Campaign DLC - What should it be?

MINI-CAMPAIGN THREE - FLAMING SPIRIT

The UNSC Spirit of Fire has found its way to Zeta Halo (possible details as to how explained in a novel or comic once again).
Thanks to some cloaking technology adapted by the crew, the Spirit of Fire is able to maintain secrecy as it performs support duties for the scattered UNSC forces across Installation 07.

A seven mission campaign as you help to gather more lost soldiers and salvage supplies from crashed UNSC ships and Banished depots. With the final mission being a reunion with a certain familiar Spartan that we all know and love : Master Chief.
Each Mission will have you play as one of the Spartans on board the Spirit of Fire :

  • Leon-S011
  • Robert-S025
  • Douglas-S042 (now sporting a prosthetic left arm courtesy of Atriox early in Halo Wars 2)
  • August-S099
  • Alice-S130
  • Jerome-S092

(Or instead of each mission being played from a separate Spartan’s POV, it could all be portrayed from Jerome’s POV and the others are NPCs in the missions or even possibly Co-Op player options.)

The final mission would however play from the perspective of Master Chief, as in the second-to-last mission the Spirit of Fire was discovered and Jerome had to work hard to get all members off the ship as fast as possible. With the Spirit of Fire going Super-Nova after feigning an attempt flee; causing Banished ships to attempt pursuit and get caught in the self-destructive blast; the crew is now isolated on Zeta Halo.

Master Chief now must go out and try to save the lifeboats and supply shuttles that had scattered across that section of the ring; ensuring the safety of Captain Cutter, Isabel, and reuniting with Red team & Omega Team after 30 long years. The UNSC Spirit of Fire is lost. But now the UNSC forces on Zeta Halo are more organized and have fortifications that were dropped in and deployed during the Spirit of Fire’s time in the sky above (Firebases, outposts, drop-bunkers, & supply cache safehouses). This Guerilla War just got a bit easier to manage. Especially with more Spartans on the field.



This would be a great campaign to introduce the Mark IV Armor Core, which the Art of Halo Infinite has detailed late-stage concept art variants showcasing possible cosmetic options.

It would also be a great way for players to be given a season dedicated to said Armor Core, with two of the unlocks being Isabel and Serina as possible A.I.s to obtain for player personalization.

Armor Kits for Jerome, Alice, Douglas, Leon, Robert, and August now exist for the Mark IV.

A few new multiplayer maps from the mini-campaign are added in, one of which being a run down and destroyed Command-Center Firebase at the center with Outposts being each team’s spawn area. BTB Map.

Whaddya Think?

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Unrealistically? Arbiter shows up with his forces and he and the Master Chief find the Infinity still kicking.
The pilot sacrifices himself so I don’t have to hear anymore whining.
The UNSC finishes off the banished by the end of the DLC.
The Flood are released but taken out by the end.
Atriox gets his teeth smashed in and cries about the brute homeworld getting microwaved before Chief and Arbiter destroy him.
And the rest of the ring is free to explore without any barriers or loading screens.

Realistically? A new female endless villain shows up and exclaims to the Master Chief that he killed her mother at the end of the campaign and we have to fight in remixed mission areas against the same enemies. BUT we get to fight the new Super Armored Flying Endless!!!
And the DLC ends with the Chief beating the new endless villain again with many “Vows to bring in more endless!!!”

MINI-CAMPAIGN FOUR - NOBLE BRAVERY

Noble Team.
Five members died on Reach.
One survived - Spartan Jun-A266.

Given the loss of the UNSC Infinity and the destruction of Laconia Station, Spartans are once again a rare commodity. Jun has made a decision to take a few Spartans that he knows are capable of extremely high-risk performance in order to reform Noble Team. With the UNSC having located Zeta Halo and confirmed a high presence of Banished on the ring, too high to send in the fleet at current numbers, Noble Team steps in to be sent into Zeta Halo via a cloaked prowler and insert into the ring to begin operations behind enemy lines.

Noble Team is now comprised as follows -

  • SPARTAN JUN-A266 -
    The Sniper and Leader of Noble Team, providing reconnaissance and coordination for his team while also taking out targets at long range with fire-support. We all know him so there is not much to discuss here.

  • SPARTAN ROSENDA-A344 -
    Heavy-Weapons Support and XO of Noble Team. Originally she was meant to be a member of Noble Team early in the script of Halo Reach, but was relegated to being a background-lore character as a replacement for Noble 5 Emile-A239 should he be transferred out of Noble or be marked as “M.I.A.”. Now she gets her chance to shine in the lime-light. Her armor setup, depicted in the link below, is also made into an Armor Kit for the Mark V Bravo Armor Core.
    (- https://halo.wiki.gallery/images/thumb/5/52/HR_Rosenda-A344_Concept.png/800px-HR_Rosenda-A344_Concept.png -)

  • SPARTAN ANDREI-B217 -
    One of the few remaining Spartan-IIIs of Bravo Company that was approved of MJOLNIR armor rating, Andrei is the close-quarters specialist of the team. One of Bravo Company’s best when it came to brawling and clearing rooms when up-close and personal. His Armor Kit will also be added to the roster for the Mark V Bravo.

  • SPARTAN VICTOR / VICTORIA VANCE “Vic -
    Spartan Vance is the only Spartan-IV among the new Noble Team. One of the best that was hand-picked by Spartan Jun after being evaluated at the Avery Johnson Spartan Academy. Being the newcomer, Jun already knows of your worth and capabilities. Rosenda trusts in his judgement and would like to see you in action. Andrei however is pessimistic about your addition to the team, believing Spartan-IVs are less-than-capable when compared to Spartan-IIs and Spartan-IIIs. But you will prove to be a capable rifleman in the team and as the player character for the duration of the story.
    Spartan Vance will copy the appearance of your multiplayer Spartan, regardless of Armor Core. Yes, that means that Vance will show up in cutscenes dressed even in Fractures armor. Though without Armor Effects. And since you can be male or female in terms of voice-actor and body-type, Spartan Vance is either canonically referred to as Victor or Victoria. Though in most dialogue, the others will refer to the player as “Vic” for short.

So what is the story narrative?

Noble Team is sent in to be essentially a Headhunters team.
Deep behind enemy lines, they will attempt to assess the capabilities of The Banished, the strength of the UNSC forces still on the Ring, whether or not The Banished have acquired the Activation Index, and if any Flood Infection has been unleashed.

Noble Team is being sent in to locate The Silent Cartographer & The Library as their Primary Objective, assessing whether or not the Flood are being released and if The Banished have acquired the Index.
Secondaries are to evaluate Banished forces and assist the UNSC forces.
With the Primary Objectives fulfilled and the Activation Index secured, Noble Team must attempt an extraction.
An ONI Prowler is to remain on standby just off the edge of The Ring, cloaked and awaiting a signal from a beacon that must be erected as part of the final mission. The Beacon’s signal will reveal the location of Noble Team to The Banished, so expect a final fight against The Banished as you withstand the assault and extract with the Index and key intel before making an evasive slip-space jump away from the ring. A few actually before regrouping with a small UNSC fleet and then returning to Earth for a debrief with Serin Osman and Lord Admiral Hood.




Whaddya think?

This hypothetical Mini-Campaign would introduce things that have been left out of Halo Reach, adding in some new armors that are MJOLNIR Gen-I versions of armor assets that have origins in MJOLNIR Gen-II (Venator armor, Strider Helmet, Ranger, Raider, etc.).

It would also be a great opportunity for us to add in Auntie Dot as an A.I. for use in multiplayer.

And with the advent of this new Mini-DLC pack, Six new multiplayer Maps could be released, three of which being taken from the story mode arenas, while the other three being remastered maps from Halo Reach. Why six maps? Because the original Noble Team had six members of course.

And as I mentioned earlier in this post, new Armor Kits would be added for Rosenda-A344 and Andrei-B217. But it would also be nice to make an Armor Kit for Spartan Thom-A293, the original Noble Six and make it resemble his concept artwork rather than his live-action trailer in “Deliver Hope”, since Thom and B312 looked pretty much the same in that promotional trailer.
(- https://www.halopedia.org/Thom-A293#/media/File:HR_Thom-A293_Concept.png -)

DLC needs to factor back in all of the many many missing characters that disappeared after Halo 5. It also needs to create a more varied and believable environment, and generally present more of a “lived-in” active world, rather than a copy pasted series of FOBs and repeats of the same encounters.

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Ultimate sign of hack writing. Rather than actually develop your new big bad faction, you have to cheapen the Flood. Calling the Endless ‘more worser than teh Fl00d’ without elaborating. Like that’s just their mic drop moment. Killer stuff, guys.

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I figured the most likely route would be to make our multiplayer Spartan the main character of his own campaign, that slowly gets expanded on over the course of Infinite’s lifespan.

What could possibly be worse than the Flood?

They are a hivemind of highly ultra intelligent and incredibly resilient parasitic life forms that are spacefaring and can literally use any living or dead flesh to move around the galaxy. They also came from ANOTHER galaxy which could mean that they are in control of one or multiple galaxies!

Can you imagine 5 galaxies full of Flood all coming to attack the Milky Way, and they absorbed an unknown amount of alien civilizations with hyper advanced tech?

How are the endless supposed to be worse than that?

MINI-CAMPAIGN FIVE - BLUE EAGLES

Spartans Linda-S058, Kelly-S087, and Frederic-S104 were deployed by Captain Laskey and ONI on some other secret mission just prior to the arrival of the UNSC Infinity to Halo Installation 07. It is pretty much a guarantee that they will star in a novel or a comic book of their own sometime soon.

But eventually they will learn the fate of the UNSC Infinity and they would likely begin their own investigation and hunt for where John-S117 had gone.
A hunt that would lead them to the current whereabouts of Halo Installation 07 - Zeta Halo.

Upon arrival to the ring, they are of course accosted by The Banished and are shot out of the sky. Luck is on their side however as the three Spartans survive the abrupt crash landing. And they are contacted by a familiar A.I. - The Weapon.

Blue Team are of course, skeptical of the A.I.'s intentions. After all, they have no idea what is going on and whether-or-not this A.I. was on their side. The plan was for the A.I. to imitate and capture Cortana and then delete itself. Cortana is supposedly absent and The Weapon remains. So it would stand to reason that this A.I. is possibly sided with The Created faction. Though they don’t like it, they have to agree to work with the lesser of two evils at that moment; seeing as The Banished are the larger threat at the moment.

Fred, Linda, and Kelly will hesitantly work with the A.I. and retrieve it from where it is docked away. Apparently The Banished had laid a trap for The Master Chief in order to separate him from his A.I., knowing that Spartans are less capable without one enhancing their abilities. Their plan was successful, with Master Chief falling for the bait and depositing his A.I. in a pylum. They then suddenly teleported him away for imprisonment.

With The Weapon retrieved, Blue Team begins the Hunt for clues as to the whereabouts of the Master Chief. During the story, they learn to trust The Weapon, seeing her as separate from the Cortana that they once called a friend and eventually called their enemy. Eventually it is revealed where John is located - A Banished Prison Ship known as “The Starving Gullet”. The Weapon advises that Fernando Esparza not fly them up there due to all the firepower. Instead, she tasks Blue Team with securing a teleporter relay in order to allow their A.I. Companion to teleport up to the ship and lay siege from the inside.

There they find The Master Chief, fighting in the Gladiator Arena. He has been fighting this endless slaughter for nearly a week, still remaining strong in spite of the hunger and weariness. And now Blue Team manages to bust him out. With Blue Team and The Weapon now fully reunited with John-S117, the final mission ends as they force the ship to crash land into the nearby Command Ship and then set it to blow; returning to Zeta Halo and continuing their Guerilla Operations from there.




This hypothetical mini-campaign has a lot to offer. For starters, ALLOWING MULTIPLAYER SPARTANS to equip the Mark VI Gen-3 Armor Core - with new cosmetics and old ones such as the armor sets of Halo 3 being redesigned slightly for the Armor Core style.

Armor Kits for Spartans John-S117, Frederic-S104, Kelly-S087, Linda-S058, Soren-S066, Vannak-S134, Riz-S028, and Kai-S125.

The Weapon and Cortana as possible A.I.s for use in Multiplayer.

An update to the Main Campaign starring Master Chief that will allow Co-Op Players to be taking on Fred, Kelly, and Linda’s likeness instead of 3 more copies of Master Chief.

But what will allow this campaign to be a bit more different from the rest? Why; Fred, Linda, and Kelly have separate stats and equipment of course, with players able to become any one of the Spartans they choose when playing single-player and when playing co-op.

Fred is hard combat oriented. So he will have a sleight Damage-Boost giving him an edge in combat when it comes to mid-range rifles and a 25% boost to explosive damage / splash damage range. He would also come with the following equipment to use and upgrade -

  • Grapple Shot
  • Drop Cover
  • Repulsor
  • Overshield

Kelly is high speed and close-quarters combat oriented. So she wo0uld have a slightly faster boost of speed when it comes to sprinting and be able to jump higher, with a slight damage boost to shotguns and small arms. She will also come to the fight equipped with the following Spartan Gear -

  • Grapple Shot
  • Thruster Pack
  • Speed Boost Module
  • Jump Pack Booster (new equipment. Allows for a double jump which can let you remain on target in a fight while being able to ascend vertically for higher jumps and to be evasive when in the air by suddenly changing direction with a second jump. Can also be used to ground-pound when holding the melee button as an upgrade. JPB is also added to multiplayer as an expendable equipment)

Linda is known for her stealth and marksmanship. She has a boost of damage and ammunition capacity when it comes to sniper rifles and other scoped weapons. She is also equipped with the following Spartan Gear -

  • Grapple Shot
  • Remote Sensor
  • Enhanced VISR (new equipment, highlights targets in red and allies in blue for easier targeting and assessment of the battlefield. Upgrades essentially turn it into Promethean vision. Multiplayer version does NOT possess X-Ray upgrade through walls.)
  • Active Camouflage

If playing co-op with four players, one of the players will take up the role of a Spartan-IV that has tagged along - your own custom multiplayer Spartan will be used as the stand in and they will use the same equipment that John-S117 does in the main campaign. Base stats applied, though with faster shield regeneration so they aren’t entirely left out of having any sort of combat edge applied to said player.

Whaddya guys think?

Well, considering that there is a species that was able to survive the firing of the Halo array, it would be quite dangerous should the Flood assimilate such a species as it would reasonably develop the ability to also survive a Halo firing.

Thus the one tool that has shown to be absolutely effective in ending The Flood would become useless and we would all be doomed.

That is but one of the threats the Xalalyn poses. The other was the fact that since everyone else was essentially reset back to the stone age and the Xalalyn were not, it would be almost guaranteed that they would ruin the Librarian’s plans for the galaxy to restore itself naturally as it was before the Flood had consumed and poisoned world after world. The galaxy wouldn’t be one led by Forerunner plans, but by the Xalalyn. Hence the second reason why they were imprisoned on Zeta Halo.

Can the Flood beat them? Yes.
But that is the last thing you want.

So I have a simple solution for the x aliens:

Kill
Them
All
No
Prisoners

The UNSC has lost enough men, women, and children, and the Sangheili would be perfectly fine with eradicating a race of unknowns that shouldn’t exist and have the ability to survive the Flood.

But then again that’s such a stupid plothole. The halo rings literally vaporize all living tissue, how can the endless survive that? That’s like stuffing a mouse into a microwave and it comes out unscathed.

There’s no logical reason that they can survive the halo array firing, to say that is to just announce that you have no idea how the rings work. Its pure science fantasy.

Its so boring.

It has been implied that they have the ability to make minor jumps in time. So if they can simply jump-forwards in time well after the Halo Array was fired, then they would have essentially dodged a bullet. Hence the name of “The Endless” as time marches on without end and so to shall they.

…How?

Does 343 plan to explain how they can do that when not even the Forerunners or Precursors were capable of doing that?

I swear poor Joe Staten has to look at their creative decisions and think about them every time he goes to bed.

That is actually kind of the funny thing.
It is also implied that they were descendants of The Precursors. Mainly from this one line that both The Harbinger and The Gravemind had spoken.
“I shall ask and you shall listen.”
Both of them said this line in the same tone and emphasis of words.
Which implies that it has a certain meaning and thus is spoken a certain way.

Thanks to 343’s overwriting and retconning, The Precursors were made and they were defeated by their creation that were The Forerunners. Those that survived turned themselves to dust and fled the galaxy. Some dust was corrupted, found by Ancient Humans, and in time became The Flood.

Who’s to say that other canisters of this dust didn’t become corrupted and instead landed upon another world to develop and evolve? Possessing a portion of the great knowledge of the Precursors and thus, in time, we have the Xalanyn.

Ill let you know, August, Rober and Leon are not in the Spirit of Fire. They were just gameplay special units. And Douglas never had a broken arm to replace, it just healed.

Having read the wiki, I see that now. Since Jerome discerned that they had survived to present day after reading records from the Henry Lamb Research Outpost.
Perhaps they could be picked up along the way?

343 just loves retcons, whether major or minor.
Why not retcon it to be truly broken and requiring a replacement? That would be a way to allow cinematics to show off a robot arm on the Mark IV Armor Core in this hypothetical DLC.

Either the rest of the story, the bits that were cut out of the story, or a refund would be nice.

I know. Obviously this story should be a gameplay campaign of some sort anyway. I bought a bunch of Halo novels sometime after Shadows of Reach dropped and just couldn’t get into reading them. Part of that may be because I only enjoy comics and manga now, but it’s mostly because when it comes to Halo, I’d rather play the story than read it. I was just saying that your awesome hypothetical tale should be a lot more than just a forum post.

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Id like for them to pick up the created, flood and didact plot lines by unifying them and focus on blue team and john as a squad for the main campaign dlcs.

The other smaller stuff id like are.
Jega campaign.
Alpha 9.
Crimson go AWOL due to one being in achillies gen 2 and going insane but sloan can heal them via the domain and uses them as propoganda to convert spartans to the created cause.

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