In Halo CE, there were various parts of each level that were extremely dark, quiet, and atmospheric with very little music. This really helped to drive the mysterious theme of the game. It made wandering through the Forerunner complexes feel like you’re wandering through an ancient catacomb of ghosts and a lost civilization. No other Halo game was able to match it quite like CE except maybe Halo 2.
In Halo CE, these quiet and creepy moments were all throughout the game.
The Piller of Autumn had the section where the intense gunfights suddenly stopped, and you were isolated from your Marine allies to be left wandering through pitch-black maintenance accessways alone with only the Covenant to greet you when you came out. Not only that, but you were wandering through a badly damaged part of the ship.
Then came the second level, Halo, where you are dropped into a bright, open world of nature and strange constructs. After you rescue the first lifeboat, you travel into an extremely dark tunnel which is completely quiet and daunting, after which you discover an underground complex with Covenant vacating. As you walk to the bridge controls, a strange chanting begins playing. When you activate the light bridge, it stops and you’re left in utter silence looking at the light bridge popping out in the darkness.
In the third level, the nighttime level isn’t particularly atmospheric, but inside the ship itself is. The ship is very dimly lit, and the moments when you’re separated from the marines really allows the atmosphere to kick in.
The Silent Cartographer is an interesting level of contrasts. Half of the level you’re exploring the beach and paths of an island, then you wander deep into another dark shaft. The security shaft is of particular note since once you deactivate the security, Lament for PVT Jenkins plays as Bravo-22 radios in that it’s going down from enemy fire. This makes you feel like something bad is about to happen. As you’re about to exit the security shaft, you are attacked by AC Elites, which was particularly unexpected in a time where you’re focused on getting out and helping Bravo-22. The second half of the level is great too. When you come to the “Shafted” chapter, Chief travels into a dark tunnel and peers down a bottomless complex with several floors. The location of the map room was ingeniously designed in its artistry.
Assault on the Control Room was mostly a blow-through type of level with little down time.
343 Guilty Spark however is a masterpiece of game design on all fronts. After the reckless chaos of AotCR, the game’s tone completely shifts. I would conjecture that this level alone does survival horror better than some survival horror games. I could make a thread all its own of all the things 343 Guilty Spark does that not only build up to the Flood, but build such an immersive atmosphere and feeling of ghostly haunting that suck the player in. I won’t cover all the things 343 Guilty Spark did right, but I will point out the main thing in the first half of the level: Silence and level design working together.
When you’re first dropped into the Swamp, it’s mostly quiet except for the track “What was once lost” which sounds like a siren of sorts, emitting the feeling that something has gone horribly wrong (AND if you listen REALLY closely, you can hear flood gurgling noises in the background ambiance of the swamp… not in the Anniversary version though). The level design is also very subtle. If you’re attentive, you can see faint figures of Combat Forms in the fog here and there. (SIDE NOTE if you travel into the structure right up before the discovery of the Flood, then go back outside, you’ll find dead Marine bodies spawned right outside the entrance of the facility.)
When you go into the structure, there is absolutely no music before the discovery of the Flood. You’re left to take out the Grunts and Jackals, and to wander the seemingly abandoned facility as you discover pools of blood, bodies, and the infamous AWOL Marine. (Fun fact: in the narrow square hallways, if you go up to the locked doors a listen, you’ll faintly hear Infections Forms on the other side of the door. The first half traveling the facility is purely haunting, and this is what I’m trying to say.
The rest of the levels in CE are chaotic not in the war-like feeling of the first half, but more of a nightmarish chaos. The second half of the game is the ultimate payoff of the first half’s subtle buildup.
Halo 2 captured the haunting atmosphere of the dark, quiet sections of CE in some places. The one off the top of my head are the facilities under the lake in Regret, which had a good use of darkness and atmospheric silence. And I also feel some parts of Sacred Icon had honorable quiet moments, even though they were more reactive to the nightmare of the Flood in the Sentinel Wall. Same with High Charity.
I believe Reach had a good moment in the level New Alexandria with the Drones hiding inside the building, waiting for Noble Six to take out the jammer. (the place also had an AWOL Marine in it…)
In my opinion, Halo 4 has almost no dark, quiet moments. In fact there’s not a single moment in Halo 4 where I’m not being blinded by a super nova. Every light source in Halo 4 is a super nova. For a game revolving around the long-dead Forerunners, there really is not any dark, mysterious moments that the first Halo achieved so effectively.
A good game should change up the atmosphere every now and then to achieve a dynamic flow of tone. The heavenly white-bright charm of Halo 4 is nice, but it gets a little grating after no change in that tone for the whole game.
EDIT: I do respect Halo 4 for its different art style and tone. The game was about Requiem, a very lively Forerunner construct, so the bright lights and shiny look to every thing fit the story. I especially like the look of the Didact-themed locations. Halo 4 was understandable for its lack of haunting moments. But I feel there could have been more dark atmospheric moments in Dawn. And I have a great idea that should have been implemented in the level Composer. They should have let you keep playing after everybody got composed. They should have let you make your way to the fighter ship without any enemies or music at all; only silence and the smoldering ashes of the composed scientists and security officers. It could have been an amazing moment and would really bring out the emotion and fear in the player, and I think it’s a huge missed opportunity. That could have been the highlight of Halo 4.
