Even if you prefer the look of the Mark V armor, the fact we have that armor core means that replicating the look with a slight update in Mark VII is a point of strongly diminishing returns (which is probably why the subsequent cores have gone left field, course correcting for a very dull start to customization).
What planet are you from that holds the Assault Rifle or Spankr as practical? 
Halo’s always had a foot in the fantastical as a point unifying its aesthetic with the covenant. The UNSC is broadly stock generic Space Marine fodder that could probably be swapped in for Aliens, Starship Troopers, or The Expanse without the public recognizing the difference. The exceptions (the UNSC’s crazy stuff, like the warthog. Boy, that’s ALSO not how you build a practical combat vehicle) are what defines Halo’s distinct aesthetic and brand.
Ie. you don’t get something to be more Halo by sand blasting character off these designs to make them more conventionally militaristic (see. Reach and its penchant for strapping disused car parts and 9 volt batteries to armor, peak impracticality by a drabber route). The crazier Halo 3, 4 and 5 armors WERE natural extensions of developing that aesthetic (so over the years the game can still feel Halo even as we acclimate to new normals of design).
Infinite’s retreat back to Reach (when the creative direction was screaming go back to CE and its lack of shoulder toasters) was very retrograde and disjointed. This isn’t what a modern Halo game should be, the compromises made for Reach/Infinite’s armor parallel more the designs of Halo’s generic scifi competitors way back (it’s in a position of vulnerability, aping COD’s aesthetic to try to win back fans and getting further and further away from the kinds of stylistic decisions that made the first games look compelling (via targeted contrast with the market). It’s not confident enough to do its own thing, so it apologizes and steps in line. You can level this at a lot of development and creative decisions for infinite, but armor design is one of the more illustrative).
“We’re getting our butts handed to us by Call of Duty and Battlefield. I know! We’ll release WWI and generic modern soldier armor to supplement Reach’s, the game where Bungie said definitively we’re number two.”
This is a major litmus test for whether Infinite is really the future of the franchise or a placeholder until 343 (or a successor studio) decides what the future of the IP is really going to be. If it can’t settle on a strident new look for spartans, stating emphatically that this is the unique look of our franchise, then we’re definitely looking at the latter possibility.
A lore headcanon that ive quite liked is that the halo 4/5 armours were developed in the postwar period after the unsc vastly loosened their war economy. With that all of the independent companies went ham with cramming all of the experimental and largely impractical technology they had saved up during the war onto the new gen2 armour platform. The mkvii line of armours seen in halo infinite then being a new standard taking what worked and trimming away many of the protrusions and greebling that would either get caught on something or be easily broken off.
Overall i think infinite has got my favorite designs and variety for armour in the series with only the coating system and no crosscore holding it back.
1 Like
i like this idea behind halo 4 and 5, that they have more uses other than combat and that really is the case. some armor is built to handle the terrains of other planets, some armor is purely experimental, now that i really think about some people take the 4 and 5 armor too seriously. i think we only see like 5% of mp in armor in the story, either way i prefer 4 and 5 armor because it looks more than just a big hunk of metal, spartans aren’t just made to die anymore.
Pretty sure spartan III’s and IV’s are made to be more expandable units than the spartan II’s were
spartan 3s for sure but not 4s, they were more mass produced than expendable, wasn’t the catch phrase “spartans never die” used because very few spartan 2s returned from battle?
VI’s are legit grunt soldiers in the campaign and they keep dyeing on mass in every game they have been in. Spartan III’s die all the time in the games. Meanwhile only one Spartan II has died in game.
Are you joshin’ me?! i dont think a single 4 died in either 4 or 5, you’re completely wack, man!! considering only 2 spartan 2s had appeared in the main games untill 5, those aren’t good odds. also we’ve only had one game with spartan 3s so saying “they die all the time” is almost as absurd as saying like brutes are the weakest because they have no armor.
In 4 alone they are mostly nameless grunt units that die left right and center after they are introduced in the campaign. You can even kill them yourself. Not to mention all the dead ones in spartan ops. Then in infinite, every mention of spartan IV’s is “they died.”
There are 5 spartan 2’s before (not) Halo 5 Guardians because Halo Wars happened and introduced Red Team. Of the ones at appear in the games they are clearly made to be stronger and tougher than the III’s and IV’s.
Every one but Jun died on Reach…the level Lone Wolves is just a field with dead spartan III’s. In the one game they are in, they die all the time.
Are You Freaking KiddingMee??!?!! The Ai count?!?? Why don’t i just go ahead and say 4s are the best because they can smash through building and kick banshees like soccer balls, my sources are a game stop promo trailer.
Of course they do. If we only counted only playable characters then almost nobody would be dead in the entire franchise.
Because they’re not canon, im gonna bait your posts now.
AI in games are not cannon? I guess the story of halo is we just walk through empty landscapes going from point A to B without killing anything
when it comes to an argument like this, yes! it’s like saying chiefs a mass murder because i can kill all the marines i see.
The reason i said you can kill them yourself was to point out the nameless grunts that appear and die. Even if you go out of your way to save them, most of them will still die. Then you have the dead IV’s used as decoration for levels in campaign and spartan ops. The games keep depicting IV’s as nothing more than meat to the grinder. Even within the games, the IV’s are shown to be weaker and more prone to death than II’s. They are far more expandable than the II’s and honestly kill the idea and legend of the Spartans.
You’re just willingly ignoring all the dead IV’s in these games just because you like their armor more. That’s just petty.
Calling me petty im not making my argument based of set pieces.
You’re not making it based on what the games show and tell us either.
because the lore goes beyond just the games
The games are the prime source of what is and is not cannon and they override any other forms of media. Halo is a game first and foremost, the vast majority of people are not interested in media outside it. Nobody cares about the books. Nobody cares about the TV show. Nobody cares about the Anime. Nobody cares about the comic books. The people who do care end up being burned by games like Reach which ignore the “out of the game lore” and make the game’s story the cannon that matters.
By “nobody” i mean the vast majority of people that just play the games. Clearly some people care but not enough for it to matter to the general Halo audience that only plays the games.