343 Studios found themselves in a tough position when they inherited the Halo franchise from Bungie a few years back. If they moved Halo too far away from the formula that made it famous, millions of passionate fans would crucify them. On the other hand, if they didn't change things up at least a little bit, they would run the risk of making the franchise go stale. How does a studio approach such rich and storied fiction without upsetting fans in some way?

That's just the question that the "Fiction of Halo 4" panel attempted to answer tonight at the San Diego Comic Con, and all things considered, 343 seem to be running one tight ship in terms of story.

Halo 4 will by all means be a continuation of the story that began (chronologically, at least) in Halo: Reach and ended in Halo 3 and its ODST expansion. Having said that, it's been a while since Halo 3 released in 2007 and 343 doesn't expect everyone playing the fourth iteration to be totally up to speed on every little bit of Halo-themed media that has been floating around since then. As 343 is billing it, Halo 4 will mark the beginning of the next decade of Halo. It will absolutely be a stand-alone story, even as it builds on the mythos and themes of the last few games.

Of course Halo is no longer just synonomous with video games. The series has expanded to encompass many novels, comics, and even film shorts. This trend will continue even stronger under the watchful eye of 343, and their goal is to make sure that "every story counts" now more than ever. The key to making every little novel and comic count is to make sure that every individual story may stand alone, even as it contributes to the universe as a whole with interesting tidbits of lore. 

Following this explanation of the thought process behind the future of Halo's story, 343 switched focus to the cinematics in Halo 4. The cinematics, after all, have always been the core of the Halo story. This time they will be better than ever thanks to performance capture technology. 343 showed off a "making of" video depicting the motion capture process and showing off the results in the form of a quick snippet of cutscene. Simply put, the new facial animations look incredible, and are vastly more detailed than anything in the past games. As is becoming increasingly popular in the games industry, every cinematic is acted out in real time in real space, and then translated into the game. The cinematics were filmed on the same stage used for Avatar, and using much of the same tech as well. It really shows, especially in the emotional conclusion to the cinematic that 343 showed off.

343 has a huge task ahead of them when it comes to paving the way to Halo's future, but if their Comic Con panel was any indication, they have a great head on their shoulders about it. The new cinematics are looking better than ever, and the future of the novels and comics, although only alluded to, still sounds promising. It seems like Halo fans can look forward to another decade of great stories.