Prepare yourselves for a long read. If you can not, the tl;dr is at the bottom.
Gauging from a lot of the forum threads, a lot people are under the false pretense that Halo 4, 5, and 6 will be a trilogy. The way that 343 is wildly crafting the story, that is far from the truth… Or at least it better be.
Most trilogy stories follow the standard formula:
Part 1: Introduction, development, and explanation of the journey of the underdog protagonist, with a significant victory at the end to legitimize his or her story.
Part 2: A significant setback to the protagonist which sets up a final confrontation.
Part 3: The protagonist’s ultimate victory and ascendency.
So, if 343’s Halo story is allegedly a trilogy, let’s take a deeper dive:
Halo 4: Reintroduction of the Master Chief. So far, so good. Although Chief is by no means an underdog at this point, his story is essentially rebooted, as he is consider lost, MIA. He runs into some covenant, and a forerunner-made planet, all on his own (plus Cortana, we will get to that in a moment). We are introduced to the protagonist’s journey: Chief/humanity’s Ascension to the mantle. Cool! I am totally on-board. We also have two antagonist elements: The Didact and the coming rampancy of Cortana. This sets the stage for an epic conclusion: Chief defeats the Didact, saves humanity (once again) but loses Cortana. We hear the philosophy of the Didact at the conclusion and witness Chief’s humanity and final return to earth. This is already setting the stage for a great conclusion to a typical trilogy format that could be realized in Halo 6.
If this were a true “trilogy”, the loss of Cortana would have fit better in the story arc of Halo 5. But let’s dive deeper into that mess:
Halo 5 (the mess): The story starts with Spartan Locke (who?) tracking down Dr. Halsey and rescuing her. Ok, I am onboard so far with this detour, as it sets up previous elements of the narrative to reach (no pun intended) resolution. (Chief / Halsey / Cortana). Spartan Locke kills Jul’ (we will revisit that mess) and saves Halsey. Ok, got it. We are then introduced to Chief (finally) and he has a vision of Cortana on Meridian (…ok?). He wants to see things through to a resolution with her, but a weak conflict is setup between him and Locke in order to somehow justify Locke’s existence in the story. Long and short, Cortana becomes the new primary antagonist, she controls the domain, rallies other AIs to her cause, and begins what appears to be a war with humanity…mmmmmk?
This curveball, out-of-left-field, mind-numbing deviation from any sort of logical story progression means there is zero possibility that Halo 6 will be a trilogy like Halo CE, 2 and 3.
Halo CE introduced Chief, and legitimized him with a significant victory. We also learned of the antagonists - the covenant and the flood. Halo 2, the ark was discovered and the Prophet of Truth was attempting to activate the Halos. Halo 3, Chief stopped Truth, destroyed the flood, and we saw an end to the covenant. Trilogy execution 101.
The stark contrast between the story Halo 4 and Halo 5 demonstrates there is no way we can wrap this all up in Halo 6. Below are a list of open story arcs that would have to be resolved. This is just a quick list, I’m sure more knowledgeable lore people can add on:
- Cortana as antagonist, what happens?
- Does she try to activate a ring?
- How will Chief stop her?
- How does Locke fit in?
- How does Halsey fit in?
- How does the Arbiter fit in?
- How does Infinity fit in?
- Who will control the domain and the mantle?
- What will happen with the other AI in the conflict?
- What will happen with the Prometheans?
- What does the Librarian’s enhancements of Chief mean?
- Are the monitors involved?
- Will the flood return?
The list is really near endless. And a campaign of 8 or so hours, with an hour worth of cutscenes can’t possible put a neat bow on everything. The only way possible would be a lot more “Jul M’dama-ing” of characters or story aspects. I made that a verb, and it translates to, “to kill off major story elements as to avoid resolving them or adding any depth to their existence.” We are so far from a traditional trilogy that we can’t possibly realize a logical and complete conclusion at this point. Don’t get me a wrong, a few trilogys have deviated from the standard script. But by the end, everything came full cirlce. The Dark Knight trilogy is a great example, as movies 1 and 3 tie together with the second being an anomaly. However, they still found ways to intertwine all the elements and reach a progressive conclusion for the protagonist.
Do we even know who the protagonist is anymore? Is it Locke? Is it Chief? Is it both? Again, there is no way 343 can articulately wrap up the plot lines from Halo 4 and Halo 5 in the next installment.
TL;DR - There is no way that Halo 6 will be the completion of the “Reclaimer Saga” that 343 describes it. The lack of depth, over-reaching story that 343 is building is too frantic and inconsistent to come to a rational conclusion in such a limited amount of time.