Halo story review: No spoilers (its bad)

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

This game is like avatar the last airbender movie. It has so much lore to explain and characters to develop and so little time that it fails to do any of those things and fails to move the story forward.The best analogy I can give is that this game is very much like the golden compass movie. You know, when a bad screenweiter tries to adapt a mayor universe on books or tv series to the big screen and you get out of the cinema with no idea of the lore, no idea of the characters and with an unfinished story that ends just when the mayor plot point has been revealed. (Read that book btw its awsome, just dont see the movie)

If you have seen the reviews a lot of people are bashing the game for the story. Having played the game it has indeed a lot of problems.
First and most noticeable is the structure of the story.

A story has a beginning, where you present the plot points and introduce characters. This is actually quite well done, but it still has some problems. For starters blue team comes out of nowhere, if you havent read the books then you know who they are, but for the average regular player you go from halo 1-2-3-4 where chief is alone to halo 5 where he suddenly has a team of spartans. They could have released the animated series a week before, or maybe a small intro cutscene in the form of a flashback explaining who they are.

Then from here on its a mess.

The campaign has certainly a beginning, but it has no ending. While halo 2 had a cliffhanger it certainly had a beginning (cairo station and up to metropolis for chief and the heretic hunt for arbiter) a middle (Kill the prophets for chief and search icon for arbiter) and an ending (save the galaxy as the arbitter). Even with the ciffhanger it had a climax, you could tell you where at the ending of the game. Here you cant. Its impossible. If you where not counting the number of missions you could honestly think that the story is just getting started, with the main plot point that will drive the story beeing revealed just at the end. For most of the game you have no idea whats going on in the grand scheme of things. You are hunting chief shure that you understand.

The rest is so full of forerunner mythos that the average player wont understand a thing. Things like builder warrior and life worker, cryptums, guardians, the mantle of responsability etc. How are you supposed to know whats going on if you havent read the forerunner trilogy and you are suddendly presented with all this? Oh shure i can understand it, and so can most of this forum but we are the minority of players. Most of xbox players will think that they are on acid and wonder what in seven hells is going on. The game does nothing to smoothly introduce concepts.

Then you have the characters. You indeed play 3 missions as chief, that would not be a problem if the story was managed properly. But its not. This game was advertised as “the greatest hunting in video game history”. Well, most of the time you have no clue of where chief is. It doesnt feel like a hunting, because the game has some many plot points and the actual cnematics are so short that there is not time to develop anything. Everything is underdeveloped. The forerunner part is underdeveloped, the hunt plot is underdevelopped and worst of all, you have so many characters that they are all underdeveloped. You wont understand the motivations of certain characters, that show changes in personality so great that it doesnt even make scence. Its like Ghandi going on a rampage killing people.

And then there is the ending. Or there is not, since the story just ends in the middle. Its like if in halo 2 the game ended when Tartarus betrays the arbiter. When the plot just got its twist and the story finally reaches its reason for existance. There. It ends.

This game needed a much longer campaing, with the proper second part of a middle development arc and a proper ending, even with a cliffhanger. It also needed more and longer cutscenes to introduce its mythos.

Tl dr: This game is like avatar the last airbender movie. It has so much lore to explain and characters to develop and so little time that it fails to do any of those things and fails to move the story forward. It needed more time

2

I’m hearing a lot of negative reviews for what I though would be an incredible game.

3

> 2533274832948697;1:
> This game is like avatar the last airbender movie. It has so much lore to explain and characters to develop and so little time that it fails to do any of those things and fails to move the story forward.The best analogy I can give is that this game is very much like the golden compass movie. You know, when a bad screenweiter tries to adapt a mayor universe on books or tv series to the big screen and you get out of the cinema with no idea of the lore, no idea of the characters and with an unfinished story that ends just when the mayor plot point has been revealed. (Read that book btw its awsome, just dont see the movie)
>
> If you have seen the reviews a lot of people are bashing the game for the story. Having played the game it has indeed a lot of problems.
> First and most noticeable is the structure of the story.
>
> A story has a beginning, where you present the plot points and introduce characters. This is actually quite well done, but it still has some problems. For starters blue team comes out of nowhere, if you havent read the books then you know who they are, but for the average regular player you go from halo 1-2-3-4 where chief is alone to halo 5 where he suddenly has a team of spartans. They could have released the animated series a week before, or maybe a small intro cutscene in the form of a flashback explaining who they are.
>
> Then from here on its a mess.
>
> The campaign has certainly a beginning, but it has no ending. While halo 2 had a cliffhanger it certainly had a beginning (cairo station and up to metropolis for chief and the heretic hunt for arbiter) a middle (Kill the prophets for chief and search icon for arbiter) and an ending (save the galaxy as the arbitter). Even with the ciffhanger it had a climax, you could tell you where at the ending of the game. Here you cant. Its impossible. If you where not counting the number of missions you could honestly think that the story is just getting started, with the main plot point that will drive the story beeing revealed just at the end. For most of the game you have no idea whats going on in the grand scheme of things. You are hunting chief shure that you understand.
>
> The rest is so full of forerunner mythos that the average player wont understand a thing. Things like builder warrior and life worker, cryptums, guardians, the mantle of responsability etc. How are you supposed to know whats going on if you havent read the forerunner trilogy and you are suddendly presented with all this? Oh shure i can understand it, and so can most of this forum but we are the minority of players. Most of xbox players will think that they are on acid and wonder what in seven hells is going on. The game does nothing to smoothly introduce concepts.
>
> Then you have the characters. You indeed play 3 missions as chief, that would not be a problem if the story was managed properly. But its not. This game was advertised as “the greatest hunting in video game history”. Well, most of the time you have no clue of where chief is. It doesnt feel like a hunting, because the game has some many plot points and the actual cnematics are so short that there is not time to develop anything. Everything is underdeveloped. The forerunner part is underdeveloped, the hunt plot is underdevelopped and worst of all, you have so many characters that they are all underdeveloped. You wont understand the motivations of certain characters, that show changes in personality so great that it doesnt even make scence. Its like Ghandi going on a rampage killing people.
>
> And then there is the ending. Or there is not, since the story just ends in the middle. Its like if in halo 2 the game ended when Tartarus betrays the arbiter. When the plot just got its twist and the story finally reaches its reason for existance. There. It ends.
>
> This game needed a much longer campaing, with the proper second part of a middle development arc and a proper ending, even with a cliffhanger. It also needed more and longer cutscenes to introduce its mythos.
>
> Tl dr: This game is like avatar the last airbender movie. It has so much lore to explain and characters to develop and so little time that it fails to do any of those things and fails to move the story forward. It needed more time

Imma let you finish, but the promos said to witness the BEGINNING or START of the greatest hunt…

4

> 2533274894930311;2:
> I’m hearing a lot of negative reviews for what I though would be an incredible game.

It had potential, just too much to explain and so little time.

5

> 2535411711152989;3:
> > 2533274832948697;1:
> > This game is like avatar the last airbender movie. It has so much lore to explain and characters to develop and so little time that it fails to do any of those things and fails to move the story forward.The best analogy I can give is that this game is very much like the golden compass movie. You know, when a bad screenweiter tries to adapt a mayor universe on books or tv series to the big screen and you get out of the cinema with no idea of the lore, no idea of the characters and with an unfinished story that ends just when the mayor plot point has been revealed. (Read that book btw its awsome, just dont see the movie)
> >
> > If you have seen the reviews a lot of people are bashing the game for the story. Having played the game it has indeed a lot of problems.
> > First and most noticeable is the structure of the story.
> >
> > A story has a beginning, where you present the plot points and introduce characters. This is actually quite well done, but it still has some problems. For starters blue team comes out of nowhere, if you havent read the books then you know who they are, but for the average regular player you go from halo 1-2-3-4 where chief is alone to halo 5 where he suddenly has a team of spartans. They could have released the animated series a week before, or maybe a small intro cutscene in the form of a flashback explaining who they are.
> >
> > Then from here on its a mess.
> >
> > The campaign has certainly a beginning, but it has no ending. While halo 2 had a cliffhanger it certainly had a beginning (cairo station and up to metropolis for chief and the heretic hunt for arbiter) a middle (Kill the prophets for chief and search icon for arbiter) and an ending (save the galaxy as the arbitter). Even with the ciffhanger it had a climax, you could tell you where at the ending of the game. Here you cant. Its impossible. If you where not counting the number of missions you could honestly think that the story is just getting started, with the main plot point that will drive the story beeing revealed just at the end. For most of the game you have no idea whats going on in the grand scheme of things. You are hunting chief shure that you understand.
> >
> > The rest is so full of forerunner mythos that the average player wont understand a thing. Things like builder warrior and life worker, cryptums, guardians, the mantle of responsability etc. How are you supposed to know whats going on if you havent read the forerunner trilogy and you are suddendly presented with all this? Oh shure i can understand it, and so can most of this forum but we are the minority of players. Most of xbox players will think that they are on acid and wonder what in seven hells is going on. The game does nothing to smoothly introduce concepts.
> >
> > Then you have the characters. You indeed play 3 missions as chief, that would not be a problem if the story was managed properly. But its not. This game was advertised as “the greatest hunting in video game history”. Well, most of the time you have no clue of where chief is. It doesnt feel like a hunting, because the game has some many plot points and the actual cnematics are so short that there is not time to develop anything. Everything is underdeveloped. The forerunner part is underdeveloped, the hunt plot is underdevelopped and worst of all, you have so many characters that they are all underdeveloped. You wont understand the motivations of certain characters, that show changes in personality so great that it doesnt even make scence. Its like Ghandi going on a rampage killing people.
> >
> > And then there is the ending. Or there is not, since the story just ends in the middle. Its like if in halo 2 the game ended when Tartarus betrays the arbiter. When the plot just got its twist and the story finally reaches its reason for existance. There. It ends.
> >
> > This game needed a much longer campaing, with the proper second part of a middle development arc and a proper ending, even with a cliffhanger. It also needed more and longer cutscenes to introduce its mythos.
> >
> > Tl dr: This game is like avatar the last airbender movie. It has so much lore to explain and characters to develop and so little time that it fails to do any of those things and fails to move the story forward. It needed more time
>
>
> Imma let you finish, but the promos said to witness the BEGINNING or START of the greatest hunt…

I know it did. BIG SPOILERS

The hunt ends. Lock and Chied return to the UNSC. its not only the beginning but also the ending.

6

First in a trilogy though, so plenty of time for explanations. TBH go back and play Halo: Combat Evolved without knowing any lore and you wont have a clue what is going on…

7

> 2533274894930311;2:
> I’m hearing a lot of negative reviews for what I though would be an incredible game.

It’s still an incredible game, the game’s campaign is the only thing holding it back but at the same time I’ve heard it’s the best story since Halo 2 for some people. Others say it’s worse that Halo 4 but better than Reach. It’s all up to how you think of it I guess.

8

The reviews sound pretty similar to Halo 2. People hated that campaign, but praised the multiplayer like non-others.

I, for one, LOVED Halo 2’s campaign, so this is exciting for me lol

9

So it’s either the worst thing ever or the best thing ever from what I’ve heard.

I should probably play it to get my own opinion on it.

10

> 2533274799305268;6:
> First in a trilogy though, so plenty of time for explanations. TBH go back and play Halo: Combat Evolved without knowing any lore and you wont have a clue what is going on…

Second in a trilogy. Halo 4 was the first part of the trilogy.

11

> 2533274812240562;8:
> The reviews sound pretty similar to Halo 2. People hated that campaign, but praised the multiplayer like non-others.
>
> I, for one, LOVED Halo 2’s campaign, so this is exciting for me lol

I too loved Halo 2’s campaign.

12

> 2533274832948697;1:
> This game is like avatar the last airbender movie. It has so much lore to explain and characters to develop and so little time that it fails to do any of those things and fails to move the story forward.The best analogy I can give is that this game is very much like the golden compass movie. You know, when a bad screenweiter tries to adapt a mayor universe on books or tv series to the big screen and you get out of the cinema with no idea of the lore, no idea of the characters and with an unfinished story that ends just when the mayor plot point has been revealed. (Read that book btw its awsome, just dont see the movie)
>
> If you have seen the reviews a lot of people are bashing the game for the story. Having played the game it has indeed a lot of problems.
> First and most noticeable is the structure of the story.
>
> A story has a beginning, where you present the plot points and introduce characters. This is actually quite well done, but it still has some problems. For starters blue team comes out of nowhere, if you havent read the books then you know who they are, but for the average regular player you go from halo 1-2-3-4 where chief is alone to halo 5 where he suddenly has a team of spartans. They could have released the animated series a week before, or maybe a small intro cutscene in the form of a flashback explaining who they are.
>
> Then from here on its a mess.
>
> The campaign has certainly a beginning, but it has no ending. While halo 2 had a cliffhanger it certainly had a beginning (cairo station and up to metropolis for chief and the heretic hunt for arbiter) a middle (Kill the prophets for chief and search icon for arbiter) and an ending (save the galaxy as the arbitter). Even with the ciffhanger it had a climax, you could tell you where at the ending of the game. Here you cant. Its impossible. If you where not counting the number of missions you could honestly think that the story is just getting started, with the main plot point that will drive the story beeing revealed just at the end. For most of the game you have no idea whats going on in the grand scheme of things. You are hunting chief shure that you understand.
>
> The rest is so full of forerunner mythos that the average player wont understand a thing. Things like builder warrior and life worker, cryptums, guardians, the mantle of responsability etc. How are you supposed to know whats going on if you havent read the forerunner trilogy and you are suddendly presented with all this? Oh shure i can understand it, and so can most of this forum but we are the minority of players. Most of xbox players will think that they are on acid and wonder what in seven hells is going on. The game does nothing to smoothly introduce concepts.
>
> Then you have the characters. You indeed play 3 missions as chief, that would not be a problem if the story was managed properly. But its not. This game was advertised as “the greatest hunting in video game history”. Well, most of the time you have no clue of where chief is. It doesnt feel like a hunting, because the game has some many plot points and the actual cnematics are so short that there is not time to develop anything. Everything is underdeveloped. The forerunner part is underdeveloped, the hunt plot is underdevelopped and worst of all, you have so many characters that they are all underdeveloped. You wont understand the motivations of certain characters, that show changes in personality so great that it doesnt even make scence. Its like Ghandi going on a rampage killing people.
>
> And then there is the ending. Or there is not, since the story just ends in the middle. Its like if in halo 2 the game ended when Tartarus betrays the arbiter. When the plot just got its twist and the story finally reaches its reason for existance. There. It ends.
>
> This game needed a much longer campaing, with the proper second part of a middle development arc and a proper ending, even with a cliffhanger. It also needed more and longer cutscenes to introduce its mythos.
>
> Tl dr: This game is like avatar the last airbender movie. It has so much lore to explain and characters to develop and so little time that it fails to do any of those things and fails to move the story forward. It needed more time

The above I have to disagree with in bold OP, I remember back in the day playing Halo 2 just when I thought the game was about to get really good building up to something epic bam the game just ended.

13

> 2533275018127719;11:
> > 2533274812240562;8:
> > The reviews sound pretty similar to Halo 2. People hated that campaign, but praised the multiplayer like non-others.
> >
> > I, for one, LOVED Halo 2’s campaign, so this is exciting for me lol
>
>
> I too loved Halo 2’s campaign.

Halo 2 is actually my favourite campaign as well ! I love the arbiter, such an awesome character. Also the political shift of the covenant and the civil war is great.

14

> 2533274792586201;10:
> > 2533274799305268;6:
> > First in a trilogy though, so plenty of time for explanations. TBH go back and play Halo: Combat Evolved without knowing any lore and you wont have a clue what is going on…
>
>
> Second in a trilogy. Halo 4 was the first part of the trilogy.

I am pretty sure sometime ago that they (343) no longer viewed the new story arc as trilogy of games but a saga so we have no idea how many games yet 343 may have planned for the current story arc.

15

^ Correct. It is no longer the Reclaimer Trilogy. It i the Saga. As for the OP, I am shocked at people saying how bad the campaign is, and it’s funny because people say the same thing about Halo 2 and Halo 3, so I can’t take things like this to heart because it’s always to each their own. I have heard way more positive reviews on the campaign than negative, so it doesn’t bother me.

16

> 2535464008080244;12:
> > 2533274832948697;1:
> > This game is like avatar the last airbender movie. It has so much lore to explain and characters to develop and so little time that it fails to do any of those things and fails to move the story forward.The best analogy I can give is that this game is very much like the golden compass movie. You know, when a bad screenweiter tries to adapt a mayor universe on books or tv series to the big screen and you get out of the cinema with no idea of the lore, no idea of the characters and with an unfinished story that ends just when the mayor plot point has been revealed. (Read that book btw its awsome, just dont see the movie)
> >
> > If you have seen the reviews a lot of people are bashing the game for the story. Having played the game it has indeed a lot of problems.
> > First and most noticeable is the structure of the story.
> >
> > A story has a beginning, where you present the plot points and introduce characters. This is actually quite well done, but it still has some problems. For starters blue team comes out of nowhere, if you havent read the books then you know who they are, but for the average regular player you go from halo 1-2-3-4 where chief is alone to halo 5 where he suddenly has a team of spartans. They could have released the animated series a week before, or maybe a small intro cutscene in the form of a flashback explaining who they are.
> >
> > Then from here on its a mess.
> >
> > The campaign has certainly a beginning, but it has no ending. While halo 2 had a cliffhanger it certainly had a beginning (cairo station and up to metropolis for chief and the heretic hunt for arbiter) a middle (Kill the prophets for chief and search icon for arbiter) and an ending (save the galaxy as the arbitter). Even with the ciffhanger it had a climax, you could tell you where at the ending of the game. Here you cant. Its impossible. If you where not counting the number of missions you could honestly think that the story is just getting started, with the main plot point that will drive the story beeing revealed just at the end. For most of the game you have no idea whats going on in the grand scheme of things. You are hunting chief shure that you understand.
> >
> > The rest is so full of forerunner mythos that the average player wont understand a thing. Things like builder warrior and life worker, cryptums, guardians, the mantle of responsability etc. How are you supposed to know whats going on if you havent read the forerunner trilogy and you are suddendly presented with all this? Oh shure i can understand it, and so can most of this forum but we are the minority of players. Most of xbox players will think that they are on acid and wonder what in seven hells is going on. The game does nothing to smoothly introduce concepts.
> >
> > Then you have the characters. You indeed play 3 missions as chief, that would not be a problem if the story was managed properly. But its not. This game was advertised as “the greatest hunting in video game history”. Well, most of the time you have no clue of where chief is. It doesnt feel like a hunting, because the game has some many plot points and the actual cnematics are so short that there is not time to develop anything. Everything is underdeveloped. The forerunner part is underdeveloped, the hunt plot is underdevelopped and worst of all, you have so many characters that they are all underdeveloped. You wont understand the motivations of certain characters, that show changes in personality so great that it doesnt even make scence. Its like Ghandi going on a rampage killing people.
> >
> > And then there is the ending. Or there is not, since the story just ends in the middle. Its like if in halo 2 the game ended when Tartarus betrays the arbiter. When the plot just got its twist and the story finally reaches its reason for existance. There. It ends.
> >
> > This game needed a much longer campaing, with the proper second part of a middle development arc and a proper ending, even with a cliffhanger. It also needed more and longer cutscenes to introduce its mythos.
> >
> > Tl dr: This game is like avatar the last airbender movie. It has so much lore to explain and characters to develop and so little time that it fails to do any of those things and fails to move the story forward. It needed more time
>
>
> The above I have to disagree with in bold OP, I remember back in the day playing Halo 2 just when I thought the game was about to get really good building up to something epic bam the game just ended.

I remember thinking “all right, now here we go. This is gong to be epic” and then the credits started. Incredibly disappointing at the time. Its all good now as we have Halo 3, but at the time it just felt so bad.

17

Some people would argue halo 2 had the weakest story, but I think it’s one of the strongest campaigns to date. To each their own.
I’ll see about this when I can play tonight

18

You know id like to dissagree with alot of things here but i also agree at the same time.
Let me exsplain , firstly i have read everything halo , books, comics, the lot. I know everything you can possibly know. So going into halo 5, nothing was confusing at all and there are alot of audio logs you find that give refrence to things that just made me smile. The over ark of the story was great. Wher you say its confusing and you dont really know whats going on, as a big halo law nerd for me it was 100% fantastic because i was constently coming up with theorys and tiring hints and clues togther to come up with ideas about where the story was going.
Then comes the ending. You say it just ends,and it has no pay off ect. but then this is the start of a new story arch, we were prity much told that before halo 5 came out. If you look at previous halos. Lets look at halo ce, it ends prity much with tones of questions about WTF is going on, who are the covenant? where did the flood come ffrom, what the -Yoink- are these Halos, are we now stuck in space in the middle of nowhere because we slip space jumped and we are in a ship that cant do that ect ect.
Then you have halo 2 and again it ends with possibly the biggest wtf ending of all time , not because its great but becuase we were misled by advertising that we would " finish the fight" and halo 2 prity much ends with lets finish the fight in halo 3. lol
Next halo 3, well that ends because hell its the end of a trilogy. then we have odst and reach which are side story games that wrap up nice in a single game. So if you think about it we havent had a cliff hanger halo ending since halo 2, and that was like 11 years ago lol. I realised this once i finished halo 5 , and was like wow you know what thats great and strange at the same time
So for me this is not a bad thing to have the story left open , it feels like we have alot more to undersatnd moving forword, and thats exactly what halo ce done, so i dont see how this is a bad thing.

Now this why i feel as a halo fan the story is great its because i feel the game is made for me and others who are like me so much more than any other halo game. And in a way that can be a huuuge negative for somonw who loves the games but just doesnt have the time or desire to read the tones of books and ocmics , and lets face it there is alot, so its totally understandable that the majority of people wouldnt have read everything. And so we have this problem where your get alot of things that will just go straight over peoples heads, they wont get the finner points of the depth of whats going on in halo 5 as they just dont know the background alot of the themes are based on. Like the op said, if you havnt at least read the greg bear trilogy so many of the finer story points that in my mind made this campagin great with be lost to you and you might just come out the end of halo with a big WTF was that i dont get it.
But still please dont go into this halo exspecting everything to be wrapped up nicely, its a start of a big story arch and this is just the prologe to that. Its like watching game of thrones series one and complaining things do wrap up nicely.

Halo has been around a long time now , i feel this is always going to be halos biggest problem is how can they create a story for a halo game that has the depth of the novels and get the people who havnt read the books to really understand appreciate the finner details. Its just really tough, and i berlive thats why there are so many mixed feeling with the reviews going out there atm.

19

> 2533274809890894;17:
> Some people would argue halo 2 had the weakest story, but I think it’s one of the strongest campaigns to date. To each their own.
> I’ll see about this when I can play tonight

I agree. I think overall I preferred Halo 3’s campaign in terms of story, but Halo 2 brought something to the table no other Halo has quite matched yet.

People’s problem with Halo 2 was that it was a lot of heavy buildup for an underwhelming ending that pretty much told us to “wait for the next one.”

This is exactly what they’re saying about Halo 5 right now. So the campaign could resonate really well with the right folks, we’ll just have to see when it drops.

20

I’ll have to keep your assessment in mind as I play through for myself. Already I am disappointed in the ending, but I was hoping that the rest of the game may have made up for it.