Hi, I have a question. I just started reading Halo: Bad Blood. And, I am very curious to hear from everyone. Will the upcoming Halo Infinite mentioned the events from Halo: Bad Blood? And, could we see Buck and Locke appearing in the new Halo video game? Do you see that happened?
I hope Locke and Fireteam Osiris still have a somewhat important role in Halo Infinite. They weren’t popular but they were still the main characters of Halo 5, you can’t just pull a Jul 'Mdama and just off them in the new game.
Buck in particular is still a popular character and a good source of comic relief. I wouldn’t be suprised if we don’t see him in Infinite but I would be disappointed.
I doubt we’ll see them. Hi is supposed to be a spiritual successor, I guess that means we’ll get as little connections to H5 as possible, even though it’s a direct continuation of the previous events. Even if it sucks because Buck is freaking awesome. Not a fan of the fact he became a SIV though, ODST have a coolness factor that the new Spartans simply lack.
As for Lock, frankly if he doesn’t get a 180 rewrite I don’t care. Mike Colter’s voice is something else, awesome to say the very, very least! But it was completely wasted by being used upon the most boring character of the entire Halo universe that I can think of. Can you remember a single line from him?
At least Palmer and Del Rio are so badly written that it’s kind of funny. Lock however is the human incarnation of blandness, and I don’t know how that is even possible with such a voice! It’s a talent at that point honestly! Leave it to Brian Reed and MS’s marketing team to make the impossible possible I guess!
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> I doubt we’ll see them. Hi is supposed to be a spiritual successor, I guess that means we’ll get as little connections to H5 as possible, even though it’s a direct continuation of the previous events. Even if it sucks because Buck is freaking awesome. Not a fan of the fact he became a SIV though, ODST have a coolness factor that the new Spartans simply lack.
>
> As for Lock, frankly if he doesn’t get a 180 rewrite I don’t care. Mike Colter’s voice is something else, awesome to say the very, very least! But it was completely wasted by being used upon the most boring character of the entire Halo universe that I can think of. Can you remember a single line from him?
>
> At least Palmer and Del Rio are so badly written that it’s kind of funny. Lock however is the human incarnation of blandness, and I don’t know how that is even possible with such a voice! It’s a talent at that point honestly! Leave it to Brian Reed and MS’s marketing team to make the impossible possible I guess!
Alright, I gotta take issue with some things here. For one, is remembering line dialogue really the standard we are using to determine whether a character is good? Because I care more about what a character does or acts as my metric. But I will say Locke’s lines “Every target is just another target, Buck.” and “You’re not the only one here because of him” reveal quite a bit. That last bit contradicts the first, possibly showing conflict in Locke about this mission and forcing him to try and isolate the legend of Chief from his objective. And while not lines of dialogue, I liked seeing how Locke worked with Governor Sloan on Meridian tactfully and with respect to get what he wanted even after a hostile first impression. Same with the Arbiter. Locke is the professional Spartan-IV people demanded after Fireteam Majestic were deemed too immature. I guess for some its easier to just say Locke bad or Locke boring and not engage with the material. And most boring character? Try practically anyone but Jorge on Noble Team, Miranda Keyes, etc.
Palmer and Del Rio being badly written. Is it because they aren’t 100% worshipping the Chief or what? That’s all it ever really comes down too yet that doesn’t make them poorly written.
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> > I doubt we’ll see them. Hi is supposed to be a spiritual successor, I guess that means we’ll get as little connections to H5 as possible, even though it’s a direct continuation of the previous events. Even if it sucks because Buck is freaking awesome. Not a fan of the fact he became a SIV though, ODST have a coolness factor that the new Spartans simply lack.
> >
> > As for Lock, frankly if he doesn’t get a 180 rewrite I don’t care. Mike Colter’s voice is something else, awesome to say the very, very least! But it was completely wasted by being used upon the most boring character of the entire Halo universe that I can think of. Can you remember a single line from him?
> >
> > At least Palmer and Del Rio are so badly written that it’s kind of funny. Lock however is the human incarnation of blandness, and I don’t know how that is even possible with such a voice! It’s a talent at that point honestly! Leave it to Brian Reed and MS’s marketing team to make the impossible possible I guess!
>
> Alright, I gotta take issue with some things here. For one, is remembering line dialogue really the standard we are using to determine whether a character is good? Because I care more about what a character does or acts as my metric. But I will say Locke’s lines “Every target is just another target, Buck.” and “You’re not the only one here because of him” reveal quite a bit. That last bit contradicts the first, possibly showing conflict in Locke about this mission and forcing him to try and isolate the legend of Chief from his objective. And while not lines of dialogue, I liked seeing how Locke worked with Governor Sloan on Meridian tactfully and with respect to get what he wanted even after a hostile first impression. Same with the Arbiter. Locke is the professional Spartan-IV people demanded after Fireteam Majestic were deemed too immature. I guess for some its easier to just say Locke bad or Locke boring and not engage with the material. And most boring character? Try practically anyone but Jorge on Noble Team, Miranda Keyes, etc.
>
> Palmer and Del Rio being badly written. Is it because they aren’t 100% worshipping the Chief or what? That’s all it ever really comes down too yet that doesn’t make them poorly written.
Granted, measuring characters by one-off memorable lines isn’t exactly the best metric. But Locke is pretty blandly written. Yeah, those two lines do reveal contradiction, but the mess that is Halo 5’s plot totally overshadows those lines, and they’re essentially meaningless due to the way their delivered. Every time a player thinks of Locke they’re reminded of his deadpan face, so it’s extremely hard to relate with him or see how he feels. What’s ironic about Halo 5’s “Spartan IV’s have faces seen/Spartan II’s never have faces seen” dynamic is that whether most of Osiris has their helmets on or off, they don’t look any more human (there were a couple Tanaka moments and couple Buck moments though where they display some emotion). Especially Locke, who I honestly don’t remember ever changing facial expression.
Players can’t engage with Locke because of his lack of characterization and emotion. And he’s poorly written. There, I said it. His “internal conflict” sub-plot sums up to two lines that occur between a flurry of other dialogue. You seriously couldn’t expect audiences to pick up on that. And even the ones that did would be confused because that reflects nothing that happens in the rest of the game. He’s seen as somebody who has no thoughts of his own, he’s just UNSC Spartan-IV #73808-3153-JL and nothing more. Helping Governor Sloan and Arbiter doesn’t help that image. There’s absolutely no reason to like Locke. I don’t hate him, but I don’t think that the hate is exactly overblown either; he had a ton more missions than Chief, and within them we learned nothing about him.
If your game is a character-driven story and your players have to force themselves to like your character, or force themselves to even find a trace of character development, you’re doing it wrong.
The reason characters like those in Noble Team and Miranda Keyes work is because the stories they inhabit aren’t about them. The main character is the setting. In Halo Reach we experience a losing war, and in the original Halo trilogy we experience the rings, a Covenant civil war, and the Ark. Those characters (aside from a few like Arbiter, who had his arc) only serve the purpose of building the setting and moving the plot within it. This is why original trilogy Chief wasn’t torn apart, because in reality it’s not about him, but about the setting he’s in (controversial take maybe). It’s not a double standard because in 4 and 5 the setting was completely thrown out the window in favor of deeper characterization, and that’s when players started tearing characters and storylines apart. In a character-driven story, if you have characters like Locke or Tanaka who are poorly explored, they’re going to get torn apart because they are the only pillars holding up the story, which in turn will collapse.
I’ve never heard complaints about Del Rio but I don’t doubt there have been. I don’t think he’s that badly written, but it would’ve been better if we’d have seen why he was so angry at Chief instead of “this is my ship I do what I want”. He’s bizarrely a jerk just because. I don’t think a lot of the Palmer criticism is valid, I think the reason people hate her so much is because she was Sergeant Johnson’s replacement (or at least in the eyes of most people).
TL;DR There is no TL;DR I can’t sum this up just read in full 
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> I doubt we’ll see them. Hi is supposed to be a spiritual successor, I guess that means we’ll get as little connections to H5 as possible, even though it’s a direct continuation of the previous events. Even if it sucks because Buck is freaking awesome. Not a fan of the fact he became a SIV though, ODST have a coolness factor that the new Spartans simply lack.
>
> As for Lock, frankly if he doesn’t get a 180 rewrite I don’t care. Mike Colter’s voice is something else, awesome to say the very, very least! But it was completely wasted by being used upon the most boring character of the entire Halo universe that I can think of. Can you remember a single line from him?
>
> At least Palmer and Del Rio are so badly written that it’s kind of funny. Lock however is the human incarnation of blandness, and I don’t know how that is even possible with such a voice! It’s a talent at that point honestly! Leave it to Brian Reed and MS’s marketing team to make the impossible possible I guess!
Locke actually wasn’t voiced by Mike Colter. He was the model and the face but Locke was voiced by Ike Amadi, who sounds almost exactly like Colter. I didn’t even know it was a different voice until I watched behind the scenes videos and interviews.
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> Granted, measuring characters by one-off memorable lines isn’t exactly the best metric. But Locke is pretty blandly written. Yeah, those two lines do reveal contradiction, but the mess that is Halo 5’s plot totally overshadows those lines, and they’re essentially meaningless due to the way their delivered.
I thought those lines were telling enough and in no way meaningless. Locke, a career soldier doesn’t let his bias get in the way of his mission, but this mission does have him hesitant. I mean, he literally hesitates, looks to the ground then answers Buck. He didn’t flip Buck off like his “Every target’s just another target” that seemed to come easily to him.
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> Every time a player thinks of Locke they’re reminded of his deadpan face, so it’s extremely hard to relate with him or see how he feels. What’s ironic about Halo 5’s “Spartan IV’s have faces seen/Spartan II’s never have faces seen” dynamic is that whether most of Osiris has their helmets on or off, they don’t look any more human (there were a couple Tanaka moments and couple Buck moments though where they display some emotion). Especially Locke, who I honestly don’t remember ever changing facial expression.
I don’t find someone having a serious face as being ‘deadpan’. The times we see him without his helmet, he’s either being debriefed, being audience to a terse exchange, being questioned about a prior assignment, having an Elite’s face shoved into his own, or conversing with Halsey before his mission. I don’t see a problem with his facial expression not changing much. All those encounters are serious and Locke just doesn’t strike me as a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, so I’d expect him to have a more stern appearance.
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> Players can’t engage with Locke because of his lack of characterization and emotion.
His characterization is his stoicism, his professional attitude, and respectful demeanor. He is, quite honestly, the epitome of what people demanded/begged for from 2012 to 2015 with regards to Spartan-IVs.
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> And he’s poorly written. There, I said it. His “internal conflict” sub-plot sums up to two lines that occur between a flurry of other dialogue. You seriously couldn’t expect audiences to pick up on that. And even the ones that did would be confused because that reflects nothing that happens in the rest of the game. He’s seen as somebody who has no thoughts of his own, he’s just UNSC Spartan-IV #73808-3153-JL and nothing more.
Those two lines of dialogue are reflected upon when Locke first contacted Chief, yet still remained respectful (calling him ‘sir’) and then later offering to help the Chief on Genesis when his orders were to bring Chief in no questions, or, if failing that, eliminate the Chief. If Locke is supposedly someone who doesn’t think for himself, he would have put a bullet through the back of Chief’s skull in the second encounter. Instead, he wants to help.
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> Helping Governor Sloan and Arbiter doesn’t help that image.
A shame, really. Because it isn’t just simply ‘help’, but the context for the help. Locke and Osiris were under no obligation to help anyone on Meridian. He was also under no obligation to ‘do the polite thing’ – as Tanaka puts it – by using the space elevator on their way down. Instead, Locke chooses to use precious time and assist the ailing people as well as remains cordial and respectful in every encounter with Sloan, who sought fit to be an -Yoink- in almost every encounter. That’s characterization.
Helping Thel was also a noteworthy thing, as Vale pointed out in the cutscene immediately prior to the mission; he was previously poised to assassinate him. Locke’s response, while not exactly elaborate, shows that he’s willing to put aside his feelings (knowing that Thel killed millions of people and was a major player in the Human-Covenant War) to instead save his life.
Afterwards, Thel gets right up in Locke’s face, is accusatory, and generally distrusting of Locke, yet this doesn’t faze him. This comes full circle later when Locke, by his own volition, warns Thel of the impending danger on Sunaion, and Thel gives him the compliment “Honor is not sown from timid seeds. Your harvest shall be grand.”
Thel goes from ‘who do you think you are’ to ‘you’re quite honorable’. I think Locke wholly earned that, as well.
This is a common theme with Locke; looking out for others. We see him go back and save Buck… twice, the two above listed examples, Chief and Blue team, and even when he and Osiris were about to depart on the Guardian and he watches Palmer’s Pelican spiral out of control he, in a concerned tone, says her name.
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> There’s absolutely no reason to like Locke. I don’t hate him, but I don’t think that the hate is exactly overblown either; he had a ton more missions than Chief, and within them we learned nothing about him.
As stated above, I think we actually learned a decent amount about Locke. Could it have been better, a little more refined? Certainly, but there still was characterization there. There were things that could be resonated with and liked about his character.
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> > I doubt we’ll see them. Hi is supposed to be a spiritual successor, I guess that means we’ll get as little connections to H5 as possible, even though it’s a direct continuation of the previous events. Even if it sucks because Buck is freaking awesome. Not a fan of the fact he became a SIV though, ODST have a coolness factor that the new Spartans simply lack.
> >
> > As for Lock, frankly if he doesn’t get a 180 rewrite I don’t care. Mike Colter’s voice is something else, awesome to say the very, very least! But it was completely wasted by being used upon the most boring character of the entire Halo universe that I can think of. Can you remember a single line from him?
> >
> > At least Palmer and Del Rio are so badly written that it’s kind of funny. Lock however is the human incarnation of blandness, and I don’t know how that is even possible with such a voice! It’s a talent at that point honestly! Leave it to Brian Reed and MS’s marketing team to make the impossible possible I guess!
>
> Locke actually wasn’t voiced by Mike Colter. He was the model and the face but Locke was voiced by Ike Amadi, who sounds almost exactly like Colter. I didn’t even know it was a different voice until I watched behind the scenes videos and interviews.
What?! Damn. Five years and I never knew that. He sounds exactly like him, sexiness included! Kudos to the voice actor than, technically speaking he did an amazing job!
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> > snipped for space
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> I thought those lines were telling enough and in no way meaningless. Locke, a career soldier doesn’t let his bias get in the way of his mission, but this mission does have him hesitant. I mean, he literally hesitates, looks to the ground then answers Buck. He didn’t flip Buck off like his “Every target’s just another target” that seemed to come easily to him.
They’re meaningless because it plays no part in the story. The only part of the story that Locke hesitates at all is at the beginning, and it’s never brought up anywhere else. In fact, Locke’s hesitation might be overshadowed by Buck’s, because he’s more obvious in the way he talks about it and is way more likable.
And this clearly doesn’t even constitute hesitation, let alone looking at the ground. Actually, I go back on saying that he even hesitated, because he clearly didn’t. It was a cut, and he instantly looks up from something he’s doing. That’s not looking at the ground and hesitating, that was a pretty much instant answer.
> I don’t find someone having a serious face as being ‘deadpan’. The times we see him without his helmet, he’s either being debriefed, being audience to a terse exchange, being questioned about a prior assignment, having an Elite’s face shoved into his own, or conversing with Halsey before his mission. I don’t see a problem with his facial expression not changing much. All those encounters are serious and Locke just doesn’t strike me as a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, so I’d expect him to have a more stern appearance.
Watch the cutscenes and tell me that his face changes at all. There’s a variety of ways even a person who’s serious could move their face; that’s clearly deadpan. And actually, we do see times when he’s talking with his crew and is not at all expressive. In video games especially you want your characters to express somewhat, even if they’re super serious, because it makes them feel alive and makes the player connect with them because they can sense humanity in them and relate. If you don’t make your characters somewhat expressive, they’re going to look like they reside in the uncanny valley.
> His characterization is his stoicism, his professional attitude, and respectful demeanor. He is, quite honestly, the epitome of what people demanded/begged for from 2012 to 2015 with regards to Spartan-IVs.
Stoicism, professional attitudes, and respectful demeanors are not going to carry a character in a character driven story (which is what Halo 4 and 5 are). He has no character arc, he doesn’t ever explore why he would or wouldn’t want to hunt Master Chief (he’s just told “go do it” and that’s it), and he’s overall not good main character material.
You’re telling me that people demanded/begged for this kind of character from 2012 to 2015 as though it bares any weight on me. Or as though I care that it would be any kind of proof. People clearly didn’t ask for this, otherwise they wouldn’t have been so critical.
> Those two lines of dialogue are reflected upon when Locke first contacted Chief, yet still remained respectful (calling him ‘sir’) and then later offering to help the Chief on Genesis when his orders were to bring Chief in no questions, or, if failing that, eliminate the Chief. If Locke is supposedly someone who doesn’t think for himself, he would have put a bullet through the back of Chief’s skull in the second encounter. Instead, he wants to help.
Locke calls him ‘sir’ like any character would do, so I don’t see that as proof of anything. Everyone is aware of Chief’s sacrifices, so that’s a reason anyone would call him ‘sir’. Nobody wants to piss Chief off, so that’s also a reason to call him ‘sir’. Being respectful in and of itself doesn’t make a character either. His trying to “help” Chief could so easily be interpreted as Locke trying anything to bring him in. Locke knows that there’s no way he could bring Chief in without his own volition, so anyone would offer him to help logically in order to get Chief to come.
It could be that Locke wants to help Chief, but it could also just as easily be a tactic to get him to board Infinity where the UNSC will straighten him out. Locke might even view getting him straightened out as helping him. Nothing suggests Locke wants to help Chief in the way you’ve interpreted it.
> A shame, really. Because it isn’t just simply ‘help’, but the context for the help. Locke and Osiris were under no obligation to help anyone on Meridian. He was also under no obligation to ‘do the polite thing’ – as Tanaka puts it – by using the space elevator on their way down. Instead, Locke chooses to use precious time and assist the ailing people as well as remains cordial and respectful in every encounter with Sloan, who sought fit to be an -Yoink- in almost every encounter. That’s characterization.Helping Thel was also a noteworthy thing, as Vale pointed out in the cutscene immediately prior to the mission; he was previously poised to assassinate him. Locke’s response, while not exactly elaborate, shows that he’s willing to put aside his feelings (knowing that Thel killed millions of people and was a major player in the Human-Covenant War) to instead save his life.
> Afterwards, Thel gets right up in Locke’s face, is accusatory, and generally distrusting of Locke, yet this doesn’t faze him. This comes full circle later when Locke, by his own volition, warns Thel of the impending danger on Sunaion, and Thel gives him the compliment “Honor is not sown from timid seeds. Your harvest shall be grand.”
> Thel goes from ‘who do you think you are’ to ‘you’re quite honorable’. I think Locke wholly earned that, as well.This is a common theme with Locke; looking out for others. We see him go back and save Buck… twice, the two above listed examples, Chief and Blue team, and even when he and Osiris were about to depart on the Guardian and he watches Palmer’s Pelican spiral out of control he, in a concerned tone, says her name.
He does the polite thing so Sloan will let them in without a need to fight. Even if he was polite on his own, that doesn’t mean a whole lot, that’s kind of expected (nobody wants to play as a -Yoink- Spartan). Same thing with helping Thel. We get he’s the good guy, but that doesn’t do enough because all of this can be regarded as doing the job or doing the job really good.
> As stated above, I think we actually learned a decent amount about Locke. Could it have been better, a little more refined? Certainly, but there still was characterization there. There were things that could be resonated with and liked about his character.
Some people didn’t like it when we got to play as Arbiter in Halo 2, and he was a really strong character. What I’m saying is, if you’re going to do a dual-protagonist plot, you have to do it with a really, really good character, and even then you’ll get backlash because people really like Chief. Locke isn’t too bad of a character, he’d work great as a side character (I hope to see him in Infinite), but having him take up 12 out of 15 (I’m pretty sure) of the missions in a character-driven story where he hasn’t enough adequate character or even an arc is failing. And on top of that, having him take an incredibly larger amount of missions from an iconic and well established character in his own game is not going to go down well (I mean, Halo 2 didn’t even do that).
tL Armada pretty much sums up everything I’m thinking, and then some. It’s fine if you don’t share those thoughts, but I think it puts to beg the nonsense that is the idea that, “There’s absolutely no reason to like Locke.” Seems like we did, but I don’t think most people in the community will be honest enough to work past going, “LOCKE BAD!” in terms of thinking.
Considering the effort 343 Industries put into introducing the members of Fireteam Osiris along with decent character development, I’m sure they will return to some extent. I liked all the members so far and the Spartan-IVs as a whole (except Sarah Palmer). Keep in mind though, Halo infinite is focusing on John-117 after how Halo 5 only had him playable in 3 out of the 15 campaign missions so they may not get as much attention.