If you wrote the story based on how the campaign story was portrayed in the trailers and ads how would’ve it gone?
I know I was expecting something completely different and was rather let down after all the build up and hype when the story didn’t really follow anything they made it seem like it was going to.
I pictured the opening cut scene to take place in a dark room with either Lasky and Palmer or a few hidden faced unknown characters with the dialog along the lines of “The Master Chief hasn’t reported in and is unresponsive to communications”. Then in the opening mission as the Chief having already gone AWOL without any real info on how or why. You’re wondering around in a desolate landscape with hints of forerunner architecture wearing that damn tattered poncho that you never actually wore when all of a sudden you hear the diadact’s voice or the warden whoever say something like “Your leaders have betrayed you and you seek the means to revive the fallen… This is a folly Spartan 117…” and bam Prometheans blah blah blah shoot shoot shoot you work your way down into a structure and find a panel and it’s revealed you’re on either another ring or a forerunner homeworld or on a ring trying to find the forerunner homeworld. Then cutscene to Locke and friends gearing up while Lasky and Palmer are briefing them on the last known location of the chief. So you do the mission on Argent Moon as Locke instead yaddah yaddah which directs them to the chief’s whereabouts. The 3rd mission you’re back as the chief with the cutscene introducing Blue team they were sent after him also but because they know the chief so well they were able to reach him first and joined up with him on his quest. They trek across the ring or to the homeworld whichever encountering covenant and prometheans along the way. They stumble upon a guardian and then you hear Cortana’s voice “John…?”. Back to Locke filler mission 4 but you get more of a feel for why John went off on holiday he received a encrypted message (that you don’t know what is says yet) from Halsey still in Jul’s captivity and ONI wouldn’t allow a rescue op or something. Anyways I’ll skip over a few missions cause I’m running out of time but we come to find out that Halsey’s message says that she has discovered something and may know a way to resurrect Cortana. So John went off to find Halsey they rescue her and set off to find the forerunner machine that was like the opposite of the composer I can’t remember my lore right now to remember if there even was such a thing but in this story there is… More fighting more hunting Locke and friends finally catch up to Blue team and Halsey Chief and Locke rassle a bit and once John is able to subdue Locke he gives them the run down they join forces and go separate directions to find this machine. In these last missions both teams fight either wardens or a warden and the diadact I don’t know some big boss guys they defeat them and they retreat then they locate the “anti-opposite-reversal-composer” and Halsey gets to work and her last line is “I found her” which sets up H6
I basically played this in my head just now and typed it out… I want to read what you guys got
for the most part, the story played out exactly like i thought it would. I knew that there would be a confrontation between Locke and MC about mid way thru and the reason for MC’s actions would be explained and Locke would be cool with it. And thats exactly what happened. If you played H4, you knew MC disobeyed a direct command. you had to know that there would be a conflict because of that. You also had to know that you would not see spartans killing spartans in the campaign. That would have been horrible and go against everything MC and Locke had been taught. The story still has a lot of unanswered questions which I hope will be explained in the next game. Some parts of the campaign were even better than what i expected. Such as the mission where you can choose to walk or fly thru. that part was amazing.
Well…
I expected a much more antagonistic portrayal of MC, after the whole Hunt the Truth etc. marketing campaign. In-game, there is only a little bit of hostility for that one fight scene but for the rest of the game everybody treats Chief normally. No one accused him of being a traitor or scumbag. Everyone still liked him; even Locke himself acted normal the next time he was with Chief after the fistfight. There is little to no fierce rivalry between Chief and Locke, and very little questioning of Chief’s motives. Before/after that one cutscene, everything is peachy-keen.
I also expected the Guardians themselves to play a much larger role, particularly the role of bringing back Cortana. The teasers we were given suggested that Chief was the one going to find the Guardians, but in-game it’s just Cortana powering them up herself to force her will on everyone.
Speaking of this, it was pretty lame for Cortana to be confirmed alive before the end of the second mission. Reviving her would have made so much more sense much later in the game (after activating some Guardians and/or whatever else), and would have served as a good climax point. Bringing her back less than an hour into the game was quite a buzzkill, especially since she came back evil. Her personality shift is something that I didn’t expect (and it wasn’t the good kind of surprise either…).
I expected more character development of the new Spartans introduced, particularly the “posterboy hero” Locke. As they are now, they feel like cardboard cutouts if that.
In broad terms, I expected Halo 5 to be “dark,” since the game was marketed and hyped to be quote “the darkest Halo story yet.” It wasn’t, unfortunately. It might actually be one of the least dark Halo game stories.
Lastly, I expected the division of blue team and Osiris missions to be closer to even. Not necessarily an exact 50/50, but the current ratio is horrendously skewed towards Osiris.
Pretty much the way the trailers and Hunt the Truth painted it to go. Blue Team goes awol for whatever reason and appears to be turning on the Guardians. I love the story we got in Halo 5, but I would have liked that story better. Make Blue Team appear as villians because we don’t know their real reasons for going awol, I was so excited for that. I always figured it had something to do with Cortana, but I didn’t think she would be evil. I thought the Flood was gonna come back and the Guardians were gonna stop them… Kill a few million people to save the countless billions from the flood with them, basically… I hope the flood is in Halo 6.