I’m on the same page as you. Team Taurus seemed cool right away in the UNSC logs and actually respectful towards Chief (Havent listened to all spartan logs cuz I can’t find the last 3).
I wish they would’ve added them in the intro cutscene because in my first playtrough I was a little confused as to why their death all of the sudden seems important like they knew Chief.
She died so that Atriox couldn’t fire the ring.
A sacrifice most noble!
I’m ok with it all happening off screen - thought it was done pretty well.
And she died so the Weapon could be born… renewal!
I may be wrong… but I thought Cortana had been locked down by the Weapon and was on the Infinite for deletion when Atriox attacked. So he had her “trapped” but couldn’t make her do anything. With the access she was given to fire the ring she instead destroyed it before they pressed the Delete button.
It wasn’t very subtle.
I didn’t get that at all. They were constantly walking through the dust and echoes - but I didn’t get the impression that this was changing the Weapon in anyway.
The context was more along the line of could she ever do what Cortana had done. Not that she would literally become Cortana.
I enjoyed the story. People seem to be equating lack of details about threads that are secondary to the characters at hand with bad story telling. I was more than happy to have a self contained quest. A lot of those other questions (like what happened to the kid on work experience in the weapons repair facility) can be opened in future DLC.
It’s implied at the end when they learn the Pilot’s name. Chief says she can name herself, and she says something to the effect of “Can I?” indicating she is picking the name cortana.
I think one of the big changes between how 343 handle story and how bungie handle story is that 343 keep trying to make Chief a character, while Bungie always used Chief as an avatar for the player… hence why he was always faceless, its why dialog was limited, and why Nobel 6 and the Rookie also hardly talk.
This means story is built around how other characters interact with you the player and build the world… its a simple show don’t tell.
In the more recent games it feels like chief is some TV show character where I am watching someone talk to that character and then the character respond rather than talking to me the player. I actually cringed a few times at the dialog and story parts in infinite… it was like “nooooo there trying to tell a sappy emotional story using a faceless biker helm wearing green space marine and there playing it strait, god this is bad” and it just kept going.
The sandbox was more fun than 343 have been able to produce prior, but after the hope of good writing with Halo Wars 2 they still don’t understand how to handle Chief.
The ending (I have only completed it on legendary so don’t know if what I saw was the extended cut) was just a complete fizzle and dud… and its almost turning into DBZ now, how do you top a galaxy devouring parasite? Oh well we keep repeating over and over to the player that there is an “even greater threat” and then show them nothing at any time to rationalise that comment.
I’m glad to know plot isn’t a burning imperative in a Campaign.
That’s not what I got from the dialogue. She asked “can I” as in can I name myself and chief says she can pick her own name. If it was going to be cortana she’d have said that
Great overview! 
Love the story too. Can’t wait to find out what’s on that ring. Has to be flood right?
I’m in a similar boat. I really enjoyed a lot of the campaign, I just kept expecting for… something to happen. I was holding out hope that another location or biome would be involved late in the game, or that we would see any sort of space combat, or see ANY human characters other than Chief and the Pilot.
Really feels like it’s about a third of a phenomenal game, which was cut up to sell us later on. I can almost guarantee we’ll be seeing the next section out within a year or two and it’ll cost another arm and a leg.
She realises her actions resulted in precisely what she didn’t want to happen with the Chief being almost killed by Atriox. This makes her snap out of the madness which had consumed her and so she decides to set things right. Yes, she’s Elsa.
We are meeting Offensive so there might be more to this if they go the Logic Plague route.
Since it’s very much chapter 1 of an ongoing story, it’s difficult to tell where they’re going or what they’re going to do. It could still be a misdirect that Cortana is truly dead.
I am still intrigued and do want revenge on Atriox so it worked for me. Although I must say I felt a little cold at the bit with the three of them in the Pelican and the Weapon taking Cortanas name. Just felt kind of wrong. It didn’t feel it was an uplifting moment as presented.
No one wants to throw in all the characters, but the game is completely disconnected from the events that happened before.
I made a post about this a while back, but the game overall suffers the same, unexplained backstory issue that H5 does. The game just jumps straight into the Infinity being destroyed, with 0 setup, vague recap or explanation. It’s just not very well done. Same goes for the endless. A race is introduced with almost no explanation (And yes, I have collected all the audio logs), then the head honcho is erradicated.
I don’t see how people are making a case for this story considering the complete lack of information or connection to previous titles.
To me, overall the story just seemed like… dust and echoes. The stuff I’d actually be interested in is only referenced, you don’t play through it and it’s not even fully explained.
Seemed more like an excuse for a reset/pivot than a new entry.
The lack of Blue Team was enough to make me despise the game to the bone. I’m so glad I did NOT pay $60 for this total failure of a game. DarkChii01 is right - the overall story of Halo Infinite just looks more like a lazy reset/pivot. And I blame the fanbase for this.
Cortana was written just as poorly, if not worse than in Halo 5. Her entire Created arc ends on her having a sudden change of heart because she presumes the Chief’s dead? Are we really supposed to feel emotional for her, moments after she obliterated a planet?
What pisses me off the most, is than Jen Taylor is incredibly talented, but 343 constantly gives her garbage material to work with.
I like the story.
How I think it went, is Cortana starts destroying things to make everyone submit, in an act to simply stop wars. 76 spartan 4s were ordered to stand against Cortana, so she destroys the training facility. The UNSC was trying to fight back so she destroys Sydney. The brutes posed a threat as well, and she confronted Atriox asking him to choose a side. She destroys their homeworld. The Banished somehow knew that the Infinity had a copy of Cortana to lock her down, and ordered to attack it.
The Infinity arrives at zeta halo, and is immediately struck with a stasis beam from four Banished dreadnoughts, which disabled its weapons and engines, and was drawing energy from its shields to give power to their engines (halo wiki on stasis weapons for reference), rams the Infinity. Atriox boards the ship and steals the weapon.
Cortana was expecting Chief to come down to delete her with the weapon, but Atriox came instead. Atriox had already defeated the UNSC and Cortana was met with certain death, if the ring came under the Banished control, they could use it to kill more people than Cortana ever did. So in an act to stop war, or delay it at least, she deletes herself and destroys part of the ring. She also puts Atriox in a time lock, where on the inside no time passes, but on the outside time passes as normal.
Everyone thinks Atriox is dead now, so when the Chief wakes up in the pelican, the Banished find the Harbinger and let her free. At this same time, Atriox is freed from his time lock. The Harbinger was sending Atriox the location where the Endless were being held.
A theory I like says that the Endless are precursor descendent. During the Forerunner-Flood war, zeta halo went missing for a while. The primordial and Mendicant Bias were making a plan for when the Halos go off, they genetically engineered the Endless which are immune to Halos. When the halos fired the Endless were found on their homeworld doing nothing really. They being so advanced, but having no huge starships or megastructures means the theory has some depth to it. So, if a species exists that can survive halo, if they were infected by the flood, would render the halo array pointless. Imagine thousands of years of trying to find a solution to something, you come up with a desperate last resort to solve the problem, and then only after it is executed there is another problem which makes your original solution pointless. “I tried so hard and got so far but in the end it doesnt even matter”.
I actually enjoyed the story, I feel 343 wanted you, growing and playing the games from bungies era and their mistakes, to experience John’s experiences. John is isolated again, and he feels more alone than ever. He begins to struggle with his humanity, while hard programmed to not have that kind of reflection. Guilt, loneliness, defeat are taking its toll on him. I actually like weapon, after she realizes why John can’t trust her, she begins to understand each other and why they are doing what they are doing. And whether or not you don’t want Cortana back, it felt like she is, and I love it. After some slight bonding and then cortanas last goodbye (343s apology for 5), it felt like the fight for humanity is back in full swing. This is my opinion from the first playthrough and honestly I think they moved in the right direction to reboot the franchise. We have to give them credit where credit is due if we want them to do better and actually praise them for what they did right. This feels like a new base story that now we can heavily expand on, which I hope they do
Umm pretty sure it’s painfully obvious she meant Cortana.
Didn’t seem like being a problem about random name but asking for permission due to her tone of voice. Plus some people can tell what people are thinking based on a connection and I’m fairly sure they meant Cortana that’s why she asked twice because she know how Chief felt about the name.
Her personality at the moment is not forceful so she might have felt uncomfortable with just picking it because she seems to be sympathetic and which is why she asked twice. Plus 343i know fans love nostalgia so it’s kind of obvious at this point.
If it was meant to be cortana she’d have just said it then and there. It’s not cortana.
Pretty sure that’s why she did and that’s why she was cut off before saying it. Seriously why would they choose to cut her off if it wasn’t to tease that? It’s to get people to talk. Seems a bit ridiculous to assume it’s anything else.
Lol whenever they announce here name and when that name is not cortana I’ll be sure to come back here and laugh at you. The weapon knows how much baggage comes with that name. Not a chance in hell she picks it.
You sound ridiculous. If they made it a random generic name then people won’t care or they probably won’t remember. Of course she’s picking it based on her tone of voice and I have zero clue how you’re not picking up on that. Her body language and way she talks is painfully obvious that she meant Cortana.