I found this over on reddit this morning. and wanted to link it to waypoint.
Basically it theorizes elements of the shift in H5’s production process from Halo 4, and does make some sense. (not releasing forge at launch, narrative changes, marketing discrepancies)
Also, I had no idea there was concept art for Blue Team in Halo 4. Would have been epic to see them, even if only in an intro somewhere at the end.
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Thanks bro, wasn’t sure how to do that.
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> Thanks bro, wasn’t sure how to do that.
It took me a while to figure it out.
From what I’ve heard since launch I only have two theory’s as to what happened.
Something had to have happened, maybe resources had to be diverted to fix MCC, maybe making the new engine took longer, the availability of certain actors as in the case of Thorne has the ability to completely change a story.
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> > Thanks bro, wasn’t sure how to do that.
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> It took me a while to figure it out.
The feature unlocks once you reach marine
Who really knows what 343 was planning
I think 343 is able to craft good short-term narratives (ie the books, movies), but have trouble with long-term narratives that need sustaining. I think it is partly why Escalation fell apart towards the end, they had no real idea how to wrap things up or connect it with Halo 5, so they pushed the reset button and made things like the Janus Key and Absolute Record pointless. I think this problem extends to the games too. I think Halo 4 had a good story (though it took me a while to see that), but again you go to Halo 5 and pretty much little from that game comes over in a meaningful way. Are the Promethean Knights human origins relevant? No (though they’d have an interesting dynamic with this Created business yet is never touched on despite being a major revelation). Are the Librarian or Didact present? No, only in brief mentions (which is odd since the Librarian AI seemingly has the ability to transfer itself across space). Is Chief’s accelerated evolution brought up? No, maybe in some isolated off-the-beaten-path dialogue but not in the main narrative. Hell, they even backed off on Cortana’s death, which is what they called it.
I think 343 has a problem with committing to something and seeing it through.
I wouldnt be surprised if there was 1 or 2 blue team missions cut from the final game, but other than that i feel like the campaign is pretty much what they wanted. The big misstep to me in the campaign is really the whole “Chief is AWOL” thing. I would like to think that one or two missions were cut from the game that maybe go into more detail on why Osiris was dispatched to grab Chief other than thinking he cant handle Cortana. Maybe something else that they did to concern ONI.
The thing is, the overall story arc isnt something i have a problem with, its more the details and layout in the buildup. It felt like 343 never really earned the plot “twist” of making Cortana the bad guy, and they didnt do a good job in setting up the struggle in Chief’s mind on how to deal with her being a threat. Instead it was more like Chief finding out shes bad and saying “OK no biggie ill talk her out of it” rather than having any real internal conflict about it. That to me seems like the area that 343 would have cut, for whatever reason.
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> I think 343 is able to craft good short-term narratives (ie the books, movies), but have trouble with long-term narratives that need sustaining. I think it is partly why Escalation fell apart towards the end, they had no real idea how to wrap things up or connect it with Halo 5, so they pushed the reset button and made things like the Janus Key and Absolute Record pointless. I think this problem extends to the games too. I think Halo 4 had a good story (though it took me a while to see that), but again you go to Halo 5 and pretty much little from that game comes over in a meaningful way. Are the Promethean Knights human origins relevant? No (though they’d have an interesting dynamic with this Created business yet is never touched on despite being a major revelation). Are the Librarian or Didact present? No, only in brief mentions (which is odd since the Librarian AI seemingly has the ability to transfer itself across space). Is Chief’s accelerated evolution brought up? No, maybe in some isolated off-the-beaten-path dialogue but not in the main narrative. Hell, they even backed off on Cortana’s death, which is what they called it.
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> I think 343 has a problem with committing to something and seeing it through.
Thats a good point. It really depends on the medium. Both seasons of HTT were some of the best narrative’s I’ve seen in Halo (along with Hunters in the Dark), but yea the overall lore is pretty complex to be putting in a video game.
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> I think 343 is able to craft good short-term narratives (ie the books, movies), but have trouble with long-term narratives that need sustaining. I think it is partly why Escalation fell apart towards the end, they had no real idea how to wrap things up or connect it with Halo 5, so they pushed the reset button and made things like the Janus Key and Absolute Record pointless. I think this problem extends to the games too. I think Halo 4 had a good story (though it took me a while to see that), but again you go to Halo 5 and pretty much little from that game comes over in a meaningful way. Are the Promethean Knights human origins relevant? No (though they’d have an interesting dynamic with this Created business yet is never touched on despite being a major revelation). Are the Librarian or Didact present? No, only in brief mentions (which is odd since the Librarian AI seemingly has the ability to transfer itself across space). Is Chief’s accelerated evolution brought up? No, maybe in some isolated off-the-beaten-path dialogue but not in the main narrative. Hell, they even backed off on Cortana’s death, which is what they called it.
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> I think 343 has a problem with committing to something and seeing it through.
As always Dr. Halsey; thank you for your thoughts. I completely agree.
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> > I think 343 is able to craft good short-term narratives (ie the books, movies), but have trouble with long-term narratives that need sustaining. I think it is partly why Escalation fell apart towards the end, they had no real idea how to wrap things up or connect it with Halo 5, so they pushed the reset button and made things like the Janus Key and Absolute Record pointless. I think this problem extends to the games too. I think Halo 4 had a good story (though it took me a while to see that), but again you go to Halo 5 and pretty much little from that game comes over in a meaningful way. Are the Promethean Knights human origins relevant? No (though they’d have an interesting dynamic with this Created business yet is never touched on despite being a major revelation). Are the Librarian or Didact present? No, only in brief mentions (which is odd since the Librarian AI seemingly has the ability to transfer itself across space). Is Chief’s accelerated evolution brought up? No, maybe in some isolated off-the-beaten-path dialogue but not in the main narrative. Hell, they even backed off on Cortana’s death, which is what they called it.
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> > I think 343 has a problem with committing to something and seeing it through.
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> Thats a good point. It really depends on the medium. Both seasons of HTT were some of the best narrative’s I’ve seen in Halo (along with Hunters in the Dark), but yea the overall lore is pretty complex to be putting in a video game.
I don’t even think it is a matter of complexity. An in-game codex might go a long way to bring in this wealth of knowledge to the general Halo fanbase. Yet even then that doesn’t help when 343 introduces plot threads they have not prepared for. Take the Created. Cortana talks a big game about how humans felt AIs were disposable and treated them badly, but you’d have a hard time backing that up with anything in the lore. The closest you get is Iona in Saint’s Testimony petitioning to halt her dispensation due to her reaching the 7-year limit for Smart-AIs. Yet she never shows much malice or even hatred to humanity. There is the Assembly in the Reach data pads, but 343 seemingly has them in an apocryphal state where they aren’t really canon but still might be. Course, the Assembly reaches for the exact opposite conclusion Cortana reaches and wants to help mankind, not rule hem, so I guess they can’t have that if 343 wants to sell the AI revolution narrative.
Oh My God!!! Fred looks so Cool!! 343, give us that armor!!!
The story got cut because they were forced by Microsoft to ship the game early before Christmas to help with the Xbox one sales. They obviously can’t come out and say that though. It’s fairly obvious.
I wish 343 hadn’t cut their darker storyline. This campaign was just lame and the build-up and hype did not match the narrative folks were expecting at all. Might as well make the next Halo M again and go all out in the writing this time instead of playing it safe.
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> I wouldnt be surprised if there was 1 or 2 blue team missions cut from the final game, but other than that i feel like the campaign is pretty much what they wanted. The big misstep to me in the campaign is really the whole “Chief is AWOL” thing. I would like to think that one or two missions were cut from the game that maybe go into more detail on why Osiris was dispatched to grab Chief other than thinking he cant handle Cortana. Maybe something else that they did to concern ONI.
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> The thing is, the overall story arc isnt something i have a problem with, its more the details and layout in the buildup. It felt like 343 never really earned the plot “twist” of making Cortana the bad guy, and they didnt do a good job in setting up the struggle in Chief’s mind on how to deal with her being a threat. Instead it was more like Chief finding out shes bad and saying “OK no biggie ill talk her out of it” rather than having any real internal conflict about it. That to me seems like the area that 343 would have cut, for whatever reason.
I do not think it was a misstep at all. 343i was probably focused on pursuing the “Chief is AWOL” story line but did not have the foresight to see where the story would go. Think about it in terms of the universe: MC is a war hero and a symbol of humanity’s struggle against the covenant with a large segment of the UNSC and human population respecting him. If MC went rogue, the UNSC would disavow him and would try to kill the chief off leading to a divide in the UNSC itself since many marines would be hesitant of fighting the chief. Surprisingly, Buck even brings this up in the campaign when they are preparing aboard the Infinity. If this story line were pursued to completion, H6 would have been about the Chief against the UNSC rather than humanity against forerunners/covenant. I believe that 343i realized that making the chief go AWOL would take the narrative away from fighting forerunners and revamped the story half way through the development cycle. This could also be a reason for why H5 released with very little content: 343i might have backtracked to change the story, losing valuable time in the process.
