Halo Infinite Campaign Discussion & thoughts... (probable spoilers) (343 please read!)

Games Halo Infinite
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Before I begin sharing my thoughts, I would like to say that I would really like to hear all your thoughts, comments, opinions, likes/dislikes, etc. on everything I say below. I would really like this discussion to take off to see what everyone thinks/feels about Infinites campaign and story. Here goes…

So I just FINALLY finished the campaign this morning after several hours of absolute raging last night and this morning over the final boss and I just wanted to share my thoughts and discuss some things. Also I feel a HUGE sense of accomplishment.

First of all, I want to start with a positive, or the good. A LOT of people have been ripping 343 a new one over this and that, amd the campaign, and while I respect everyone’s opinions, I don’t really feel like that’s entirely fair. In my opinion, 343 has done an excellent job of breathing new, fresh life into Halo after the l campaign mess I think Halo 5 was. I found Infinite’s campaign refreshing and fun (despite all the raging I did over the legendary bosses) and I really like the masterchief’s new AI, the pilot, and many of the characters inteoduced. I also like that the chief is a lot more vocal in this campaign with confident and sometimes funny/sassy responses to the AI which is also really funny/fun. I wasnt sure how I would feel about bringing an open world experience to Halo but I actually enjoy it. I just wish there was more to do than just going around saving marines, randomly killing banished, and collecting things. Perhaps some side missions, who knows.

Now for the not so good. My biggest issue honestly (and I said so in another thread as well) is that I feel a sense of confusion throughout the campaign. The story does a decent job of explaining some things, but after beating the game, I feel like I have just as many questions left as I do answers. Not to mention I have ABSOLITELY NO IDEA what happened between Halo 5 and Infinite and how we even got here. I played Halo Wars 1 and 2, so I am generally caught up on that but I still feel like I am missing out on a lot of information to connect certain pieces together.

(SPOILERS BELOW!!!)-------------------------------------------

Several questions I have left:

  1. Who deleted Cortana? And is she TRULY gone?

The game implies some things and states some over things but it never really directly comes out and tells you (blank) deleted Cortana. I kinda feel like it leads you to believe that it was Atriox, but again, it never really comes out and says it directly.

  1. What the hell happened to everyone introduced in previous games?

Where’s Lasky? Palmer? Dr. Halsey? Hood? The Arbiter? Spartan Locke? (And why was his helmet on the brutes armor? Did they really beat him up then let him go?) What happened to all of the Spartans including blue team? Are they all dead?

  1. Why was Atriox absent the whole game?

I realize you see him alive in the legendary ending, but why run off?

–‐----------------

Also, is it just me or does this Halo story seem EXTREMELY depressing?

Most of the spartan IVs are assumed dead, according to the chief, Cortana completely obliterated the Brutes homeworld and also obliterated and destroyed the UNSC. The Infinity is supposedly completely destroyed. Countless characters are either assumed dead or missing. The chief is once again in the position of being, for the time being, the last spartan. At least on Zeta Halo he is. Whether that will change or not in future additions or DLCs, who knows. But it all just seems really depressing.

Think about where humanity and the UNSC were at the end of Halo 4 and 5. Humanity was basically the dominant super power throughout the galaxy. Arguably the strongest ships, military, weapons, etc. And suddenly Cortana destroys everything and once again Humanity is on the brink, struggling to survive. The Chief is lost/stuck on Zeta Halo, supposedly. It’s just crazy how far Humanity fell in this game, again supposedly, since all we have to go off of is bits and pieces of conversation.

Honestly, if that is 343’s way of starting fresh and new, by wiping out/killing off all their characters they introduced the past few games to start over, I’m going to be pretty disappointed. I just think it’s a silly, cheesy thing to do. Especially because I like the Spartan IVs and many of the characters they introduced.

Please let me know what you think about everything I said/wrote above. I’d really like it if this discussion took off to see how everyone in the Halo community feels!

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Spoilers are apparent for anyone else reading. To begin I would go search “Timeline of Canonical Fiction” on the halo wiki. that should give you a good place to start if you are wondering about Weapon, plot directions, or any other canon material you could have ever missed.

Cortana destroyed herself once she believed Chief was dead. based off visuals and audio logs we know that the planet they were around in the opening cutscene is no longer in infinite when we wake up. Thus, my personal theory: Cortana Destroyed the ring by sending it through a portal. In the process she destroyed the silent auditorium and herself. Do to that being the very place Chief and the weapon were able to move forward in time by 3 days I would assume that Atriox was sent to the past. During the ending cutscene a date is shown which suggest as such. As for Cortana it is implied, she isn’t alive anymore. not on the domain and not through splitting herself like she did in halo 4.

Your second question is longer. So, my guess is LASKY, Palmer, and Halsey crash landed on the planet or were able to make a blind escape before the ring was teleported. The arbiter would still be trying to piece together his factions after the fall of the covenant. Locke could very well be on another part of the ring given that his helmet was a trophy worn by 1 of the 2 spartan killer brutes. or he may have died. As for blue team in the book Shadows of Reach, blue team was sent to get one of Halsey’s cloned brains to be the format for the creation of Weapon. During this time if Professor Anders was still on the ring that got launched at the end of halo wars 2, she would be trying to send a signal to the space coms buoy near reach. Knowing Anders, she figured out how to use the new halo to boost a signal in reaches direction. I would also assume that upon full completion other monitors would be informed. So given we still have Exuberant witness and 343 Guilty spark in the universe, one could have been aware of the guardian that pulled the ring out of slip space. If there was any signal from any of the crew from the Spirit of Fire, Lasky would definitely want any help after Cortana attacked Australia. Even if its theoretical grave digging, if there was a chance that more spartans or the Spirit of fire were still alive he be sending blue team to follow up on that lead. 262,144 light years from galactic center is where the Ark was located and, in the book, Shadow of Reach we find out that Atriox was able to go through a portal similar to the one that was in halo 3 to come out on at Reach. Oh, and about Buck, he is in charge of ALPHA 9. you can read more in the book Halo bad blood.

I hope this at least pointed you in the right direction. Also don’t forget that there will probably be DLC for this game. Or at the very least another 3 books that get released without the majority of people having a clue.

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I thought the narrative was terrible. The pilot was whiny and I just wanted him to die the entire time. The Weapon or as I call her “Teen Cortana” had some good bits, but overall just felt like a way to kill off Cortana without killing her off, so bs basically.
Cortana started off as a super bad a** in CE and 2, taking control of situations and yelling at the MC when he did things that may have been stupid. Bungie went all lovey dovey in Halo 3 and sort of soured the narrative IMO instead of doing the honorable thing and killing the MC off in some sort of heroic last stand. Teen Cortana comes off as annoying in several instances, especially after you try and delete her (even though at the beginning of the game she is all like “I should have been deleted…”
The Pilot is useless and the parts of the story where they “delve” a little deeper are cringeworthy. You are essentially the last effective battle unit on the ring and all you do is complain? Obviously they didn’t speak with any real world combat vets, because people in those situations either don’t complain that much or are shut down, because its counterproductive and erodes others morale (and who wants to hear this much b****ing?) Not to mention he has a pelican with a chin mounted cannon and he doesn’t once go scavaging for ammo?

The HVT were terrible. I only actually fought 1 or 2 man-to-alien. Once I got the hornet unlocked I’d just kill them all from a distance. I realize I could have went in and killed them, but why bother? The HVTs shouldn’t have been static enemies, they should have been roving around. And what was the deal with the Spartan Killer? Articles prior to the campaigns release made it sound like this dude or his compatriots were going to be hunting me down the whole time. Instead SPOILER You just fight him toward the end in a tiny house! Extremely anti-climactic, he should have been hunting you down for most of the game, maybe little mini battles where he would retreat after being hurt and then a large scale epic fight at the end.

The campaign mechanics reminded me a lot of Far Cry 4, except where Ubisoft did a good job, 343 didn’t. Why would you allow my enemies to return to bases I’ve already secured and apparently launch banshees from them? The only areas you ever actually clear are the FOBs, which makes no sense to me at all.

And why are there only Marines? There aren’t any ODSTs, no lone Spartans? (Granted that will probably change un expansions, but why couldn’t there be any now?) And telling the story through audio files? That seems extremely lazy to me on the part of 343. The audio files should be supplementary to the narrative, not straight up required.

I remember when H5 released, people were upset with all the massive cutscene battles, they wanted to participate in them, not watch them. Now I see a bunch of people complaining that there weren’t enough cutscene’s. Also, I’m pretty sure Cortana basically killed herself and wrecked Zeta in the process (could be wrong there, sure I’ll get corrected).

To bad Cortana couldn’t see that before annihilating a bunch of planets and people. 343 should have killed both the Chief and Cortana off in 4 or 5. Saying we should give them credit for making a game that is better than 4 or 5 is not high praise. You’re right in saying that this is the best campaign made by 343, but that isn’t saying much of anything, especially when I think Bungie’s offerings were superior thus far.

Don’t get me wrong, it has to be tough to try and pick up the pieces left by Bungie and perhaps this will end up being a character study in why they should have left the Chief asleep and created something entirely new and different. But, probably not…

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Its depressing because the game is about Hope. That means they have to create a sense of despair and hopelessness.

That tone fits with where the Chiefs at in the story. He takes responsibility for failing to protect Cortana and talk her down. He then lost to Atriox meaning that she died. Thematically this idea of humanity being about learning from mistakes and loss is contrasted with the Stubborn and bull headed Banished who don’t learn from their mistakes. It does end on a high note and it is going for the bittersweet ending with Cortana that she died as herself saving everybody. So in a sense the Chief didn’t fail to save Cortana. But yeah it’s not wall to wall fun.

If Atriox was 98,000 years in the past he couldn’t lead his forces. Apparently the Harbinger was using a very old signal to talk to somebody.

If they really are doing Time Travel. Should they really spend that much time on world building for Halo 5 to Infinite world when that might be subject to change? They really wanted us to know Chief thought he could have talked Cortana down. A lot of people would still be alive if he had. It clearly can be done if she had a change of heart in Infinite. If you knew how you were going to die…. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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Dude, Esparza is a civilian contractor that was working on the Inifinity. Of course, he’s gonna complain. He isn’t even a “battle unit.”

Anyway, I think this campaign was the best they could have done to veer off from the cacophany that was Halo 5. That game was just a purely jumbled mess that tried to recreate the story telling tactics of Halo 2 in a way that was so counter intuitive, plot-hole inducing, and bland that it might as well have been erased from the canon. That is what i believe these writers were going for. The destruction of the Inifinity (and in 4 minutes off screen, lol), the deletion of Cortana and the end of her guardian oppression (again off screen, lol), and an abandonment of the promethean arc entirely in favor of a return to the Halo rings.

To some, the replacement of Cortana might have felt cheap and half-witted, but to me it signals that the franchise is moving on with the story and not lingering on the mistakes they made in Halo 5, trying to turn Cortana into a super villain on a galactic scale. I mean what were they thinking? We spent 3 entire games trying to to protect Cortana and for what? So she could oppress humanity? Noble team died trying to extract her? And for f-ing what?

Personally, i hope they killed off palmer, osiris, and blue team. Halo 5 just made me hate all of them. Osiris is tasked with capturing Chief, and when they finally come face to face with him, 3 out of the 4 of them just stand idly by and watch as Locke gets his -Yoink!- handed to him and then just let Chief waltz away like they didnt care about the orders they were given. Meanwhile, blue team is unquestioningly complacent just following Chief at the drop of a dime on a wild goose chase for Cortana when everyone believed her to be dead. But no, because Chief had a hallucination of Cortana saying that she was on Meridian, she HAS to be alive. No questions asked. No concern for Chiefs mental health. Just move the plot forward and shut up. Lol bs writing right there. The writer of these scenes DESERVES to have his narrative removed from the canon.

I think Inifinite is the best they could have done with the garbage mess that Brian Reed handed them to work with. I feel like Infinite sort of serves the same role as CE. We’re not meant to have ALL of the information right now. This is the time to ask questions and wonder about whats happening now, what came before, and what will come as a result. Hopefully the next Halo will be a continuation of this one in that it shows us the consequences of our actions on Zeta Halo, just like 2 showed us our consequences in the Covenant as relates to the Arbiter, the elites, the brutes, and the betrayals and alliances that formed as a result. Only time will tell.

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I think your right. them leaving the legendary ending of halo 3 was what allowed all this in the first place. While the Fobs would be blasted from orbit the marines were useless to for the most part. You don’t really feel like the marines are memorable in these games. sure, they’ll walk to the other side of the map with you but can’t operate vehicles or do anything without ya. I think someone somewhere be in in 343i or elsewhere was at least trying to make sure the Believe trailers stayed canon. Of course, Microsoft’s ad for halo 5 did a horrible job of this. The issue is that they don’t read their own material. The company weaves plot points like a spider that never follows up. Janus key, flood, the primordial, and characters they shoved down everyone’s throats for years are irrelevant the second you get a new lead writer. The audio logs could have least had a time stamp and given a better reason for them to be in the areas they were found. Even then the survivors would have not made themselves a target at the Reverie and would have had 6 months of guerilla style warfare. In the audio logs we hear some of the spartans take over and stow away on phantoms so given there were only so many dreadnoughts commandeering or destroying those should have been the first thing they committed to.

What would have been interesting is if they actually attacked to Fobs or could take them back. Or what have been better is instead of just saying there is a group of marines that needed saving. each group you saved would have had a certain type. ODST, mechanics, coms, engineers, ext. If you had enough, you could utilize the Banish’s bases you had destroyed. you could start rolling out tanks, find groups audio logs easier or build up the Fobs/ bases for counter attacks. but no, we got this. We’ll, see if they address any of the other things I said in my other post. Doubt it though.

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Cutscene with Atriox in it at the end was time stamped as suck. Calls it how I see it. but you are so, SO right about the how unrealistic FOBS and Marines would be in this situation. They would be going dark, not sitting in the very place they know they’re going to be expected to be.

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Pretty much. You also know the only reason they do this is they will keep writing out of game canon material for any and every loose end. Chief should have been more PO’d about Cortana killing Hood and others during the actual game play. The other issue I see ending up being the issue is that they will end of with conflicting plotlines. If they stick with the Born Steller plot line, they will have to go more into depth about what Zeta halo actually was in the books. Who actually made it and the primordial? Or how Bastion was a trap against the forerunners for using the array.

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Because the Gravemind corrupted her with the Logic Plague; probably. It’s meant to be a shock that Cortana does all these bad things and well we’re likely meeting Offensive Bias so we’ll get the Doctors opinion on that fairly soon. If it’s not brought up there it’s definitively not happening.

I don’t know, why does Elsa run off into a snow castle and put the realm into Endless Winter. So Anna can go save her through their shared bond. I mean, that pretty much is what happens to Cortana in Infinite when she sees Chief all smashed up from Atriox. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Well, my reaction to her being this all powerful AI was, you know if she was still good there really wouldn’t be a problem here. My assumption was it was all the Gravemind, the Flood will get out like they did in the Flood Forerunner War going from planet to planet. But then she turns good because of Chief and they go on to save everybody.

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Even worse they’re doing an anthology to make other material have more meaning. Medicant bias betrayed the forerunners due to the logic plague and was replaced by Offensive Bias. Cortana was in the same parallel being replaced by the Weapon. Harbinger is most likely a devolve version of the precursor race. Forerunners had that technology. But they did exactly the same thing with Cortana as Medicant. in the very last of its moments, it’s trying to atone. I think that was the actual reason why Cortana came to Zeta though. if the Domain had cured her or anything close, she would begin to wonder about offensive and medicant bias. As you also stated we are bound to run in with offensive bias who has already helped us in the game. I get why their doing the story this way, but I also feel that given the time span of their plot lines, many become plot wholes over time. Like are we to believe Anders is just sitting on some random ring building a cabin in order to survive between the events of Halo wars 2 and infinite. Guess we’ll find out someday… :joy:

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I also hate auto text… sorry if you got a migraine reading what I wrote. They really need to work on this app.

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I know what you mean, I also found the storyline hard to follow

As far as I could make out…

The weapon was successfully deployed and locked Cortana down ready for retrieval by the master chief (to take back to infinity for deletion)

Except master chief never arrived as he was floating around in space

Instead, Atriox got to her first.

She was trapped, thought John was dead (Atriox said he crushed his skull) and believed Atriox wanted to gain control of the ring and it’s secrets

So she destroyed the part of the ring with her and Atriox on, killing herself (although Atriox survived)

Before doing that though she edited the deletion protocol of the weapon to ensure she would be able to remain to help John if he was still alive

I also believe the ring automatically teleported itself away when it was damaged, an automatic safety response, taking the banished ships with it. I’m unsure if the infinity was pulled along for the ride though

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You guys bring up a lot of good points. I got a little lost with medicent bias and offendant bias so I have to go back and read again but other than that I respect all your opinions.

I will say though to the person above it’s unfair to come down so hard on the pilot when he is an engineer, not a combat role in the UNSC, as someone else said. He told the chief he was scared and stole the pelican to escape out of fear, and honestly if he hadn’t, he would have been dead. Despite his constant complaining and his fears and the fact that at any point in the game he could have left the masterchief behind and headed home, he sticks around and serves as the masterchief’s errand boy/assistant. You gotta give the guy at least a little credit for that. Not everyone can be a tough badass like the chief. He’s only guns and he’s scared, and the banished are scary. Not like the flood, but in a hopelessly overwhelming kind of way. The pilot is 343s attempt at a more human character and I think they succeeded.

Also as I said previously, I still think it’s a huge waste to bring in all these characters, build up their back-stories, then just turn around and kill them off-screen or outside of the narrative (I’m unfamiliar with the phrase you use, but you guys know what I’m trying to say). I mean Hell, Sarah Palmer got two comic series, Lasky had a mini TV show about how he became who he is, and Locke had a movie. Plus all the spartan teams from spartan ops and whatever they were building up to. Not to mention Lord Hood has been in the series since Halo 2. And you’re just going to turn around and kill him/them like that? Really terrible thing to do in my opinion. I really do hope that they are either acknowledged and confirmed as alive in future DLC, comics, etc. or 343 at least gives them and us the honor of watching them die in a comic, tv series, or in the actual game. I don’t want them to just disappear forever into the unknown and forgotten

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Wow, your description, if correct, actually explains what happened really well and clears a lot of things up for me! Thanks so much!

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I was also worried about Lord Hood when I saw that scene where the Guardian destroyed UNSC headquarters at Sydney. I assumed he may have died then.

But I’ve just checked on Halopedia and apparently he was evacuated off world shortly before the guardian arrived

If they had killed him off like that it would have reminded me of how Admiral Ackbar was killed off in Star Wars which was a disgrace!

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I’m more incline to believe this given that Halo Night fall said something similar to the part of the first ring that was transported after it was destroyed. I was just trying to indicate the ring moved from above the planet and there was a chance that not every one or thing was dead.

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Still playing through the campaign at the moment and I’ll give my thoughts on it when I’m done.

However there was one observation I just needed to get in.

Spartan IV’s.

I know there somewhat like marmite. People either love them or hate them, and I have mixed feeling on their presence in Halo Infinite. On the one hand, after how utterly boring Osiris came across in Halo 5, and how generally arrogant and overconfident many of them came across in Halo 4 Spartan Ops, I’m kind of glad the only Spartan 4’s we encounter in Infinite are dead. I don’t mean that harshly, but it’s nice that after almost decade the onus is back on the poor bloody un-enhanced un-augmented UNSC marines and not the over-shilled human super soldiers. On the other hand, I do find the game somewhat tedious in the way it tries to make me feel something through Chief’s actions whenever he encounters a dead or near death Spartan IV. Sorry but as none of them have ever been in the game before this completely fails to stir and emotion in me.

It does raise an interesting point though. Six months after being stranded on the ring and all the Spartan IV’s appear to have been killed off, but there are still tons of marines just walking around.

Does this mean when push comes to shove, for all their fancy armour and state of the art genetic enhancements that make them supposedly the best of the best, the Spartan IV’s are just pushovers compared to regular UNSC marines?

Just my thoughts on the matter, considering they seem to have the worst survival record of all human forces in Halo Infinite.

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I guess because they’re a priority target and probably involved in the heaviest fighting. They did have units specifically meant to kill Spartans. I also think the audio logs discuss a little bit about some specific mission which involved most of them on this section of the ring.

I never really got the hate. It’s just the same banter the marines had, but they’re super soldiers. People rave about Red Team but they literally are that same sort of jokey merry band in Halo Wars 2. So what gives? The UNSC can’t be the good guys if they’re kidnapping kids and doing cruel experiments on them. It’s not like keeping AI as slaves or a questionable attitude to the colonies (these issues are sidestepped or ignored); it’s far too in your face too ignore. So, they just improved the technology and made it work.

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It isn’t unfair to the pilot because 343 chose to write him this way. I know what his back story is (at least what was told to us in the campaign) and that doesn’t change my mind. He’s a terrible character. The dude is chicken s***. I get it, not everyone can be a stoic super soldier like Chief, nor should they be, but nothing about this dude makes even remotely any sense, just so they can throw “an ordinary person into the mix.”
What’s he been doing for food this whole time? Why didn’t he just take the pelican and leave? Was he stationed on the Infinity during 4? If so, you’d think he be less of a wuss, if not when did the Infinity have time to pick up new people?

If you like the guy, that’s your prerogative. But it just comes off as really lousy writing to me.

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That is a good point. Why the heck was he hanging around for 6 months after the destruction of the Infinity? One he got the pelican he could have left. Although I don’t think pelicans are capable of jumping through space, but who knows.

I didn’t say I’m crazy about him. I, too, thought he was kind of being a little beach by constantly whining and complaining and being the chief to go home. But he did change in the end. Also there are people out there like that that would act that way so I find his character believable.

Again though you did bring up a lot of questions his back story creates.