Who is the mysterious character in Halo 5 reveal image?

With the announcement of Halo 5 for the Xbox One this morning, 343 Industries also released a new piece of art for the game that featured an non-familiar character, and has opened plenty of speculation in terms of where the story is heading.

The image depicts the new character model mirrored by Master Chief.  This model has a slimmer look than the iconic hero, and early speculation is that it is a female character of some sort.  Frank O’Connor of 343 Industries has already shut down that speculation, claiming that it’s not a female character, nor is it Cortana in physical form.

So who is it?  And what role will they play in the game? Will Halo 5: Guardians have a two character structure, like the one we saw in Halo 2? Or, is this just a new look for the Master Chief? There are a ton of questions that Halo fans have about the new direction that the series will go in.  

It’s entirely too hard to tell at this point, with very little to go on.  The subtle hints in the image suggest that it’s a new character.  Looking at a high-res version of the image, there’s an ONI symbol on the chest piece, which would support the new character theory.  While hints from previous trailers and the Halo novels suggest that Chief would be getting new Forerunner Armor. The mirrored image would suggest that it’s the same person, or that they are linked closely in some way.

With a year and half lead up time to release of Halo 5: Guardians, we likely won’t be getting all of the answers to these questions any time soon. Though 343 Industries says there are more details to come at E3 2014.