Childish or Not Childish? Gore, Enough or Not?

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

Firstly, do you consider the current story of Halo 5 to be childish, as in appealing to a younger audience (Age 14 to 18)? I don’t want to hear “the story sucked and ended in a cliffhanger so yeah it was childish.” No. I am asking, do you believe that the themes, ideas, plot, and other essential story elements were watered down for the purpose of appealing to a younger audience, and thus became childish? Yes, No, Maybe, and your thoughts on why please.

Secondly, do you think it is a necessary NEED for future games Halo games to have depictions of gore on the level of Halo CE (I am not asking about if you want it, I am asking if you believe it is essential to playing Halo)? How about gore on the level of Doom? Or do you think that the current level of bloodshed is too much, and should be dialed down? Your thoughts on this please.

EDIT: To be clear, I am not claiming that Halo 5 is childish, or that it needs more blood and gore. This is merely my own response to a video on YouTube and curiosity on the opinions of the Halo Waypoint Community on the two topics.

2

> 2535470403504159;1:
> Firstly, do you consider the current story of Halo 5 to be childish, as in appealing to a younger audience (Age 14 to 18)? I don’t want to hear “the story sucked and ended in a cliffhanger so yeah it was childish.” No. I am asking, do you believe that the themes, ideas, plot, and other essential story elements were watered down for the purpose of appealing to a younger audience, and thus became childish? Yes, No, Maybe, and your thoughts on why please.
>
> Secondly, do you think it is a necessary NEED for future games Halo games to have depictions of gore on the level of Halo CE (I am not asking about if you want it, I am asking if you believe it is essential to playing Halo)? How about gore on the level of Doom? Or do you think that the current level of bloodshed is too much, and should be dialed down? Your thoughts on this please.

Not particularly. Just because something wasn’t well done, doesn’t mean it was ‘childish.’ As far as blood and gore…I don’t particularly care. I enjoyed doom (still need to get back to it and finish it), but blood and gore aren’t an essential part of Halo. It isn’t Mortal Kombat or the like.

3

I feel like certain amount of violence would bring in more kids TBH. :l

4

Why do people get the impression that the newer games are for kids and that the older games were mature? Halo has never been a serious game… It has humor, it is colorful, and has very little cursing and nudity to meet the title of a mature game and it has always been that way.

To to your questions tho, it’s not childish nor is it mature. It’s for an audience that likes good detailed story with a simple yet hard to master gameplay in place (you can argue the newer games are quite as hard to master but point still stands on the concept). Gore would also be an unnecessary addition, I’m not for nor vs it but what good reason is there for it being added? Halo has never been a gore game to begin with, why now? It simply doesn’t need it.

5

I miss the large amounts of blue florescent blood from the grunts lol

6

Childish? Not by a longshot. Level of Gore: Meh, Halo games never really were gorey to begin with, so I’m neutral on the level of Gore in Halo 5, or any other Halo game.

7

The idea of AI enforcing peace onto the galaxy by basically killing off anyone who doesn’t cooperate with them is totally aimed at children, committing mass murder on a galactic scale and all that fun stuff. Totally kid friendly.

/s

As for the blood, I don’t give a damn if it’s there or not. I’d rather focus on the lack of gametypes and stuff that affects the game’s replayability, not what comes out of the bodies when they die. Halo is not known for its blood and gore like GoW, Doom, or Mortal Kombat are

8

To be honest ive always seen gore as childish, kind of a oxymoron I know.

It can be used effectively but most of the time in games its exaggerated to the point of becoming a joke. Doom and MK are key examples of this, it exaggerated to the point that it stops being disgusting and difficult to watch and becomes almost humorous.

9

It would be nice if the marines didn’t sound like they grew up in Mayberry. They should sound like tough SOB’s like in previous games.

10

It’s not really the gore or the story but rather the overall art-style that makes the game seem a little childish. Halo 5 looks like it wants to sell Promethean toy figures or something.

11

I don’t know about you guys… But I remember playing Halo and getting freaked out (more anxiety, than actual fear) when the flood was overwhelming… There hasn’t been any type of that in the new Halo games. No hordes of enemies. Seeing 10-20 marine flood combos coming for you, all grotesque, with little flood pods scattering behind… Now that is awesome.

Maybe not “more” gore… But come on, give us something better than the cartoonish enemies we have now. Blood splatter… Would be cool.

12
  1. Story is not childish, hopefully they can explain things better in Halo 6
  2. As for gore, it’s not necessary, but you can include it… I just think the Xbox One can’t handle depicting the gore due to its limited graphics capability. What do I mean? If you have so many enemies in Warzone Firefight, the game would lag if you had to create gore for each corpse. It sometimes even lags now without the gore. Gore might work in campaign, if you want to instill fear in players (like the flood in Halo CE)… as long as it doesn’t impact the performance or cause lagging
13

> 2535470403504159;1:
> Firstly, do you consider the current story of Halo 5 to be childish, as in appealing to a younger audience (Age 14 to 18)? I don’t want to hear “the story sucked and ended in a cliffhanger so yeah it was childish.” No. I am asking, do you believe that the themes, ideas, plot, and other essential story elements were watered down for the purpose of appealing to a younger audience, and thus became childish? Yes, No, Maybe, and your thoughts on why please.
>
> Secondly, do you think it is a necessary NEED for future games Halo games to have depictions of gore on the level of Halo CE (I am not asking about if you want it, I am asking if you believe it is essential to playing Halo)? How about gore on the level of Doom? Or do you think that the current level of bloodshed is too much, and should be dialed down? Your thoughts on this please.

No, the story as presented had some extremely dark tones that I don’t think kids properly can relate to or even really truly understand the implications of what is being suggested there.

I wouldn’t mind if the humans bled a bit more but they don’t need gibs or anything.

14

> 2533274794421110;9:
> It would be nice if the marines didn’t sound like they grew up in Mayberry. They should sound like tough SOB’s like in previous games.

What marines? There wasn’t a single marine that I know of in Halo 5. (Unless you are talking warzone which I think they just used the same voice line of the colonial resident security force for them)

15

> 2533274923562209;4:
> Why do people get the impression that the newer games are for kids and that the older games were mature? Halo has never been a serious game… It has humor, it is colorful, and has very little cursing and nudity to meet the title of a mature game and it has always been that way.
>
> To to your questions tho, it’s not childish nor is it mature. It’s for an audience that likes good detailed story with a simple yet hard to master gameplay in place (you can argue the newer games are quite as hard to master but point still stands on the concept). Gore would also be an unnecessary addition, I’m not for nor vs it but what good reason is there for it being added? Halo has never been a gore game to begin with, why now? It simply doesn’t need it.

I created this thread because of a YouTube video I watched, in which Halo 5 was called childish. I am not of the opinion that Halo 5 is childish. I had to see whether or not the community (at least insofar as Way-point) could provide an opinion on this as well.

As to the gore, I agree. Someone had attempted to argue that the gore is necessary to appeal to a “mature audience.” Which is childish in and of itself. As I argued then, a “mature story” in terms of war and battles does not need gore, it requires conflict, courage, sacrifice, and resolve. Which is what the Halo games have, including Halo 5.

16

> 2533274883849234;7:
> The idea of AI enforcing peace onto the galaxy by basically killing off anyone who doesn’t cooperate with them is totally aimed at children, committing mass murder on a galactic scale and all that fun stuff. Totally kid friendly.
>
> /s
>
> As for the blood, I don’t give a damn if it’s there or not. I’d rather focus on the lack of gametypes and stuff that affects the game’s replayability, not what comes out of the bodies when they die. Halo is not known for its blood and gore like GoW, Doom, or Mortal Kombat are

> 2533274826317859;8:
> To be honest ive always seen gore as childish, kind of a oxymoron I know.
>
> It can be used effectively but most of the time in games its exaggerated to the point of becoming a joke. Doom and MK are key examples of this, it exaggerated to the point that it stops being disgusting and difficult to watch and becomes almost humorous.

> 2533274828509198;12:
> 1) Story is not childish, hopefully they can explain things better in Halo 6
> 2) As for gore, it’s not necessary, but you can include it… I just think the Xbox One can’t handle depicting the gore due to its limited graphics capability. What do I mean? If you have so many enemies in Warzone Firefight, the game would lag if you had to create gore for each corpse. It sometimes even lags now without the gore. Gore might work in campaign, if you want to instill fear in players (like the flood in Halo CE)… as long as it doesn’t impact the performance or cause lagging

As I stated above in a follow up comment, I do not think that Halo 5 is childish, nor that gore is ultimately necessary for Halo 5. I had to make this post because of the ludicrousness of the two topics in question (Halo 5 is childish and needs more gore). As for what RUL MonkeyxMoo stated in regards to gametypes, I agree that they are a much higher priority than the supposed childishness of the story or the lack of blood and gore in the game.

> 2533274872013539;11:
> I don’t know about you guys… But I remember playing Halo and getting freaked out (more anxiety, than actual fear) when the flood was overwhelming… There hasn’t been any type of that in the new Halo games. No hordes of enemies. Seeing 10-20 marine flood combos coming for you, all grotesque, with little flood pods scattering behind… Now that is awesome.
>
> Maybe not “more” gore… But come on, give us something better than the cartoonish enemies we have now. Blood splatter… Would be cool.

I agree, instilling that sense of fear and terror would be useful in campaign, as both MrSir 1981 and Atlantis XD have mentioned. Some blood splatter would be nice (but still not a priority necessity).

17

Yes I do believe it is tad childish. 343 is shooting for the 12- 18 demographic.

18

I feel the blood and gore isn’t really necessary. It was a small feature to begin with, even though I loved it, I don’t believe it is an important part of halo.

As for the story, I honestly don’t believe it was watered down for younger audiences mostly because 343i has made this “Reclaimer Saga” complicated and not told well throughout the games (as in you need to read the books/comics to get a better understanding of the story).
While Bungie made their story simple, awesome, and appealing to everyone.

So if anything, they are making the story more complicated for the hardcore Halo fans (who are mostly adults or close to being an adult) and making the gameplay simple and not as unique for younger audiences.

Cool topic OP :slight_smile:

19

I really miss the alien gore and blood because it wasn’t over the top mortal kombat stuff but everyone loved shooting the grunt in the head and seeing the array of colors

20

I do not think halo 5’s story was childish. I assume a lot of people on this thread have already said it was childish because they don’t like it and a major character came back from the dead.

I think halo 6 needs more blood than halo 5, but not as much as halo ce or 2.