Halo is no doubt one of the most awesome franchises and videogame series in the world. Every chapter just adds something spectacular and new, small and enormous. But there are some games in the Halo franchise and some books that I wonder if they’re putting a negative impact on the Halo universe.
Ive never played Spartan Strike or Spartan Assault, but my bro has. It looks descent enough to play, but both could’ve been worthy FPS rather than a poor resemblance of Halo Wars. Their cutscenes were almost not even there and the story is not worth $50.
I’m going to explain what might happen to the development of Halo within the next ten years.
343 have stated they didn’t want to limit the Halo story in a trilogy. It’s a nice idea, if done properly. During the development of Halo 5 343 spent at least half their devoted time to creating these almost unnecessary spin off games like Spartan Strike, movies like Forward unto Dawn, and books that as far as I know, aren’t capable of holding your attention. The comics look great and I hear the Fall of Reach novel was great, but the new animated series based on that novel with the same title, is cheap crap. Why? Because of its animation. I haven’t watched it, and I don’t want to. It’s animation is so poor quality that it makes me feel sick looking at it. I’m not trying to be negative, my point is 343, the experts in the franchise development, are only giving us poor quality entertainment, aside from Halo 5.
All this energy that 343 spends making movies that actually don’t connect with the main story directly are a waste of time, especially if some of the characters are unbearably boring like in Forward Unto Dawn.
Another main problem with this not wanting to limit into a trilogy theme, is the fact that in the spin off games since Halo 4, theirs always some kind of Forerunner artefact being fought intensely over, and we don’t get to learn what happens after that. What happened to the Luminary that was found on Meridian in 2551? It was used to locate Earth by Regret and that’s as far as we got with that. Out the window. Spartan ops. Great cutscenes, in fact I watched the whole movie of it last night.
Another one of my fears for this franchise is that, unless Halo 6 puts all the pieces of the puzzle together, that’s going to be the last good Halo game. When Franky and 343 said they have a good idea what they intend to do with Halo in 20 years, that means their going to stop producing the main Halo trilogy after Halo 6. The rest of the games after that will be based on the already seen content, and worse yet, the main plots will undoubtedly need a few books and a movie just to understand what the blimey jingos is going on.
How will they do this? First, Halo 6 will probably not be by that title. It will be called Halo 6: Reclemation, or something like that. This gives the perfect excuse not to call the next game Halo 7 but rather Halo: Forerunner. The next games will follow in pursuit like dominos and all content will be devided in to seperate pieces. Want to play this new Halo game? Watch the movie first, then the book, then the spin off just to understand who and what is going on.
Its going to suffocate. Halo is intended to die even though I’m positive no one wants that. 343 will eventually invent something new or sell out the franchise. When you write a book about a game, it shouldn’t be necessary content to the franchise. It should be a bonus. The only way to save Halo is for 353 to do things properly, and not spent the majority of their time, money and energy on producing the poorest quality.
Heres an example, if 343 decided to make the Halo movie, guess what? It will resemble nothing to franchise. Master Chief will be some tall skinny man dressed in plastic. Why? 343 can’t to CGI for a movie, unless it’s poor quality. They’ll do it in a game sure but that they don’t enjoy spending that much time doing it. Why would a movie also suck? Because the story would be entirely rewritten, kindve like the Spider-Man trilogy. Everything is still there, just that, it won’t be. See what I mean? Halo Wars 2 I hope is going to be the best strategy of all time. If not it just confirms my theory.
You may have noticed I’m not talking about multiplayer. That’s because that side isn’t intended to die. It’s the only thing keeping Halo alive and 343 can’t wait to end the story. In my opinion the story is the #1 priority. And Halo 5 too much was in game and lacked narrative. That’s a good sign the next game, Halo 6 may fade away. Halo 4 was good, but here’s another example why I think the Campaign itself will fade away. It’s extremely weird that the very people who didn’t want anyone to fight the Didact. It would’ve been amazing (if they made him super hard to fight). Same with Halo 5, Chief vs Locke. The cutscene when they fight is awesome, absolutely, but that’s as far as we go. No battles in game. No in depth emotions or motivations, just stone cold yes or no protocol. This is another clear sign 343 doesn’t want to create a good Halo story. If they did, they would given us what they advertised. And I’m not trying to be a jerk about it either. Halo 6 will likely be the shortest campaign to date too.
The reason Halo 4 was good is because that game had a great story that was in development since 2008. Bungie knew what was going to happen but 343 took over to finish it. Halo 5 is 343’s first actual proper sstory and there are many noticeable things that say 343 doesn’t care. Some things they do care, but it was for money. Those guys who helped make forge, they didn’t help make it. 343 said “hey we want you to make a map, give us your thoughts than get the hell out”.
Next is the controls for manoeuvring in forge and flying Hornets and phaetons. A and X and Y to go up and down is just genius. (Sarcasm). It’s because their not looking to give the funniest experience either. Their seriously limiting gameplay potential. Not even being able to play offline is a huge step back. No splitscreen in campaign is another sign. 343 doesn’t care about the story! Halo 6 will be the end, and that is why Master Chief will die. Not because he does saving the universe, but because 343 don’t want him anymore. They made Chief in Halo 5 seem unsure of himself, making the players unsure of Chief. This is what 343 wants us to feel, and they hope in Halo 6, he will seem useless and Locke is the real hero.
343 wants Chief to die because they don’t want the original Halo anymore. You can see that they’ved ignored previous events to Halo 5. They’ve even changed the Covenent ships. Because they don’t want original anymore. They want to start Halo all over again, and in their version in a different way than we know.
This is their 20 year plan.
I don’t like chief being unsure, it really makes me not feel right about his story anymore in a bad way… I would have rather him just have had a heros death after halo 3…