Halo 4…a magnificent game, is it not? I must say that it is one of the greatest Halos I have ever played, with the exception of some features. Whilst 343 Industries, you have excelled out expectations, you have lacked and disappointed in quite a few. I will delightfully go into detail about each one as they need to be addressed, from least to most important: 1 - Forge: Where are out pallets? The UNSC, Covenant and Forerunner pallets? You have disregarded power-ups which were adopted for Duck Hunt and other fun gametypes. You have removed flying human vehicular options, which has destroyed Raids. 2. Theatre: We can only record in War Games and Forge, not Spartan Ops nor Campaign. We have always loved the variety and options to go into different playlists and record our experiences, where you have denied us this right. 3. Elites: Do you know how many Sangheili (Elite) fans there are? Do you know and UNDERSTAND the shear amount of devastation that was shown when we discovered they weren’t playable? Ever since Halo 2 where this variety was brought in, we have worked and slaved in our clans and community to get to where we were in Reach, for over seven years we did so. We saw you, you came and took over the greatest franchise ever and we had hoped that you, producers of future Halos, would be benevolent and increase the fairness and enjoyability of the Sangheili (Elite) community and population. What did you do? Instead of doing what was right, you removed one of the most loved races in the entire franchise. You destroyed years of work, years of history. You stopped the EXCELLENT rivalry between Sangheili and humans which was visible in Raids, clan matches and Invasion-styled play. The day you stopped us from playing as Elites, was the day we died. We anticipated this new Halo, how fantastic it looked. For months, we searched for information on playable Elites, but there was none. This may seem sad to some people, but it would be the same for you if Spartans were randomly removed. I understand the story behind it, but it was unjust and uncalled for. Our fleets have transformed to hibernation, we had to halt our plans. Reach was our last memory and for us, it seems better as it has the one thing Halo 4 doesn’t: variety I have heard that they could possibly be added in in updates or patches when they actually improve the games and fix/edit the renders…or they will be added in future DLCs. Everything is unconfirmed which is unfortunate. I just hope that they are added in the future and I would love to return to what we were doing prior to Halo 4’s release.
Sangheili are a proud race, but to much for their own good. They are weak. First they were manipulated by the Prophets, then almost all of them were killed off by the brutes during Halo 2, a single human Spartan can kill all the Elites in a 10-1 battle AND now some of them still believe in the Prophets, despite the fact that they were betrayed.
EDIT: For those of you who have read the Halo novels, you would know that the Sangheili were originally not part of the Covenant. They were defeated in a war against the Prophets, which used the power of ancient Forerunner ships known as Dreadnaughts to win. The Sangheili were devastated and promised to serve the Prophets for an eternity. Little did they know that the Prophets planned to replace them with brutes.
I appreciate this; however, we aren’t talking about official lore here. We’re talking about the actual Sangheili being playable in Matchmaking, Custom Games and Forge. These were evidential in Halo: Reach, Halo 3 and Halo 2. What did they all have in common? Sangheili. It is unfair and damn right blasphemous.
We have not had our day, believe me. The Spartans have been in this series just as long as Sangheili, and they are still here. It is not right to remove a species that they KNEW was loved by so many. It would be like taking Spartans out and replacing them. Many people care, such as the Fleets who have had to abandon their “homes” due to this; the people who have worked their backsides off to earn themselves a name in this community. For several years I have partook in this community, it seems as though several years have been wasted.
What can we do though? We already signed petitions and such, made it as viral as possible; however, we were ignored and it was just pushed aside. I wish somebody would just listen for five minutes so we could get something straight.
I have already said it a thousand times,“just because Sangheili are not playable, does not mean you are not one at heart.”; however, we cannot bear wearing this terrible excuse of a “playable character”. The appearance of the Sangheili in this game is supposedly because they are the “Storm Covenant”, and they do not have the technology that the Prophets had in their reign. Alas, hopefully if not in this game, they will include Sangheili in Halo 5 & 6. If they do not from there, then this franchise is dead to me.