Campaign: I think we need to look at Halo: CE

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

After someone bringing up the Halo 4 campaign in a previous topic, I began thinking of all the Halo campaigns I’ve played (all of them). And out of them all, Halo: CE was and still is for some reason the only campaign that I keep coming back to.

The story was, of course, incredibly nice, and the gameplay was very decent too. Weapons were nice and meaty, the Covenant felt great to fight, the Flood a little less so but still satisfying enough to blast, and the level design was, well, awesome. I enjoyed every level in Halo: CE.

Halo 2 then came out and did some cool things with the story, but the gameplay just really wasn’t satisfactory enough to hold my attention for more playthroughs IMHO.

Halo 3 came and the gameplay was VERY good but the story and levels were mostly meh.

Halo: ODST came out, and while it did some cool stuff (VISR, neat little tweaks to the normal gameplay when you’re playing an ODST), the story was also meh and some elements of playing as an ODST were rather annoying.

Halo: Reach came out then and while the story did have a couple great high points, I found it really meh. Gameplay wasn’t good either. (Never did like Reach’s gameplay. It felt boring compared to Halo 3.) The last mission, Lone Wolf, however was an EXCELLENT ending. I loved it.

Finally, Halo 4 came out and I wasn’t impressed. A lot of people seemed to like Cortana. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just an unfeeling robot but I never did care all that much about her. While Halo 4 changed that a little, my feelings were still kind of the same. And that’s the whole problem with Halo 4’s story. It focuses too much on an element I don’t care about, and the remaining plot felt kinda scattered and boring. The gameplay didn’t really pull me in at all either.

So, as you can see, in the end, Halo: CE after all this time still remains, in my eyes, the best overall Campaign. This really needs to change. It’s definitely not just 343’s fault but Bungie’s as well. What I think we need is to go back and remember what made Halo: CE’s story great and get back to that first before we go doing anything else, campaign wise.

2

Halo 4 story to me felt like halo:CE based, but the other campaign elements puts in. Halo 5 should kind of do that but much darker and longer.

P.S. I agree Halo:CE had the best of them all <3

3

I think with the Campaign 343i should look forward, not back. The power of the next generation will allow them to do some crazy things that Bungie couldn’t even dream of when they worked on CE.the core gameplay principles should remain (FPS, vehicles, awesome backgrounds and skyboxes) but they should all be amplified and some revolutionized. Why? Because there is a lot of room for innovation and a lot of potential in it, too. Maybe not in multiplayer, but definitely in the campaign.

Imagine huge environments with epic battles between hundreds of AIs and the player left standing in between. Imagine vehicles that would make the Scarab look small, and set pieces that will make Long Night of Solace uninspiring. Think about environmental destruction and weather effects. That’s what Halo 5’s campaign should be about, not a desperate attempt to hold on to what used to be good just for some old fashioned nostalgia.

4

Halo: C.E. has a TON of backtracking, IMO.

5

Well, we all have different opinions. I don’t particularly like CE. I much prefer every aspect of Halo 2, and even 3. Of course, CE had its great points, and honestly I’d like 343i to look back at what made CE, Halo 2, Halo 3 (+ ODST), and even Reach (what little of it there was, mostly meaning the UI) amazing when developing Halo 5. Halo 4 was just a horrible mess and a stain upon the series, in my opinion.

6

Each campaign had it’s own focus… CE was mostly about mystery & discovery. That’s what made that game so memorable for me. I’m not sure if they can fully recapture that sense of awe and mystery CE had but the again there is still a lot of unknowns still to be discovered in the Halo Universe. My biggest disappointment is that in the Forerunner trilogy they revealed the origins of the Flood. Hard to fear an enemy you can explain. Having a mystery behind their origins and having to go to extreme lengths to defeat them makes for the greatest foes IMO.

7

> <mark>Each campaign had it’s own focus… CE was mostly about mystery & discovery. That’s what made that game so memorable for me.</mark> I’m not sure if they can fully recapture that sense of awe and mystery CE had but the again there is still a lot of unknowns still to be discovered in the Halo Universe. My biggest disappointment is that in the Forerunner trilogy they revealed the origins of the Flood. Hard to fear an enemy you can explain. Having a mystery behind their origins and having to go to extreme lengths to defeat them makes for the greatest foes IMO.

Exactly.

CE perfectly captured this and it remains my favourite campaign experience to date. However, I wasn’t too impressed with backtracking through AotCR and TaR.

8

But in essence Halo 4 did try to capture this… (see below)

Halo Trilogy (Bungie)

  • Halo CE was all about discovery, exploration and an introduction to the franchise. They introduced a “super” hero, an alien enemy bent on Xenocide through religious beliefs (thus a relate-able topic Religion vs Science), and a more sinister enemy that even the overpowered Covenant feared, as well as a memorable location… the halo ring, Installation 04A. They made the game fresh, new and innovative with new vehicles, weaponry, characters; in short they took the classic sandbox FFS and changed, developed and wired it to what they wanted.

  • Halo 2 was a sequel, it was all about history, consequence, betrayal, promises. It had given players from Halo CE a relative location, Earth, so they could envelop themselves further within the halo universe; had delved deeper into what it means to be part of the covenant; shown that humanity desperate if not futile struggle for survival against an on-mass alien alliance, was pitiful at best; plus shown more about the origins of the flood, and the mind and mission they were trying to for-fill. This created a new stand point for Halo in itself, it created history beyond just the Halo Games, and built solid galaxy that players could then think what-if or I want to know more thus build hype, anticipation and a stronger fanbase.

  • Halo 3 was the end of a trilogy and thus was to have closure… or so we thought. Halo 3 was about closure, survival, daring, friendship. Halo 3 had a far more unique location, the Lesser Ark, but showed us a something from the initial game Halo ring we destroyed had been rebuilt, Installation 04B; there was various battles on Earth with now a newly found friend and that the unanswered question what-if the flood came to Earth was answered… the various battles and new Installations discovered had given a short knowledge of the diversity and technological advancement of the Forerunners; the Flood had become all-mighty in the sense that they now had a knowable grave mind leading them. This create a third-party that forced both Arch-enemies Covenant and UNSC to unite against a common foe… it had created great battles. This game had to finish with a bang and thus it did, throughout the whole Halo Trilogy Master Chief and the Arbiter prevented the firing of the Halo Installations, yet in the end the firing of Installation 04B was inevitable but not with sacrifice… a much beloved character, Sergeant Avery Junior Johnson, had died for humanity to survive, giving us a true feeling of survival comes at a cost. To close we had another lovely warthog run that ended in a cataclysmic jump into a unmanned ship… the ending cut scene showing the firing of the Halo Ring in all its glory and destruction, decimating the Ark in the process. To believe we finally finished Halo was a joke, a split between heroes was an ending no-one could forget, as they grew to love both characters in the games and see their friendship and trust for each other develop, a lasting if not subliminal message that even the Human-Elite alliance couldn’t last. The game ended with Master Chief drifting in space toward an unknown location, giving us hope for perhaps another game…

Reclaimer Saga (343 Industries)
Halo 4, was an re-introduction to Halo main story Arc. But now that the covenant had disbanded and flood outbreak decimated… where could halo go. Thus 343 created a new story with new, yet familiar, enemies; the Storm Covenant, a break away faction of covenant, and a brand-new faction the Promethean with the return of the Forerunner. It had thus begun the long-awaited question what-if the covenant actually met one of their gods, the Forerunners? This lead to unbelievable knowledge about the Forerunner Ecumene, the predicament they were in when fighting the flood, it had also shown that Halo had been revived. Halo 4 was about Introduction as it now was new story arc; Rampancy how with due time and solitude, everyone can go crazy and uncontrollable(Ur-Didact, Cortana, perhaps Master Chief); Discovery and Exploration a new fresh Forerunner structure to explore, unlike the Halo almost canonically opposite was the Shield Worlds (Halo = Sword, Shield World = Shield); and the Difference between Humanity and Machine, showing that even a AI shows signs of humanity more so then even a Spartan, who is human by nature. This had given Halo franchise, a great new turn with the revamped graphics, sound effects and overall game-play it was spectacular, at least… although it did lack in the multiplayer its campaign and story had flourished far beyond expectation and like Halo CE its campaign was the high-point, but also that now we have alot more What-If Question.

What-If Question
My What-If Question is “What if Halo 4’s Promethean of Requeim, and other Promethean, fight the Precursor First-Born, the first flood forms, would kie to see the promethean weaponry against the flood to see how effective it really is.”

People say that the flood will not return well actually they might so:

  1. You Don’t Know as you don’t work at 343 Industries and have no power over the design of the story.

  2. People who say the flood are dead we killed them in Halo 1-3… let me re-introduce you to what Guilty Spark had said, the Librarian had put test tubes of flood-spore on each Halo ring for study as a cure may yet still exist but not in our lifetime. The discovered Halo rings out of the possible seven, are Installation 04A (Halo CE), Installation 05 (Halo 2), Installation 04B (Halo 3), Installation 03 (Halo 4) so four still our undiscovered by humanity. The outbreak of Installation 05 was an outbreak and nothing more… the real-threat of the flood was in the Flood-Forerunner War where flood took over and assimilate Forerunner and Ancient Human Fleets, they used Precursor technology to destroy the Forerunner Ecumene, and had numerous Keyminds (Next-Generation Gravemind) supported by billions of Graveminds and Proto-Graveminds. The real flood threat with assistance from Mendicant Bias had used some of the Shield Worlds to hide, escaped to Path Kethona an outrim galaxy orbiting the Milky Way, and was put on the Halo rings… so think of that.

9

IMO, CE had too much backtracking through confusing, reused areas. I found myself lost way more than I should have.

10

No, what they need to look at is Halo: CE, CE here meaning custom edition. For those that aren’t in the know, it’s a modded version of Halo 1 for PC that allows custom maps, weapons, sounds, etc. The amount of community content is ridiculous, and a good place to start for designing new stuff. I mean, imagine if this was basically Halo 5.

11

> No, what they need to look at is Halo: CE, CE here meaning custom edition. For those that aren’t in the know, it’s a modded version of Halo 1 for PC that allows custom maps, weapons, sounds, etc. The amount of community content is ridiculous, and a good place to start for designing new stuff. I mean, imagine if this was basically Halo 5.

Besides the silenced Sniper, which I really don’t like, and the fact that Brutes shouldn’t be in there canonically, that looks really good.

As to having the full customizability that Halo Custom Edition offers, I’m afraid that wouldn’t be possible on the consoles to the extent you’re talking about.

12

I prefer that they were very innovative with a Campaign gameplay. Unlike MP, people play SP for the storyline. The gameplay can be altered in anyway as long it is supports the story well. So why no open things up more? Make levels massive and the like. Copying CE should not be the way.

13

Halo 4’s campaign was supposed to capture the mystery and adventure again. The problem is they pretty much spoiled everything but the didact’s appearance and cortana’s death before launch.

The promtehans being humans wasn’t really that shocking at all. It didn’t stop them from being robot monsters (contrary to what their ViDoc claims).

It’s like if bungie told us about the flood and the true purpose of the rings before launch. With a nice ViDoc on how they made the flood.

14

I think the next game needs to be about MC teaming up with Mendicant Bias and discovering the truth about the “reclamation” the didact spoke of at the end of halo 4. Obviously very ominus and sounds rather threatening.

15

> Well, we all have different opinions. I don’t particularly like CE. I much prefer every aspect of Halo 2, and even 3. Of course, CE had its great points, and honestly I’d like 343i to look back at what made CE, Halo 2, Halo 3 (+ ODST), and even Reach (what little of it there was, mostly meaning the UI) amazing when developing Halo 5. Halo 4 was just a horrible mess and a stain upon the series, in my opinion.

I 75% agree with everything here. I think Halo 2 was best, but Reach was a close second for me. I though ODST was extremely meh.

16

> I think the next game needs to be about MC teaming up with Mendicant Bias and discovering the truth about the “reclamation” the didact spoke of at the end of halo 4. Obviously very ominus and sounds rather threatening.

The “Reclamation” the Didact was talking about is the process of humanity taking over the Mantle of Responsibility from the Forerunners.