Halo 4 was severely lacking any form of in-game background behind the characters and narrative besides the Prologue, but that was mainly about the Chief.
For example, I spent a long time not knowing who Jul 'Mdama was and why he was still trying to kill humans until I finally looked up some character summaries online. For people who haven’t read up on all of the Halo characters (such as newcomers or people who lack a lot of time such as me), Jul seemed like a simple marauding space -Yoink-. However, external information reveals that he is actually angry about the UNSC’s role in his wife’s death, which adds another layer to his character. Granted, this info isn’t imperative for the game to function, but that isn’t an excuse to not include relevant background information. This can be done with a simple lore menu, narrated slide show, etc. It wouldn’t be hard to find a way to give this info. Not everyone has the time to read all of the books and look at various other Halo media.
Halo has always had this problem of lack of in-game storytelling. Important details such as the origin of the Spartans weren’t given in-game in the entire original trilogy; you had to read the books to get the background.
It really isn’t that hard to give a summary about all of the major characters’ backgrounds and motives in the actual games.
> Halo has always had this problem of lack of in-game storytelling. Important details about the Spartans weren’t given in-game in the entire original trilogy; you had to read the books to get the background.
Story 101. Cut any details that’s not relevant to the plot. I didn’t need a cutscene explaining what Spartans were, I didn’t need that cutscene at the start of Halo 2 explaining the history between Prophets and Elites, the trilogy was fine. The story revolved around Halo and the Human-Covenant War.
But with Halo 4, they explained nothing. Why are we at war with the Covenant again? Why is the Didact killing Earth? Who is the Librarian and what did she give me that’s not called a McGuffin?
> > Halo has always had this problem of lack of in-game storytelling. Important details about the Spartans weren’t given in-game in the entire original trilogy; you had to read the books to get the background.
>
> Story 101. Cut any details that’s not relevant to the plot. I didn’t need a cutscene explaining what Spartans were, I didn’t need that cutscene at the start of Halo 2 explaining the history between Prophets and Elites, the trilogy was fine. The story revolved around Halo and the Human-Covenant War.
>
> But with Halo 4, they explained nothing. Why are we at war with the Covenant again? Why is the Didact killing Earth? Who is the Librarian and what did she give me that’s not called a McGuffin?
Right, it was a poor example. But still, it wouldn’t have hurt to have mentioned the rest of the Spartan program in-game in some form once the series was well-established. The issue definitely got a lot worse for Halo 4 to the point where anybody not familiar with the books would have little clue about key plot elements. It needs to be fixed.
They’re even starting to do it again. Nightfall is giving background about Locke, but not everyone who plays Halo 5 is going to watch that.
I suppose one could make the argument that if you care about the story, you should’ve read the books and consumed the other pre-Halo 4 media, but I don’t think it is realistic to expect people who aren’t as obsessed about the lore as myself to consume two trilogies of novels to understand the intricacies of the Halo 4 plot. Some things had amazing backstories, like the Didact and his issues, but ultimately we were deprived that nugget of helpful info for about 5 months AFTER Halo 4 released. I don’t think a slideshow or menu is the answer to this problem, but better implementation of the various threads of story as a whole. How that will happen, I cannot say without knowing where the story of Halo will go.
I think between the in-game story and the terminals, I didn’t find I was particularly struggling to understand what was going on. Similarly with what others have said, I didn’t find out about Jul 'Mdama’s background until I read it, but I didn’t need to know it to play the game. It’s more a “nice to have” rather than an essential. I didn’t know that John had been kidnapped as a child and operated on, but I didn’t need to to play the the first Halo, or need to know how Johnson survived the destruction of the first Halo ring.
There’s so much to the Halo universe that 343i have to be wary about bombarding people with too much information. I think they got it pretty much right with Halo 4. It probably does need some tweaking but certainly don’t think it’s as bad as the OP has made it out to be.
> It’s more a “nice to have” rather than an essential.
I think you could say that about a lot of the expanded content as it relates to Halo 4, but it would’ve made it better. With Jul, for example, would you rather have a villain who is evil just for the sake evil or “evil” do to his desire to see his people saved and his wife avenged due to the shadowy organizations of humanity working in the background? One is deeper and more meaningful than the other. At its core, it may not be essential, but you ultimately have much more lacking story without it.
> > It’s more a “nice to have” rather than an essential.
>
> I think you could say that about a lot of the expanded content as it relates to Halo 4, but it would’ve made it better. With Jul, for example, would you rather have a villain who is evil just for the sake evil or “evil” do to his desire to see his people saved and his wife avenged due to the shadowy organizations of humanity working in the background? One is deeper and more meaningful than the other. At its core, it may not be essential, but you ultimately have much more lacking story without it.
Isn’t that why we have sequels? 
It’s like Star Wars (or you could use any series I guess) Darth Vader is just evil in the first one (Episode 4), it’s not until the second one that you learn about him and his past which then changes how you view him on repeat viewings of the first one. Halo 4 has set up the character, Halo 5 can now go more in depth and I am hoping they do; as I said though what I was given was enough to play the game which is ultimately what the aim was. Having it wouldn’t have made things worse, but I’m not convinced it would have made it a better experience for me but that’s just me. I still think information overload is a concern, but what I liked with Halo 4 was the in-game (ie not cutscene) dialogue that also helped with the story. I think that might be a way to bring in the outside information being referred to.
> > > It’s more a “nice to have” rather than an essential.
> >
> > I think you could say that about a lot of the expanded content as it relates to Halo 4, but it would’ve made it better. With Jul, for example, would you rather have a villain who is evil just for the sake evil or “evil” do to his desire to see his people saved and his wife avenged due to the shadowy organizations of humanity working in the background? One is deeper and more meaningful than the other. At its core, it may not be essential, but you ultimately have much more lacking story without it.
>
>
> <mark>Isn’t that why we have sequels?</mark> It’s like Star Wars (or you could use any series I guess) Darth Vader is just evil in the first one (Episode 4), it’s not until the second one that you learn about him and his past which then changes how you view him on repeat viewings of the first one. Halo 4 has set up the character, Halo 5 can now go more in depth and I am hoping they do; as I said though what I was given was enough to play the game which is ultimately what the aim was. Having it wouldn’t have made things worse, but I’m not convinced it would have made it a better experience for me but that’s just me. I still think information overload is a concern, but what I liked with Halo 4 was the in-game (ie not cutscene) dialogue that also helped with the story. I think that might be a way to bring in the outside information being referred to.
Of course, that would imply all factions get equal screentime and with the Reclaimer Trilogy being very human and Chief centric, it doesn’t seem like anyone else gets time to develop.
I’d like to see a Mass Effect-style codex that’s narrated by the Librarian.
A great way to give a solid understanding of the backstory behind the events in the story. Instead of the Didact being a “hates humans for the sake of hating humans” character for those who don’t invest their lives in reading two book trilogies, nonreaders would be given a general summary of his backstory and why he’s such a nut job.
> I’d like to see a Mass Effect-style codex that’s narrated by the Librarian.
>
> A great way to give a solid understanding of the backstory behind the events in the story. Instead of the Didact being a “hates humans for the sake of hating humans” character for those who don’t invest their lives in reading two book trilogies, nonreaders would be given a general summary of his backstory and why he’s such a nut job.
If Cortana were still around, 343i could have implemented a cool in-game sub menu where you can ask Cortana info about important characters and she would give a summary of their goals and motives.
If they gave us a summary, then I wouldn’t have to spend money and buy a book.
> If they gave us a summary, then I wouldn’t have to spend money and buy a book.
Someone shouldn’t have to play the other Halo games and read the Kilo Five and Forerunner novels to understand the narrative of the first game in a new trilogy.
It would not be harmful in any way to include character summaries. The novels provide far more extensive information and have their own plots, which is enough for people to still be interested in buying them.
> If they gave us a summary, then I wouldn’t have to spend money and buy a book.
If they gave us a summary, people wouldn’t have to be confused as to why the Elites are trying to kill us again and what the Didact’s motivations are.
You know, now that I’ve actually thought about this, I’m surprised that 343 didn’t actually do this.
The only thing that REALLY needed in-game explaining was why we’re still fighting the Covenant, and that could have been accomplished by having a short scene of Chief and Cortana asking what’s up with them after they joined up with the Infinity, and Lasky could’ve simply said that “Not all Covenant agreed with the Arbiter’s peace deal. What we’re fighting now is a splinter faction made up of the Old Covenant’s most fanatical members.” Then Del Rio could interrupt and say “This isn’t the time for a history lesson,” and then the rest of the game could proceed as normal.
I actually thought they told us all we needed to know about the Didact. He tried to wipe us all out back in the day because of how viciously we’d attacked the Forerunners to escape the Flood, and now that he’s back, he’s determined to finish the job. Made sense to me. At least enough sense that I could go on through the rest of the game and not wonder about it.
Of course, based on the terminals in Halo 3 and the symbol that popped up at the end of the Halo 4 story trailer, I was expecting Didact to be the villain. 
> Halo 4 was severely lacking any form of in-game background behind the characters and narrative besides the Prologue, but that was mainly about the Chief.
>
> For example, I spent a long time not knowing who Jul ‘Mdama was and why he was still trying to kill humans until I finally looked up some character summaries online. For people who haven’t read up on all of the Halo characters (such as newcomers or people who lack a lot of time such as me), Jul seemed like a simple marauding space -Yoink!-. However, external information reveals that he is actually angry about the UNSC’s role in his wife’s death, which adds another layer to his character. Granted, this info isn’t imperative for the game to function, but that isn’t an excuse to not include relevant background information. This can be done with a simple lore menu, narrated slide show, etc. It wouldn’t be hard to find a way to give this info. Not everyone has the time to read all of the books and look at various other Halo media.
>
> Halo has always had this problem of lack of in-game storytelling. Important details such as the origin of the Spartans weren’t given in-game in the entire original trilogy; you had to read the books to get the background.
>
> It really isn’t that hard to give a summary about all of the major characters’ backgrounds and motives in the actual games.
I see several fairly easy options to cover missing back story:
- Release a new Spartan Ops sequence (in Halo 4) to a) provide backstory (a quick and dirty summary of what has happened between Halo 4 and Halo 5), and b) provide some hype (do it a couple months before Halo 5 releases, and as per original Spartan Ops, release a bracket of 5 missions every couple weeks). This option engages the existing fan base.
- First mission of Halo 5 (assuming it is built like Halo 2, where we play alternate characters), is a background story mission, where the key events are highlighted as you progress through (working assumption is first mission is played from the Locke POV).
- Have a cinematic available off the starting menu of “background story” which is optional.
Personally, I like the idea of option 1 - I enjoyed Spartan Ops, and I’m hoping that Spartan Ops type events are part of Halo 5 - whether they are done as story continuation, or the option of historical battles, or the option as the same battle from another characters perspective, or various side story missions. Having this capacity would allow for promotional pieces to be dropped in fairly easily on the assumption that we could get a Halo 5: ODST (or similar).