I’ve seen than a lot of people seem to hate 343 character redesign introduced in Halo 4 but I really like them and wish that Infinite would make them canon but with a few caveats.
In my opinion 343 biggest mistake was not to gave them a canon explanation and simply throwing away the old desings. Gen IV Spartans designs makes a lot of sense canon wise as after the Covenant/Flood war humans and Shangheili are allies thus sharing thechnology would make new Spartans closer to the Elites; faster and leaner but because they aren’t as physically strong as old spartans their armor is lighter and depend more on shields, in that sense Spartan IV armor are like Lambo’s, they are all into striking fast and giving an aggresive impression upon the enemy just like Halo 5 Fireteam Osiris intro shows but Halo 2/3 MC armor is more like one-of-a-kind piece. It’s basically a military prototype jet fighter, highly armored but also crazy expensive and not something meant to be to mass produced (and also has a somewhat vintage feel with robustness in mind).
343 should have had a canon explanation for MC having to replace it’s armor instead of “nanomachines son” to something like “floating in space deeply damaged your life support” and having Cortana to bypass all the ship energy and armor energy into keeping him alive (sacrificing even her own lifespan thus also making all the Cortana going berserk shenaningas having more impact in the story, she’s literally dying because of you!) and in some point of the Halo 4 campaign having him replace it with a Spartan IV armor (for gameplay reasons there would be no caveats and the stats would be the same with maybe a slightly increase in speed or having sprint as a default) this would be crucial for Halo 5 as the new armor is prone to a HUGE caveat; remote armor locking, making MC change to a repaired Halo 2/3 armor for Infinite a logic desition.
I also liked the new elites but it should have been a different phenotype limited to the Elite Pirates/usurpers who value brutishness and raw strength over anyhing else making them having extensive mutations/augmentations/(endogamic relationships?) whatever that ended making them have this huge size (and maybe low IQ), this will also help explain why the Inquisitor forces in Halo 5 struggle during the civil war and needed the aid of humans spartans.
I do think that the halo 4 and 5 style can one day be used. But I think the main problem with it now is that it was introduced way too quickly. Things like the chiefs armor completely changed out of the blue. If the chief’s armor didn’t change until after he was on the infinity, I think it would have been more believable than some “nanobots” magically changing his armor. As for the new covenant designs, if those changes were slowly implemented over a few games I think people would like it a little more.
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> I do think that the halo 4 and 5 style can one day be used. But I think the main problem with it now is that it was introduced way too quickly. Things like the chiefs armor completely changed out of the blue. If the chief’s armor didn’t change until after he was on the infinity, I think it would have been more believable than some “nanobots” magically changing his armor. As for the new covenant designs, if those changes were slowly implemented over a few games I think people would like it a little more.
It was definitely a culture shock for many. But for me it goes deeper than that. Everything is so crisp and clean and shiny now. I work for a government agency, and many of my colleagues used to be in the military. Crisp, clean, and shiny is definitely not a word I’ve heard used or I would use to describe most forward military assets.
Let’s take the Infinity as an example. It looks like it came off the line yesterday in every shot, but it’s seen lots of action in the few years it has been in service. There’s no rust, no out of service corridors, no dilapidation of any kind. The hull is pristine and the engines have no burn marks around the edges. It’s unrealistic and ruins my suspension of disbelief that a government funded warship looks like a cruise liner.
This all is further complicated by the fact that humanity was almost wiped out mere years prior to the current date in the games. They simply shouldn’t have all the coolest toys on the galactic block. Instead, everyone should have been hurt by the Covenant War. Humanity should be still picking up the pieces while the Covenant should be reeling as well. It took decades for the United States to recover from the Civil War, which spanned a single country… so it took less than half a decade for humanity to recover from a galactic war that spanned the Orion Arm?
As to the rest of the design changes, I just simply fall into the camp that prefers how the Elites and other species looked in previous installments. That’s just a preference though, so it’s not nearly as important to me as the above issue. As for Chief’s armor, I would have been fine with 343 just outright saying that they went with a new design because that’s what they wanted, instead of trying to find some lore explanation for it. I don’t like the new design, but at least that would be honest and reasonable.
I actually really like the 343 design. I had played every halo but only really began to enjoy it when I played Reach.
The armour is definitely hit or miss but I find recruit/warrior are just so good looking.
Jackal phenotype was cool, chiefs armour took a bit to grow on me but looked the best it ever had, I never noticed a change in the elites, the grunts I dont care either way. Overall I found the changes to not matter or improve things, except a lot of MP armour. I hope we have an option to change undersuit style and gen2/3 styles.