I’ve clocked a few days into Halo 4’s campaign now. I originally beat it in two runs on Legendary solo on launch night, but I’ve run through it many times since, with a multitude of different skulls on, etc. I’m creating this thread to dump my thoughts, because why not?
The first thing that got me about the campaign is that the sense of setting seems really off. The atmosphere and gameplay feels completely like Halo, but where Bungie focused on telling a story through the environment more than straight narrative delivery, 343 Industries puts an emphasis on giving us the plot. Being on board the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn felt just a little bit too drab and dark, as compared to the UNSC Pillar of Autumn or Halo 2’s Cairo Station. I understand this is a mostly-dead ship, but it still felt just a bit off. This carries through to other levels too.
Requiem, for example, is great at giving us a scope for this gigantic Forerunner planet, but it fails to tell us the story of this planet. Nothing is even implied. To give an example, Halo: Combat Evolved consistently made Installation 04 seem somewhat dangerous. There were these beautiful vistas and all, but you could not shake the feeling that there was something just dark in purpose about this structure. That absolutely comes full-circle when it’s revealed to be the resting place of a dormant Flood infection, as well as the killswitch for the entire galaxy. It was something that was implied well early on in the game, and followed through on beautifully.
Halo 4 gives nothing like that with Requiem. The planet itself is not really unsettling. Once you find out it houses a dormant Forerunner, things seem dark for a moment, but quickly grow cheesy as the Didact does typical bad guy banter and then lets you go. It seems a bit too dramatic, and then is never really touched on again. That Requiem becomes somewhat insignificant at the end of the campaign supports this. In my eyes, just so many missed opportunities to create a purposefully dark, unsettling place with Requiem. Instead, we get a planet that disappointingly does not give a strong sense of atmosphere.
Next, I want to talk about antagonist development, which literally does not occur in the game at all. It’s seriously just bad. Playing straight through the campaign, one does not get clued in as to why the Covenant has returned, suddenly with dumbed down technology and more of a crude “space pirates” feel. One does not have any idea who the Didact is or what his personal stake in this is. One does not even get to see his motivations all that clearly. He wants humanity obliterated, but for what? And why in such a gruesome fashion? Why is he turning what was originally a tool to combat the Flood into a weapon to use against humanity? It’s not made clear.
The Terminals make it a bit clearer, but they’re not available for viewing in-game. Further, they’re hazy too. Clearly, the Didact intends to end the Flood when the Librarian imprisons him. Why does he come out of exile with his sights clearly set on humans? Shouldn’t he be worried about the Flood? Overall, the Didact and the Covenant were both handled terribly in this game.
The overall length of the game is also way too brief. The game gives non-stop action with very little in-between fluff. While this is arguably a benefit, I believe it’s a problem. The game moves too quickly, and a lot gets lost in the motion. Adding just another level alone probably could have fixed a few of the problems with character development and campaign length.
The game also has some truly horribly, unenjoyable levels and sequences. The Broadsword sequence in the level “Midnight” is presumably supposed to play somewhat like the Star Fox of old, and yet it falls flat. It ends up unengaging, and with the advent of adding additional players, a lot of the mechanics in it simply break. Similarly, the Ghost boosting sequence at the end of “Forerunner” is a flabby mess. It should be brief, concise, and rather tight. Instead, you get a sequence where the Ghost feels way too weightless, and you’re thrown out of it way too often. Then when you’re desperately trying to flip it over, something weird is happening with gravity and you just can’t manage it. You inexplicably just drop dead seconds later. Frustrating and vague mechanics. And then, again, the entire sequence is just insultingly poor in cooperative. Dead players’ Ghost spawn in front of players boosting ahead, resulting in both being thrown from their vehicles. Respawning players are spawned backwards, with no sense of space. Very bad.
The entire level “Shutdown” is an exercise in bad level structure, execution, atmosphere, pacing, etc. Starting out inside the Infinity should feel exploratory and exciting. Instead, it feels restrictive. The Pelican feels and flies like it should, but there is literally no danger of being killed in it, so there’s no tension or engagement while flying it. Also, having the cooperative players operating useless guns on the sides of the Pelican is a horrible choice, as opposed to just giving us more Pelicans. Additionally, each of the two Forerunner structures in the level play like unwanted padding, and the structures themselves fail to intrigue. It feels like you’re wading through uninteresting content just to move the plot along. It’s not immersing. It’s the wrong kind of fluff. The sight lines in both structures also make fighting the Knights very frustrating on higher difficulties.
The level “Midnight” makes the Mantle’s Approach seem like it was designed by lunatics. That level has a schizophrenic sense of pacing and setting. You’re going through orange-tinted corridors, then through portals, into different parts of the ship that seem very suspended. Yes, bottomless pits inside a ship. It’s nonsensical. If you thought the Pillar of Autumn’s structure made no sense in Halo: Combat Evolved, I would like to see you evaluate Mantle’s Approach. It all culminates in this huge bottomless-pit-containing chamber with four suspending platforms that, for some reason, have to be traversed via man cannons, and for some reason, it seems like each of these platforms exists only to house a plinth for Cortana. Oh, and in the middle of this room, the Didact is in a stasis bubble dancing like freaking Michael Jackson. For some reason, when Cortana disables the Didact’s stasis bubble, a hardlight bridge forms quite a distance above the platforms, and for some reason, it leads straight to the base of the Composer, which is somehow integrated into the ship. I should also mention that this entire chamber is not even airtight - you can look up and see Earth directly above.
The point is, Mantle’s Approach was a boring level structurally, pacing-wise, and atmosphere-wise. It’s not a highlight of the campaign. And when you look at it from a legitimate structural standpoint, it gets you scratching your head even more. It turns the old “mysterious Forerunner structure” feeling into a ridiculously overdone shadow of itself. 343 Industries really really overdid Forerunner architecture.