The look of just about everyone and everything almost always changes through each Halo game. And, that’s fine, but sometimes it levels on breaking continuity, or if that’s something you wish to defend, then immersion. Don’t get me wrong, I was immersed in Halo 4’s campaign from beginning to end (great job 343!) but I felt something almost like being upset when I stepped out of that cryo tube and realized I wasn’t really in the same world we were left in at the end of Halo 3.
Do Halo 3’s visual design look worse than Halo 4? …Does Halo 4 look better? Perhaps. But further more, does that matter stacked up against having them look the same? And do the changes made by 343 say, “Hey Bungie, thanks for everything, but we don’t like what you did here, here… here, and here…”–I almost feel bad for the design artists who worked on Halo 3. However, in another light, those artists were given the opportunity to bring forth their talent and collaborative vision to life, and as a torch being passed, so also were the artists at 343 able to bring their own ideas into this mythology we all love. Yet, what kind of impact does this have on the fans? Are we being told two (or more) different “truths”? Where do these visual changes lie in canon? Or accountability for that matter? Which version of this fiction is the “true” or “final” version?
Typically visual overhauls and changes occur between installments, with better technology able to push for more detail and allowing more creative designs. However, many of the changes we see in Halo are not just of higher pixel count (but apparently which was in fact the case with the Master Chief’s armor from Halo 2 to Halo 3), but of significant physical changes to physical hardware or organic beings. I am often drool over the new set of renders that are released before each new Halo game, like the rest of us, but it’s almost saddening to see the old world we were in love with be left behind [in the attic for the shiny new toy].
To make an example in a practical (and perhaps unfair) question, how do these characters in this realm of fiction not question the changes of their own world that the viewer is well aware of? Of course if they did (Cortana: Chief, how did you armor… change while in cryo these four years? Chief: …why do you look so different than the Cortana I last saw?)that would break immersion indefinitely. Of course these things don’t happen–our characters don’t break the fourth wall. Sometimes fans back the developers into a corner with these questions, forcing their hand to create canonical reasons for the changes in ones appearance–often concluding with a far-stretched or just plain silly answer. This may still relieve the fanboy’s nerd itch, yet many of us aren’t fooled. We still raise an eyebrow.
Where James Bond films have their own allowance for discrepancies in reboots/sequels (or rather the offspring of the two), and seen in recent films like the X-MEN trilogy paired with X-MEN: First Class, where do High Science Fiction video games like Halo fit in? Has it created it’s own rules and discrepancies that the fans have, or will have to, accept? Have the rules of story telling, in a nod to the Halo mythos itself, evolved?
For your enjoyment
Halo 3-Forward Unto Dawn Cryo Room
Halo 4-Forward Unto Dawn Cryo Room
There are nearly visual changes to every aspect of each Halo installment, and the trend doesn’t seem to be going anywhere soon. Many comparison photos and videos exist, as you know. And I’m sure that all of you were very much aware of the changes to the design in each Halo game over it’s predecessor–so I ask you, as the passionate fans the Halo community is known for, how has it made you feel? What does it make you think? How do you feel about visual continuity in relation to canonical continuity? Have they become one in the same, or do they stand apart? I know we all appreciate the hard work and love the developers have always put into this very special franchise–that being said, have the fans become to accept these changes?
