Halo has always been a favorite series of mine ever since I can remember, from the story to the gameplay to the visuals, it has always been a game I could pick up after work or school and relax with. However one this has disheartened me with the recent turn the halo series has taken, and that is the story.
I feel that the writing that has gone into the halo universe since 343’s take over was not of the same quality as that of Bungie’s and I will elaborate on why.
-Covenant Civil War: The covenant civil war was something done by bungie as we all know, however its entire impact was not very detailed and instead covered by 343 with their supplementary installments of lore (such as The Return) and what they covered was, for the most part, very good (in my opinion). However when 343 inherited Halo thing seemingly went down hill…
My pains with what happened stem from the end result of it, humanity seemingly recovering from their titanic losses overnight and the once invincible covenant empire now some how thrown into the dark ages. Surely I cannot be the only one to think this sort of thing is horrid writing, when empires throughout history had civil wars- even faithbased civil wars, they were not thrown into the dark ages like that. And I have heard the argument that since the covenant were caste based they would not have been able to recover, but this is just salt on the wound, they would not be so divided that something like that would last for long, and not even the argument of the engineers disappearing is very convincing.
In short, the covenant civil war’s end result just seems as though the writers were wanting for a quick fix to get rid of an element of the story they did not like (which while I understand, I do not think it was something that should have been done to a major power in the halo universe).
-Contact with the Forerunners: Humans being descended from the forerunners or influenced by them is not new, and its probably a concept that is as old as halo itself, but the contact made with them in Halo 4 was one of the biggest disappoints I have had with the halo series.
I read (and still have) Cryptum and I loved it, references to ancient earth in forerunner technology was very interesting and the glimpse into forerunner life was thrilling, however the depiction of the forerunners in halo 4 was not what I expected, and they seemed to be little more then figureheads that were telling the humans that ‘they were chosen ones’ and that, for all intensive purposes, every race in the covenant was little more then bumbeling apes (that had brought the master race to its knees). I found it a little humorous actually, to think that if humanity continued down the path it was heading in halo 4 for a few generations they would have the same religious zealotry as the covenant ‘barbarians’ had.
-" 'Manity! F*ck yeah!": This seemed to be the single most annoying thing with halo 4 I experienced, humanity had two major changes from previous titles.
First, humanity was now simply American, as if America had some how out bred all other major cultures on earth and went on to do the same on every human colony. I will note that with the later halo games the characters become more and more american, but with the early halo games there is distinct variation in the accents of the soldiers and characters.
Second was that humanity has now turned into some kind of unstoppable steam roller, where undisciplined jar heads in economical super suits now have the same strength as a dozen aliens that have done nothing (as we’re lead to believe by 343) but fight for generations and generations (and they breed appropiately for their job in life aswell). Further more their fights are almost always laughable, in the era of halo 3 marines were being cut down by covenant forces at alarming rates and now covenant are akin to mentally disabled children in the difficulty of cutting them down.
And with that, I end my list, Halo 4’s story was extremely disappointing, seeing missed opportunity and writing of some of the lowest quality I have seen in the halo series I sincerely hope that the next Halo game reverts from its current course.
And yes, before you jump to tell me that its an arcade game and lore is probably the last thing they are concerned about, I am aware, but still sadden to see a franchise with some excellent story behind let that fall to the wayside in order to appease a financial goal.
(And I apologize if this is the wrong section, I was unsure which section it would go to since it pertained to lore, halo 4, previous halo games, and the next halo.)