Gravemind mission loading screen is a major spoiler for people who have not experienced yet the game. It’s a major giveaway of the “being” that dragged Master Chief and the Arbiter in the previous missions.
I would propose that another beautiful image from the Halo 2 Anniversary cutscenes should be used, that is more mysterious, and does not give away any spoilers.
My proposal also stems from watching various online walkthroughs of people playing for the first time, and seeing this image before the appropriate revealing cutscene.
I don’t think it is a large spoiler, especially when the level is called Gravemind. You also get to meet the dude right after seeing that so it isn’t a spoiler for the end of the mission or game. It would be like seeing Master Chief getting out of the cryopod at the start of CE, it may spoil that this is the guy, but it isn’t going to ruin the ending.
There’s an entire plot point and cutscene around the reveal of this dude. Why then mess up that pacing with a static image that could easily be something else? The original game didn’t have it. It’s careless. If 343i is making changes to MCC then this should hopefully be a simple change to make. It may be “non-trivial” and require testing, but it would be a clear improvement to the way the story is told.
Are there other instances of loading scene pictures messing with the pacing? I seem to remember two but I could be wrong.
You can submit tickets about this issue to 343i using these links:
Well, I did that, I’ve submitted the issue before writing it here, as I did with the Halo CE elements that are still not faithful to the original release, and the response I received was that:
Halo Support does not intake feedback or game change requests. Instead, we focus on game-related bugs and issues.
If you want to chat with other players and discuss your feedback further, go to the Halo Waypoint forums and join the community there. The team asks for feedback in dedicated threads regularly and that information is shared with developers.
So, hopefully, someone will notice this and make this change for the better.
Did you follow me to this thread?
Anyways, the level being called Gravemind is a spoiler. Especially since CEA has lots of references to flood in its video logs (the thing that plays at terminals). I believe that even seeing Keyes turned into a massive flood, which lore fans know as a proto Gravemind, is enough to not make the loading screen a spoiler. I agree more with @Sodium_Bath. It does take away from the shock factor of seeing a massive flood entity. But I don’t think that spoils the story.
So? What difference does it make? In fact, you could argue the loading screen for that level spoils it since it shows the Pillar of Autumn.
Yes. I am. Master Chief is The Demon. If you played Reach first (since many people who play Halo will start with Reach if they don’t know better) you will likely already have some amount of foreshadowing that someone important is on the ship. Sure, seeing Master Chief in the load screen will ruin the shock factor of seeing him, but if the load showed the front of his visor, it wouldn’t spoil it.
No, it was just at the top of the feed and you always have a take I want to push against.
AFAIK gravemind was never specified before the mission.
Foreshadowing is usually subtle but a chapter name being related to a plot point is a popular form of it.
Imagine if the front cover of a game or movie literally showed off a major plot twist, it would lose all shock factor, Protagonists need to be introduced in the beginning, but a plot twist villain doesn’t.
You cant have a story about good vs multiple evils and not have a protag or protag group for half of it
If that was the case in CE sure, but we have A) already seen the flood in the game and B) the flood is already known to be on this ring. You already know that there is flood. Now you get to meet their boss.
Okay but the gravemind is a deeper plot point of the flood, its not exactly just “the flood” its not like we saw chief and the gravemind interact before, its almost a seperate character.
For 343 Guilty Spark: a loading screen with the Flood
For Two Betrayals: a loading screen with you against 343 Guilty Spark
For Keyes: a loading screen with Captain Keyes turned into the protogravemind
For the Maw: an image of the Warthog run
Wouldn’t that just kill off the suspense? I, personally, do think so, that’s why revealing the Gravemind before you find out about him in the cutscene is a big deal.
I think the big spoilers of this mission are The Great Schism (since it’s the first time the player sees Elites fighting against the Covenant) and Cortana leaving Master Chief. (And maybe one of the Prophets getting attacked by the flood).
Also, at the end of Regret, we see part of the Gravemind (at least at that point the players know there’s a “new enemy”).
i have said it mutliple times but giving us back the old classic menüs loadingscreens etc would be greatly apreciated. like when the player goes into the individual games sections the menü could change , when a player has only a specific game installed they could be completely classic something in that direction , or let the player choose their favorite menü/ loadingscreen , just like we have the option to choose classic sounds and music or remastered etc. q
Maybe a better loading screen would be Truth holding the icon, or a wide angle shot of High Charity? At this point you know the Covenant have the Index (they just took it in the last mission) so it wouldn’t be much of a spoiler to say “get it back.”