From halo ce to halo 4 Cortana has had many appearances. But why was there a change?
IRL, graphics. Lore, I have no idea.
She got hotter for sure, mostly due to graphics I would say. She has had the same “overall” appearance though, it just got better in my opinion. I would be like putting the original pixilated mario onto the Wii. It wouldn’t look right.
She’s an AI emitting a hologram to interact with people. I feel like she can upgrade whenever she wants.
Mostly the graphic. Making her look better for the new graphic system
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> She’s an AI emitting a hologram to interact with people. I feel life she can upgrade whenever she wants.
It is true. It was explained during the release of Halo 4 as to why her appearence changed. It was said that she can upgrade and chage the way she looks whenever she wants. So while an obvious reason is just the graphical upgrades, in terms of lore, she can upgrade her appearence.
I think everyone here got it. I figure Cortana making slight mods to her appearance would be like a human trying out a new clothing or hair style. You’re still you, you just look a little different as time goes on.
I mean all the characters look different from CE to H5. Just a typical graphics change.
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> I think everyone here got it. I figure Cortana making slight mods to her appearance would be like a human trying out a new clothing or hair style. You’re still you, you just look a little different as time goes on.
AIs get to choose what they look like. In the books, the one with Kilo-five didn’t want to look like anything, he has a British voice but just appears as a black box. It seems like throughout time, Cortana is the only one that has really “evolved”, but she has been through a lot being captured by a gravemind and all. I’m surprised that narrative hasn’t really played into the storyline for Halo 5…maybe that’s why she seems to be going what we consider to be crazy.
I understand that it is both because of graphical improvements and the lore explanation that she has the ability to change at will, but I have to admit that there have been some pretty extreme advancements in her appearance, to the point where she doesn’t even have the same body build or facial features. She was far more slim, less curvy, in the original Combat Evolved, then Halo 2 had a huge jump. Stayed the same in Halo 3, of course, just better graphics. Then in Halo 4, she changes again, but in an even more extreme way. Then Halo 5, where she (I mean…Rampant Cortana) doesn’t even look like the same person, just retaining the blue colorization and haircut from 4. I’m glad that Halo 2 Anniversary kept Cortana looking the same as in Halo 2, but more realistic. Don’t understand why HCEA made her look like H2-3 Cortana, since trying to make that consistent doesn’t change the fact that she looks completely different in H4-5.
It just is a little frustrating having her be the one character who changes the most dramatically, appearance-wise. I like some continuity, please… Master Chief’s armor changing at least is more understandable.
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> Don’t understand why HCEA made her look like H2-3 Cortana, since trying to make that consistent doesn’t change the fact that she looks completely different in H4-5.
CEA re-used alot of H3 and Reach models, and they probably didn’t have her halo 4 appearance finalized at the time.
Only real change from h4-5 is the outfit. Her face isn’t that much different, less so than 2-3 at least.
I do want to make a comment about her H4 appearance but I fear it will make me sound like an obnoxious male pig, even though I do not intend it that way at all…
Certain, uhm, aspects of her physique in H4 clearly look to me like they’re trying to make her look more aged in comparison with her H3 self, which I thought was awesome. It was a subtle visual depiction of her struggle with her mortality which was present all throughout the game. It’s one more aspect of just how great H4’s storytelling really was that I appreciate more with time. I thought it was very well done.
And no I’m not going into any detail.
Better graphics allow the devs to make her look increasingly better looking. Im guessing lore wise she has gone through changes because of upgrades, but i can’t be sure on that.
She went from purple to blue in Halo 3. I wish Bungie explained this, along with the overall softer more “motherly” appearance they gave her. And it was only taken further in Halo 4 where she was basically a little blue teenager.
H2A Cortana is my favorite design, I unfortunately just can’t get behind the way she looks in Halo 3 onward.
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> Better graphics allow the devs to make her look increasingly better looking. Im guessing lore wise she has gone through changes because of upgrades, but i can’t be sure on that.
If she can rewrite John’s MJOLNIR armor software on her own, I’m sure she’s slick enough to tune her own code, or at least enough to address easily-accessible settings like a GUI.
We all know that Cortana is mapped from Dr. Halsey’s brain, so it could be that she’s altering her appearance along with Halsey’s own during that point in her life. She progressively looks a little older through each game (like UKilledYapflip suggested) because shes consciously or unconsciously projecting her own mortality as an AI. Now, all that changes with her being immortalized via the domain, but I wonder if her new position will cause her to shift her appearance into something more befitting royalty in H6 and look like a queen or empress.
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> > 2533274933516080;13:
> > Better graphics allow the devs to make her look increasingly better looking. Im guessing lore wise she has gone through changes because of upgrades, but i can’t be sure on that.
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> If she can rewrite John’s MJOLNIR armor software on her own, I’m sure she’s slick enough to tune her own code, or at least enough to address easily-accessible settings like a GUI.
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> We all know that Cortana is mapped from Dr. Halsey’s brain, so it could be that she’s altering her appearance along with Halsey’s own during that point in her life. She progressively looks a little older through each game (like UKilledYapflip suggested) because shes consciously or unconsciously projecting her own mortality as an AI. Now, all that changes with her being immortalized via the domain, but I wonder if her new position will cause her to shift her appearance into something more befitting royalty in H6 and look like a queen or empress.
Yea this would make sense. She looked pretty amazing in halo 5 with the armor. But I wouldn’t want to see a crown that’d be pretty bad lol
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> > > 2533274933516080;13:
> > > Better graphics allow the devs to make her look increasingly better looking. Im guessing lore wise she has gone through changes because of upgrades, but i can’t be sure on that.
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> > If she can rewrite John’s MJOLNIR armor software on her own, I’m sure she’s slick enough to tune her own code, or at least enough to address easily-accessible settings like a GUI.
> >
> > We all know that Cortana is mapped from Dr. Halsey’s brain, so it could be that she’s altering her appearance along with Halsey’s own during that point in her life. She progressively looks a little older through each game (like UKilledYapflip suggested) because shes consciously or unconsciously projecting her own mortality as an AI. Now, all that changes with her being immortalized via the domain, but I wonder if her new position will cause her to shift her appearance into something more befitting royalty in H6 and look like a queen or empress.
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> Yea this would make sense. She looked pretty amazing in halo 5 with the armor. But I wouldn’t want to see a crown that’d be pretty bad lol
It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if they decided to do something like that, at least at some point in H6. I figure they didn’t in H5 because that might’ve been too much of a change too fast and people would’ve freaked out, but now that it’s clear that Cortana is getting wild over there and intent on being the supreme power, so she may choose an appearance next time that is reflective of that. Since her “physical body” is immortal, she can look however she wants without suffering any tactical vulnerabilities (ex: choosing between robes and armor when she’s already invulnerable to damage). Will be neat to see if they capitalize on that.
Cortana’s changing appearance has a few reasons:
- Attractive women sell. This is the common business belief, whether or not it’s actually true. If Cortana is not in a Halo game, you better believe there will be another character that shows up about as often to act as eye candy. - As an AI who doesn’t actually look like anything, she can change her appearance as she sees fit. - Frank O’Connor, before Halo 4’s launch, put forth that she appears as she does because she wants to make people uncomfortable. The evolution of her appearance could then be interpreted as a progression of more overt, deliberate attempts to use the female form to discomfort people around her. I don’t think Frank O’Connor’s statement is technically canon, but I don’t see why we can’t use it until another, actually canon explanation comes around.