Bungie's final hurrah to the iconic series they created, Halo: Reach's prequel storyline, while treading familiar ground to the developer's previous efforts, offered a way for the company to shake up the franchise's iconic gameplay one final time before they moved on. Reach just edges it over Gears 3 simply because it managed to innovate and modernise the ageing gameplay that the series had stuck to for almost a decade at this point. Shaking up the way multiplayer operated, and introducing features such as perks and classes, Bungie was able to re-energise a classic game for a modern audience, setting the franchise back onto a course of relevancy that's kept Halo burning strong to this very day. While it might not have been the finale many players wanted from Bungie, Halo: Reach's emotional narrative managed to humanise a franchise that for so long felt impenetrable, and offered a surprisingly downbeat but a suitably explosive and poignant ending to the developer's reign over the series as a whole.
