There was a phenomenon I felt while playing the camaign, couldn’t put my finger on and had to think about later in order to grasp it. What I sort of settled on was a sense that for much of the outdoors missions on Requiem, it felt like I was at the bottom of a valley. For a lot of the time, there were huge walls to the left and right of me. Did anyone else get this sense?
Now there were exceptions of course. The money shot of the entire game is when you get to see the grand vista of the Forerunner structures before hopping in the Warthog in the level Requiem. When that happened, I was blown away. It reminded me of the first time seeing the waterfall at the Cartographer in Halo 3. It’s those moments in Halo campaigns where I really sit back in awe.
With Reach, a lot of game took place out in grand, open areas and that was a big appeal for me. For the most part, you were still relatively limited in where you could go, but on one side of you there’d be a cliff or water and you could get a view of these amazing skyboxes. It created an illusion of a vast and open battefield. Even if my objective was mostly straight ahead, I was given the sense of a vast world around me. (And you could see other battles raging in a lot of backgrounds as well.)
In Halo 4, those views seem to be in smaller numbers. I’m often working up a hill or down a hill between two Grand Canyon walls to some indoor space. (Some of the expanses in the Forerunner structures are grand and amazing. I’m looking at you Requiem’s core, but it’s not the same as a nature view.) I was wondering if anyone knew of a reason for that. Some folks in these forums always understand technical stuff far better than I do. Is using the level of detail involved in 4’s art direction too taxing to have that kind of stuff visible all the time? Was this some kind of stylistic decision to create a sense of isolation? Did they just not think people enjoy this aspect of the games?
I know there may not be any real answer out there and I’m somewhat of an odd duck for even focusing much on that kind of thing. I mean, I’ve always wanted to be able to load a despawned version of campaign and firefight levels, a la multiplayer maps in Forge, just so I could go around and look in depth. I know that’s not your average Halo player’s desire, but I’d love to be able to shoot an Elite between his mandibles and then turn around to see a vast and pleasant vista in Halo 5. I like my alien violence with a side of wonderment.