the same level of user praise. Aggregate user ratings on Metacritic showed a downward trend from Halo: Combat Evolved, moving from a score of 8.5/10 to ending at 6.4/10 for Halo 5. Aggregate critical scores show a similar downward trend, although not as dramatic, going from a 97/100 to an 85/100. Although there were some notable examples, memes from the later games never quite manifested in the same way as the culture of the gaming industry dramatically changed over the last two decades.

With the recent release of The Master Chief Collection on PC and Halo 3 on July 13th, the game appears to be doing well, peaking at about 30,000 viewers during prime hours on Twitch. Ultimately, the cultural success of Halo Infinite will ride on its gameplay, as it has to compete with its past if it hopes to meme in the future. After today's Xbox Games Showcase previewed an eight-minute demo, it seems like the next chapter for Master Chief might already be off to a rocky start … but at least there are memes already, right?