More EU references

Games Halo Infinite
1

Many halo fans are warry about a return to form for the HALO series. They are worried that 343i doesn’t respect HALO canon as much as it’s fans do and even go so far as to say that 343i is retroactively undoing a lot of the good worldbuilding Bungie did in their heyday. As a way to appease these fans, as a love letter to the amazing work done by people outside of the HALO team, and as a way to show that 343i cares more about the HALO canon than people give them credit for, I think it would be cool to see some EU references in the game, especially from HALO:LEGENDS and some of the older HALO novels. And I don’t mean possibly recycling old designs without mentioning the origin, I mean overt, unmistakable references. For instance, Daisy-023 (Daisy-023 | Halo Alpha | Fandom) is a spartan from LEGENDS who died on harvest. Having a CQB variant with a bullet hole in the visor (a reference to her possibly killing her clone with a gunshot to the head) and a coating featuring her dark red armor, black under suit, and yellow stripe called something like “poppies and daisies” would go a long way to establish a relationship with EU halo.

as a wishlist, my top picks for things to call back to are:

  • The prototype armor from Legends (Yggdrasil MK.1) would make a great coating with it’s distinctive black and sparse yellow, as well as a cool bulkier alternative to MK.IV if a toned-down version became an armor set. You could even make a double-reference by making the description something like “after years of increasingly bold experimentation on the ever-advancing Mjolnir platform, the UNSC engineering core decided to go back to basics with their latest design. Based on an early prototype of the Mjolnir platform, it has been lauded for it’s good performance across the board as an unspecialized alternative to standard-issue gear.” (this being a reflection of 343i experimenting with the artstyle and then synthesizing the old with the new to create a functional alternative to both) - The actual inclusion of the Ghost of Onyx armor, which has been a fan-favorite for inclusion since it was first released. It’s a slick set of armor that looks right at home next to both Mark V and Mark IV. Regarding the helmet’s similarity to EVA, this may have been truer in the past but as EVA has changed the two have grown further apart. Aside from that, the real standout piece from the armor set isn’t the helmet, it’s actually the chest. The chest has a unique construction that isn’t common in HALO and I believe it would make a great addition.EDIT: Also the infiltrator armor (from Ghost of Onyx) appears in like a million things other than the games, it seems to be a favorite among EU writers as well. My favorite depiction is on the cover of Last Light (https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/halo/images/2/2f/HLL_Cover-Full.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20150508010618) where it’s fitting right in next to a set of Halo 5 armor.
2

The problem with 343i is they respected the canon too much and therefore alienated the casual fan base. Everything they have shown is aligning with the current canon from the books so I’m not sure where you get this notion from.

3

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> The problem with 343i is they respected the canon too much and therefore alienated the casual fan base. Everything they have shown is aligning with the current canon from the books so I’m not sure where you get this notion from.

By ‘respect the halo canon’ I don’t mean they follow it and don’t contradict it, I mean that the follow-up canon that they establish just isn’t very good. In the opinion of many fans, Halo 4 and 5’s stories are just not good. By ‘respecting the canon’ I mean making a story worthy of the canon.

4

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> > The problem with 343i is they respected the canon too much and therefore alienated the casual fan base. Everything they have shown is aligning with the current canon from the books so I’m not sure where you get this notion from.
>
> By ‘respect the halo canon’ I don’t mean they follow it and don’t contradict it, I mean that the follow-up canon that they establish just isn’t very good. In the opinion of many fans, Halo 4 and 5’s stories are just not good. By ‘respecting the canon’ I mean making a story worthy of the canon.

Halo 4 was by far the best Halo campaign in terms of lore we probably will ever get. I extremely disagree with the notion that the story was not good. Do you read the books?

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> > > The problem with 343i is they respected the canon too much and therefore alienated the casual fan base. Everything they have shown is aligning with the current canon from the books so I’m not sure where you get this notion from.
> >
> > By ‘respect the halo canon’ I don’t mean they follow it and don’t contradict it, I mean that the follow-up canon that they establish just isn’t very good. In the opinion of many fans, Halo 4 and 5’s stories are just not good. By ‘respecting the canon’ I mean making a story worthy of the canon.
>
> Halo 4 was by far the best Halo campaign in terms of lore we probably will ever get. I extremely disagree with the notion that the story was not good. Do you read the books?

being ‘good in regards to lore’ doesn’t make it a good story. and respecting the canon also means making it accessible to players, instead of beating them over the head with new -Yoink- they’ve never heard of. HALO:REACH was a story based on EU content, but also told a self-contained story that needed very little contextualizing. You could tell from the very beginning what was going on and who was important. While it unfortunately retconned an EU book (which was inevitable considering how unestablished halo lore was when it was written) it also payed a lot of respect to the story itself, something HALO 4 and 5 was missing. And yes I have read a few of the books, including the one that contextualizes HALO 4, but I shouldn’t HAVE to read the book.

I think you’re confused. I want them to make nods to the extended universe INSTEAD of pulling stories and plot-points directly from them. EU enjoyers should be respected by being acknowledged and then left alone to enjoy their EU without the games muddying the waters. Bad video game storytelling poisons the well of the original property it was based on, which alienates both casual fans AND hardcore fans by giving casual players an impenetrable story and ruining the conclusion of the EU enjoyers story by finishing it in a video game.

When you make a story for a game it has to come with concessions. Gameplay will always strong-arm the story or vice-versa, unless you write the story AROUND the gameplay, which pulling from a book does not allow. We saw this in REACH when the story had undergone big changes to accommodate both updated lore and the necessities of gameplay, and that was mostly a contained story (we saw the entire fall of reach, character relationships were simple and easily established in the first mission, everything else like Cortana and the pillar of autumn were game lore). I think the extended universe properties should stay extended, lending only UNNECESARRY context to the universe of halo, instead of being essentially required reading for understanding any part of the story. I played HALO 4 before reading the book and went through the entire story confused and unimmersed. After reading the story, I was only left to wonder why they didn’t just write a follow-up book instead of shoveling the story into a game. The didact is a really cool villain… if you read the book.

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> > > > The problem with 343i is they respected the canon too much and therefore alienated the casual fan base. Everything they have shown is aligning with the current canon from the books so I’m not sure where you get this notion from.
> > >
> > > By ‘respect the halo canon’ I don’t mean they follow it and don’t contradict it, I mean that the follow-up canon that they establish just isn’t very good. In the opinion of many fans, Halo 4 and 5’s stories are just not good. By ‘respecting the canon’ I mean making a story worthy of the canon.
> >
> > Halo 4 was by far the best Halo campaign in terms of lore we probably will ever get. I extremely disagree with the notion that the story was not good. Do you read the books?
>
> being ‘good in regards to lore’ doesn’t make it a good story. and respecting the canon also means making it accessible to players, instead of beating them over the head with new -Yoink- they’ve never heard of. HALO:REACH was a story based on EU content, but also told a self-contained story that needed very little contextualizing. You could tell from the very beginning what was going on and who was important. While it unfortunately retconned an EU book (which was inevitable considering how unestablished halo lore was when it was written) it also payed a lot of respect to the story itself, something HALO 4 and 5 was missing. And yes I have read a few of the books, including the one that contextualizes HALO 4, but I shouldn’t HAVE to read the book.
>
> I think you’re confused. I want them to make nods to the extended universe INSTEAD of pulling stories and plot-points directly from them. EU enjoyers should be respected by being acknowledged and then left alone to enjoy their EU without the games muddying the waters. Bad video game storytelling poisons the well of the original property it was based on, which alienates both casual fans AND hardcore fans by giving casual players an impenetrable story and ruining the conclusion of the EU enjoyers story by finishing it in a video game.
>
> When you make a story for a game it has to come with concessions. Gameplay will always strong-arm the story or vice-versa, unless you write the story AROUND the gameplay, which pulling from a book does not allow. We saw this in REACH when the story had undergone big changes to accommodate both updated lore and the necessities of gameplay, and that was mostly a contained story (we saw the entire fall of reach, character relationships were simple and easily established in the first mission, everything else like Cortana and the pillar of autumn were game lore). I think the extended universe properties should stay extended, lending only UNNECESARRY context to the universe of halo, instead of being essentially required reading for understanding any part of the story. I played HALO 4 before reading the book and went through the entire story confused and unimmersed. After reading the story, I was only left to wonder why they didn’t just write a follow-up book instead of shoveling the story into a game. The didact is a really cool villain… if you read the book.

I’m going to hard disagree with you about Halo 4. I have read all of the books and have played since the launch of Halo 2 so I have a great understanding.

7

You can say what you will about 343 and they way to they do lore, but Bungie actually went out of their way to ignore and confuse the lore with Reach. Also, I find the claim you were required to engage with all the EU material for 4 and 5 to be wildly overblown.

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> You can say what you will about 343 and they way to they do lore, but Bungie actually went out of their way to ignore and confuse the lore with Reach. Also, I find the claim you were required to engage with all the EU material for 4 and 5 to be wildly overblown.

I do think with Blue Team the way they set them up almost made it a requirement to be honest. It might just be my spitefulness about how they introduced them so poorly however.

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> > You can say what you will about 343 and they way to they do lore, but Bungie actually went out of their way to ignore and confuse the lore with Reach. Also, I find the claim you were required to engage with all the EU material for 4 and 5 to be wildly overblown.
>
> I do think with Blue Team the way they set them up almost made it a requirement to be honest. It might just be my spitefulness about how they introduced them so poorly however.

I did say the claims are overblown, not completely without merit. But this fanbase also has a bad habit of selectively being okay with not knowing certain things. I mean, Halo 2 never explained how Johnson survived CE and nobody bats an eye.

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> > > You can say what you will about 343 and they way to they do lore, but Bungie actually went out of their way to ignore and confuse the lore with Reach. Also, I find the claim you were required to engage with all the EU material for 4 and 5 to be wildly overblown.
> >
> > I do think with Blue Team the way they set them up almost made it a requirement to be honest. It might just be my spitefulness about how they introduced them so poorly however.
>
> I did say the claims are overblown, not completely without merit. But this fanbase also has a bad habit of selectively being okay with not knowing certain things. I mean, Halo 2 never explained how Johnson survived CE and nobody bats an eye.

Didn’t one of the books state he was practically immune to the flood because of something weird with him being apart of the Spartan-I program? That came after the game of course.

People gave Bungie a free pass with their story telling and lore IMO. Once 343i gets the gameplay and storying telling WITH the lore they will be viewed much differently. Let’s hope Halo Infinite will be that game.

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> > > > You can say what you will about 343 and they way to they do lore, but Bungie actually went out of their way to ignore and confuse the lore with Reach. Also, I find the claim you were required to engage with all the EU material for 4 and 5 to be wildly overblown.
> > >
> > > I do think with Blue Team the way they set them up almost made it a requirement to be honest. It might just be my spitefulness about how they introduced them so poorly however.
> >
> > I did say the claims are overblown, not completely without merit. But this fanbase also has a bad habit of selectively being okay with not knowing certain things. I mean, Halo 2 never explained how Johnson survived CE and nobody bats an eye.
>
> Didn’t one of the books state he was practically immune to the flood because of something weird with him being apart of the Spartan-I program? That came after the game of course.
>
> People gave Bungie a free pass with their story telling and lore IMO. Once 343i gets the gameplay and storying telling WITH the lore they will be viewed much differently. Let’s hope Halo Infinite will be that game.

part of that is because halo didn’t have an emphasis on storytelling in the first place, being mostly just a series of set pieces and ‘wow’ moments, but the slower, more character-focused stories of 4 and 5 gives us time to ask questions, a lot of which remains unanswered without reading. (also I’m pretty sure I’m at post limit, woops)

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> > > > > You can say what you will about 343 and they way to they do lore, but Bungie actually went out of their way to ignore and confuse the lore with Reach. Also, I find the claim you were required to engage with all the EU material for 4 and 5 to be wildly overblown.
> > > >
> > > > I do think with Blue Team the way they set them up almost made it a requirement to be honest. It might just be my spitefulness about how they introduced them so poorly however.
> > >
> > > I did say the claims are overblown, not completely without merit. But this fanbase also has a bad habit of selectively being okay with not knowing certain things. I mean, Halo 2 never explained how Johnson survived CE and nobody bats an eye.
> >
> > Didn’t one of the books state he was practically immune to the flood because of something weird with him being apart of the Spartan-I program? That came after the game of course.
> >
> > People gave Bungie a free pass with their story telling and lore IMO. Once 343i gets the gameplay and storying telling WITH the lore they will be viewed much differently. Let’s hope Halo Infinite will be that game.
>
> part of that is because halo didn’t have an emphasis on storytelling in the first place, being mostly just a series of set pieces and ‘wow’ moments, but the slower, more character-focused stories of 4 and 5 gives us time to ask questions, a lot of which remains unanswered without reading. (also I’m pretty sure I’m at post limit, woops)

At lot of those were answered in the books though. Halo has a great story to tell through lore, but they need to meet int he middle with casual fans. There is nothing wrong with that as long as they provide heavy lore in the game as an optional thing.

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> > > > > 2533274812652989;7:
> > > > > You can say what you will about 343 and they way to they do lore, but Bungie actually went out of their way to ignore and confuse the lore with Reach. Also, I find the claim you were required to engage with all the EU material for 4 and 5 to be wildly overblown.
> > > >
> > > > I do think with Blue Team the way they set them up almost made it a requirement to be honest. It might just be my spitefulness about how they introduced them so poorly however.
> > >
> > > I did say the claims are overblown, not completely without merit. But this fanbase also has a bad habit of selectively being okay with not knowing certain things. I mean, Halo 2 never explained how Johnson survived CE and nobody bats an eye.
> >
> > Didn’t one of the books state he was practically immune to the flood because of something weird with him being apart of the Spartan-I program? That came after the game of course.
> >
> > People gave Bungie a free pass with their story telling and lore IMO. Once 343i gets the gameplay and storying telling WITH the lore they will be viewed much differently. Let’s hope Halo Infinite will be that game.
>
> part of that is because halo didn’t have an emphasis on storytelling in the first place, being mostly just a series of set pieces and ‘wow’ moments, but the slower, more character-focused stories of 4 and 5 gives us time to ask questions, a lot of which remains unanswered without reading. (also I’m pretty sure I’m at post limit, woops)

Perhaps some things, but most of what comes up in both games is there if you simply pay attention. Either way, you showed exactly what I’m talking about with being selective.

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> > > > > > You can say what you will about 343 and they way to they do lore, but Bungie actually went out of their way to ignore and confuse the lore with Reach. Also, I find the claim you were required to engage with all the EU material for 4 and 5 to be wildly overblown.
> > > > >
> > > > > I do think with Blue Team the way they set them up almost made it a requirement to be honest. It might just be my spitefulness about how they introduced them so poorly however.
> > > >
> > > > I did say the claims are overblown, not completely without merit. But this fanbase also has a bad habit of selectively being okay with not knowing certain things. I mean, Halo 2 never explained how Johnson survived CE and nobody bats an eye.
> > >
> > > Didn’t one of the books state he was practically immune to the flood because of something weird with him being apart of the Spartan-I program? That came after the game of course.
> > >
> > > People gave Bungie a free pass with their story telling and lore IMO. Once 343i gets the gameplay and storying telling WITH the lore they will be viewed much differently. Let’s hope Halo Infinite will be that game.
> >
> > part of that is because halo didn’t have an emphasis on storytelling in the first place, being mostly just a series of set pieces and ‘wow’ moments, but the slower, more character-focused stories of 4 and 5 gives us time to ask questions, a lot of which remains unanswered without reading. (also I’m pretty sure I’m at post limit, woops)
>
> At lot of those were answered in the books though. Halo has a great story to tell through lore, but they need to meet int he middle with casual fans. There is nothing wrong with that as long as they provide heavy lore in the game as an optional thing.

That’s what I’m trying to get across. The games should be mostly self-contained stories which require little-to-no prior knowledge of the lore. The original halo had great environmental storytelling and made sure that you were always aware of exactly who you were fighting, what your immediate and long-term goal was, and why you were doing what you were doing. Part of what played into that was how the characters were just as uninformed as you were, with the characters constantly remarking on new information as they were given to both you AND the character. Reach succeeded in being a self contained story in the same vein, but failed by doing so at the expense of expanded universe content. Halos 4 and 5 did bad in the opposite direction, creating something new out of EU foundations, leaving lots of holes that needed answers. Some of these problems aren’t even immediately apparent to the player either. If you had never read the expanded lore of 4, like many players you might have assumed the didact is just a -Yoink- by nature, a generic ‘evil for evil’s sake’ villain. Same with Blue team, who seems really bland with their in-game depiction because it’s lacking the context of their story so far. Also think about it from the perspective of someone who’s only played the games. You’ve been with master chief ostensibly since the beginning of his story, all the way through the war to save humanity and now suddenly he has 3 new buddies you’ve never heard of who he reunites with after killing a villain you’ve never heard of who’s part of an enemy faction you’ve never heard of comprised of creatures you’ve never heard of, who uses hitherto unseen technology to do stuff you don’t understand (the composer is really misleading. Whether they did this on purpose or not I don’t know) that all kinda of reminds you of the stuff you’ve been playing with since 2001 but not really. Combined with the massive artstyle shift and it left a lot of people totally dead in the water in terms of engagement.

I am hopeful for infinite, given that the banished are much more accessible for gamers (not only do they have a direct logical origin from a known entity in the games, but they’re from another game in the same franchise. It’s much easier to watch a playthrough than read a book) and the new setting is lore-rich, but without having any necessary hang-ups that may utterly confuse the player. (Hopefully they don’t bring up how it use to be a big ring but then became a small ring, that’s going to be a headscratcher for people who aren’t familiar.) And the possible inclusion of Mendicant Bias will be a lot simpler to grasp, given that we’re already familiar with constructs, rampancy (which the logic plague is similar to in a lot of ways), and the flood.

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> > > > > > You can say what you will about 343 and they way to they do lore, but Bungie actually went out of their way to ignore and confuse the lore with Reach. Also, I find the claim you were required to engage with all the EU material for 4 and 5 to be wildly overblown.
> > > > >
> > > > > I do think with Blue Team the way they set them up almost made it a requirement to be honest. It might just be my spitefulness about how they introduced them so poorly however.
> > > >
> > > > I did say the claims are overblown, not completely without merit. But this fanbase also has a bad habit of selectively being okay with not knowing certain things. I mean, Halo 2 never explained how Johnson survived CE and nobody bats an eye.
> > >
> > > Didn’t one of the books state he was practically immune to the flood because of something weird with him being apart of the Spartan-I program? That came after the game of course.
> > >
> > > People gave Bungie a free pass with their story telling and lore IMO. Once 343i gets the gameplay and storying telling WITH the lore they will be viewed much differently. Let’s hope Halo Infinite will be that game.
> >
> > part of that is because halo didn’t have an emphasis on storytelling in the first place, being mostly just a series of set pieces and ‘wow’ moments, but the slower, more character-focused stories of 4 and 5 gives us time to ask questions, a lot of which remains unanswered without reading. (also I’m pretty sure I’m at post limit, woops)
>
> Perhaps some things, but most of what comes up in both games is there if you simply pay attention. Either way, you showed exactly what I’m talking about with being selective.

Halo 4 introduced an entire new enemy faction, and Halo 5 introduced 3 of master chief’s old friends, neither of which are properly expanded upon in previous games, or the games they appear in. Halo 1 has to get a pass since it’s the first game in the series, and it still does a good job of establishing what you need to know right away. Halo 4 introduces a lot of things quickly without really explaining any of it and leaves you with a seemingly cookie-cutter set of characters who are much deeper if you read the lore surrounding them.

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> > > > > > > 2533274812652989;7:
> > > > > > > You can say what you will about 343 and they way to they do lore, but Bungie actually went out of their way to ignore and confuse the lore with Reach. Also, I find the claim you were required to engage with all the EU material for 4 and 5 to be wildly overblown.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I do think with Blue Team the way they set them up almost made it a requirement to be honest. It might just be my spitefulness about how they introduced them so poorly however.
> > > > >
> > > > > I did say the claims are overblown, not completely without merit. But this fanbase also has a bad habit of selectively being okay with not knowing certain things. I mean, Halo 2 never explained how Johnson survived CE and nobody bats an eye.
> > > >
> > > > Didn’t one of the books state he was practically immune to the flood because of something weird with him being apart of the Spartan-I program? That came after the game of course.
> > > >
> > > > People gave Bungie a free pass with their story telling and lore IMO. Once 343i gets the gameplay and storying telling WITH the lore they will be viewed much differently. Let’s hope Halo Infinite will be that game.
> > >
> > > part of that is because halo didn’t have an emphasis on storytelling in the first place, being mostly just a series of set pieces and ‘wow’ moments, but the slower, more character-focused stories of 4 and 5 gives us time to ask questions, a lot of which remains unanswered without reading. (also I’m pretty sure I’m at post limit, woops)
> >
> > Perhaps some things, but most of what comes up in both games is there if you simply pay attention. Either way, you showed exactly what I’m talking about with being selective.
>
> Halo 4 introduced an entire new enemy faction, and Halo 5 introduced 3 of master chief’s old friends, neither of which are properly expanded upon in previous games, or the games they appear in. Halo 1 has to get a pass since it’s the first game in the series, and it still does a good job of establishing what you need to know right away. Halo 4 introduces a lot of things quickly without really explaining any of it and leaves you with a seemingly cookie-cutter set of characters who are much deeper if you read the lore surrounding them.

Which enemy faction? Jul’s Covenant? A splinter group that logically would exist since the Covenant was a galaxy spanning empire that isn’t going to just vanish. I get that might mean you’d have to think about it form a minute, but that’s hardly a tall order and you’re clued in to their motives once you see the Didact. The Prometheans? What they are and where they come from is explained in-game and the terminals.

I’ll grant you Blue Team, but I’ll raise you Johnson’s survival (H2), the presence of Alpha and Beta Company S-IIIs (Reach), and the whole actual reason the Covenant wants to genocide humanity (Contact Harvest).

Pretty minor in comparison.

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> > > > > > > > You can say what you will about 343 and they way to they do lore, but Bungie actually went out of their way to ignore and confuse the lore with Reach. Also, I find the claim you were required to engage with all the EU material for 4 and 5 to be wildly overblown.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > I do think with Blue Team the way they set them up almost made it a requirement to be honest. It might just be my spitefulness about how they introduced them so poorly however.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I did say the claims are overblown, not completely without merit. But this fanbase also has a bad habit of selectively being okay with not knowing certain things. I mean, Halo 2 never explained how Johnson survived CE and nobody bats an eye.
> > > > >
> > > > > Didn’t one of the books state he was practically immune to the flood because of something weird with him being apart of the Spartan-I program? That came after the game of course.
> > > > >
> > > > > People gave Bungie a free pass with their story telling and lore IMO. Once 343i gets the gameplay and storying telling WITH the lore they will be viewed much differently. Let’s hope Halo Infinite will be that game.
> > > >
> > > > part of that is because halo didn’t have an emphasis on storytelling in the first place, being mostly just a series of set pieces and ‘wow’ moments, but the slower, more character-focused stories of 4 and 5 gives us time to ask questions, a lot of which remains unanswered without reading. (also I’m pretty sure I’m at post limit, woops)
> > >
> > > Perhaps some things, but most of what comes up in both games is there if you simply pay attention. Either way, you showed exactly what I’m talking about with being selective.
> >
> > Halo 4 introduced an entire new enemy faction, and Halo 5 introduced 3 of master chief’s old friends, neither of which are properly expanded upon in previous games, or the games they appear in. Halo 1 has to get a pass since it’s the first game in the series, and it still does a good job of establishing what you need to know right away. Halo 4 introduces a lot of things quickly without really explaining any of it and leaves you with a seemingly cookie-cutter set of characters who are much deeper if you read the lore surrounding them.
>
> Which enemy faction? Jul’s Covenant? A splinter group that logically would exist since the Covenant was a galaxy spanning empire that isn’t going to just vanish. I get that might mean you’d have to think about it form a minute, but that’s hardly a tall order and you’re clued in to their motives once you see the Didact. The Prometheans? What they are and where they come from is explained in-game and the terminals.
>
> I’ll grant you Blue Team, but I’ll raise you Johnson’s survival (H2), the presence of Alpha and Beta Company S-IIIs (Reach), and the whole actual reason the Covenant wants to genocide humanity (Contact Harvest).
>
> Pretty minor in comparison.

I’m not saying that the original series had air-tight lore, or that they did a perfect job, but they clearly established player goals right out of the gate and made it clear who your enemy was and what they were doing. The covenant are religious zealots, adorned in aesthetic armors, who are concerned with the ‘Halo’ and who’s ships are named things like “the truth and reconciliation” meanwhile the Prometheans, who were the faction to which I was referring, are metallic creatures who strangely have some decidedly human characteristics, who just kinda show up out of the big mysterious glowing egg thing and start killing you without a clear motivation. They look like the scenery, clean and advanced, it would be like if the rocks suddenly came to life and tried to kill you. Not only does it not explain why they look like humans very well, it also doesn’t establish a very convincing motivation. Religious zealotry is a good explanation for why someone would be a -Yoink- and try to kill you, but being a super-advanced civilization doesn’t give a very good reason for sucking you in to their planet and trying to kill you. This is only muddied by the cooexistance of Jul’s covenant. Halo 3 pulled off the multi-faction conflict well, with the Flood usually acting like a force of nature, appearing like a tropical storm and halting other conflicts, but always looming in the background as an existential threat with the same gravity as the covenant. The prometheans just kind of replace the covenant completely and then we don’t bother with the covenant for a while. This isn’t helped by everyone referring to Jul’s covenant as simply “the covenant” which we supposedly destroyed in the last game, and sporting totally reworked designs. (the lore explanation for which made absolutely no sense, much worse problem than an NPC surviving from one game to another)

The banished come from the covenant, and have obvious ties to them having the same races, weapons, and vehicles, but are specifically differentiated from them in both name and aesthetic, which quickly establishes that they are connected but not the same. Halo 1 used a lack of character knowledge to justify exposition, Halo 4 uses a lack of character knowledge to justify confusing the player with mixed terminology and a lack of proper conveying. Halo infinite seems to be moving in the right direction.

EDIT: also Noble team’s existence didn’t need to be explained because there’s no pre-existing characters in noble team who you would’ve expected to mention noble team during the course of 3 games. I can’t remember chief mentioning blue team once, and it’s that dissonance between game-exclusive master chief and halo 5 master chief that makes blue team’s inclusion so perplexing. I knew who blue team was, but my friends all did not and I sympathize with their confusion about them not being new characters.

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> > > > > > > > 2533274792737987;8:
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> > > > > > > > > You can say what you will about 343 and they way to they do lore, but Bungie actually went out of their way to ignore and confuse the lore with Reach. Also, I find the claim you were required to engage with all the EU material for 4 and 5 to be wildly overblown.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > I do think with Blue Team the way they set them up almost made it a requirement to be honest. It might just be my spitefulness about how they introduced them so poorly however.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > I did say the claims are overblown, not completely without merit. But this fanbase also has a bad habit of selectively being okay with not knowing certain things. I mean, Halo 2 never explained how Johnson survived CE and nobody bats an eye.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Didn’t one of the books state he was practically immune to the flood because of something weird with him being apart of the Spartan-I program? That came after the game of course.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > People gave Bungie a free pass with their story telling and lore IMO. Once 343i gets the gameplay and storying telling WITH the lore they will be viewed much differently. Let’s hope Halo Infinite will be that game.
> > > > >
> > > > > part of that is because halo didn’t have an emphasis on storytelling in the first place, being mostly just a series of set pieces and ‘wow’ moments, but the slower, more character-focused stories of 4 and 5 gives us time to ask questions, a lot of which remains unanswered without reading. (also I’m pretty sure I’m at post limit, woops)
> > > >
> > > > Perhaps some things, but most of what comes up in both games is there if you simply pay attention. Either way, you showed exactly what I’m talking about with being selective.
> > >
> > > Halo 4 introduced an entire new enemy faction, and Halo 5 introduced 3 of master chief’s old friends, neither of which are properly expanded upon in previous games, or the games they appear in. Halo 1 has to get a pass since it’s the first game in the series, and it still does a good job of establishing what you need to know right away. Halo 4 introduces a lot of things quickly without really explaining any of it and leaves you with a seemingly cookie-cutter set of characters who are much deeper if you read the lore surrounding them.
> >
> > Which enemy faction? Jul’s Covenant? A splinter group that logically would exist since the Covenant was a galaxy spanning empire that isn’t going to just vanish. I get that might mean you’d have to think about it form a minute, but that’s hardly a tall order and you’re clued in to their motives once you see the Didact. The Prometheans? What they are and where they come from is explained in-game and the terminals.
> >
> > I’ll grant you Blue Team, but I’ll raise you Johnson’s survival (H2), the presence of Alpha and Beta Company S-IIIs (Reach), and the whole actual reason the Covenant wants to genocide humanity (Contact Harvest).
> >
> > Pretty minor in comparison.
>
> I’m not saying that the original series had air-tight lore, or that they did a perfect job, but they clearly established player goals right out of the gate and made it clear who your enemy was and what they were doing. The covenant are religious zealots, adorned in aesthetic armors, who are concerned with the ‘Halo’ and who’s ships are named things like “the truth and reconciliation” meanwhile the Prometheans, who were the faction to which I was referring, are metallic creatures who strangely have some decidedly human characteristics, who just kinda show up out of the big mysterious glowing egg thing and start killing you without a clear motivation. They look like the scenery, clean and advanced, it would be like if the rocks suddenly came to life and tried to kill you. Not only does it not explain why they look like humans very well, it also doesn’t establish a very convincing motivation. Religious zealotry is a good explanation for why someone would be a -Yoink- and try to kill you, but being a super-advanced civilization doesn’t give a very good reason for sucking you in to their planet and trying to kill you. This is only muddied by the cooexistance of Jul’s covenant. Halo 3 pulled off the multi-faction conflict well, with the Flood usually acting like a force of nature, appearing like a tropical storm and halting other conflicts, but always looming in the background as an existential threat with the same gravity as the covenant. The prometheans just kind of replace the covenant completely and then we don’t bother with the covenant for a while. This isn’t helped by everyone referring to Jul’s covenant as simply “the covenant” which we supposedly destroyed in the last game, and sporting totally reworked designs. (the lore explanation for which made absolutely no sense, much worse problem than an NPC surviving from one game to another)
>
> The banished come from the covenant, and have obvious ties to them having the same races, weapons, and vehicles, but are specifically differentiated from them in both name and aesthetic, which quickly establishes that they are connected but not the same. Halo 1 used a lack of character knowledge to justify exposition, Halo 4 uses a lack of character knowledge to justify confusing the player with mixed terminology and a lack of proper conveying. Halo infinite seems to be moving in the right direction.

I’m willing to have a conversation, but you need to knock off intentionally making things sound more obtuse than they really are.

“the Prometheans, who were the faction to which I was referring, are metallic creatures who strangely have some decidedly human characteristics, who just kinda show up out of the big mysterious glowing egg thing and start killing you without a clear motivation.”

Big, mysterious glowing egg thing? Seriously? You expect me to beloeve this is a good faith discussion with that kind of talk?

Also, religious zealtry isn’t the actual reason humanity was painted with a target by the Covenant, at least as far as the motives of the Hierarches was concerned. They believed that Mendicant Bias was telling them humans were actually Forerunners and therefore threatened the whole reason the Covenant was held together. They knew their religon was a sham, but to preserve the “unity” of the Covenant they ipted to genocide the human species. Why is it OK to have that be left in a book outside the games but the Didact’s motives, which are still in-game (that’s what the whole conversation with the Librarian was about) is somehow bad because the books touch on that? Again, you are intentionally being selective.

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> > > > > > 2533274792737987;8:
> > > > > > > 2533274812652989;7:
> > > > > > > You can say what you will about 343 and they way to they do lore, but Bungie actually went out of their way to ignore and confuse the lore with Reach. Also, I find the claim you were required to engage with all the EU material for 4 and 5 to be wildly overblown.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I do think with Blue Team the way they set them up almost made it a requirement to be honest. It might just be my spitefulness about how they introduced them so poorly however.
> > > > >
> > > > > I did say the claims are overblown, not completely without merit. But this fanbase also has a bad habit of selectively being okay with not knowing certain things. I mean, Halo 2 never explained how Johnson survived CE and nobody bats an eye.
> > > >
> > > > Didn’t one of the books state he was practically immune to the flood because of something weird with him being apart of the Spartan-I program? That came after the game of course.
> > > >
> > > > People gave Bungie a free pass with their story telling and lore IMO. Once 343i gets the gameplay and storying telling WITH the lore they will be viewed much differently. Let’s hope Halo Infinite will be that game.
> > >
> > > part of that is because halo didn’t have an emphasis on storytelling in the first place, being mostly just a series of set pieces and ‘wow’ moments, but the slower, more character-focused stories of 4 and 5 gives us time to ask questions, a lot of which remains unanswered without reading. (also I’m pretty sure I’m at post limit, woops)
> >
> > At lot of those were answered in the books though. Halo has a great story to tell through lore, but they need to meet int he middle with casual fans. There is nothing wrong with that as long as they provide heavy lore in the game as an optional thing.
>
> That’s what I’m trying to get across. The games should be mostly self-contained stories which require little-to-no prior knowledge of the lore. The original halo had great environmental storytelling and made sure that you were always aware of exactly who you were fighting, what your immediate and long-term goal was, and why you were doing what you were doing. Part of what played into that was how the characters were just as uninformed as you were, with the characters constantly remarking on new information as they were given to both you AND the character. Reach succeeded in being a self contained story in the same vein, but failed by doing so at the expense of expanded universe content. Halos 4 and 5 did bad in the opposite direction, creating something new out of EU foundations, leaving lots of holes that needed answers. Some of these problems aren’t even immediately apparent to the player either. If you had never read the expanded lore of 4, like many players you might have assumed the didact is just a -Yoink- by nature, a generic ‘evil for evil’s sake’ villain. Same with Blue team, who seems really bland with their in-game depiction because it’s lacking the context of their story so far. Also think about it from the perspective of someone who’s only played the games. You’ve been with master chief ostensibly since the beginning of his story, all the way through the war to save humanity and now suddenly he has 3 new buddies you’ve never heard of who he reunites with after killing a villain you’ve never heard of who’s part of an enemy faction you’ve never heard of comprised of creatures you’ve never heard of, who uses hitherto unseen technology to do stuff you don’t understand (the composer is really misleading. Whether they did this on purpose or not I don’t know) that all kinda of reminds you of the stuff you’ve been playing with since 2001 but not really. Combined with the massive artstyle shift and it left a lot of people totally dead in the water in terms of engagement.
>
> I am hopeful for infinite, given that the banished are much more accessible for gamers (not only do they have a direct logical origin from a known entity in the games, but they’re from another game in the same franchise. It’s much easier to watch a playthrough than read a book) and the new setting is lore-rich, but without having any necessary hang-ups that may utterly confuse the player. (Hopefully they don’t bring up how it use to be a big ring but then became a small ring, that’s going to be a headscratcher for people who aren’t familiar.) And the possible inclusion of Mendicant Bias will be a lot simpler to grasp, given that we’re already familiar with constructs, rampancy (which the logic plague is similar to in a lot of ways), and the flood.

No game is going to meet that expectation though. Halo already had a lot of unanswered lore when 343i took over. You are asking something that is impossible unless they literally wiped the entire slate clean for all Halo lore. Halo 4 did best at explaining lore than any Halo game in the series so again I strongly disagree with you on that game. It did enough to inform the player what they should know and moved on.

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> > > > > > > > > > You can say what you will about 343 and they way to they do lore, but Bungie actually went out of their way to ignore and confuse the lore with Reach. Also, I find the claim you were required to engage with all the EU material for 4 and 5 to be wildly overblown.
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > I do think with Blue Team the way they set them up almost made it a requirement to be honest. It might just be my spitefulness about how they introduced them so poorly however.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > I did say the claims are overblown, not completely without merit. But this fanbase also has a bad habit of selectively being okay with not knowing certain things. I mean, Halo 2 never explained how Johnson survived CE and nobody bats an eye.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Didn’t one of the books state he was practically immune to the flood because of something weird with him being apart of the Spartan-I program? That came after the game of course.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > People gave Bungie a free pass with their story telling and lore IMO. Once 343i gets the gameplay and storying telling WITH the lore they will be viewed much differently. Let’s hope Halo Infinite will be that game.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > part of that is because halo didn’t have an emphasis on storytelling in the first place, being mostly just a series of set pieces and ‘wow’ moments, but the slower, more character-focused stories of 4 and 5 gives us time to ask questions, a lot of which remains unanswered without reading. (also I’m pretty sure I’m at post limit, woops)
> > > > >
> > > > > Perhaps some things, but most of what comes up in both games is there if you simply pay attention. Either way, you showed exactly what I’m talking about with being selective.
> > > >
> > > > Halo 4 introduced an entire new enemy faction, and Halo 5 introduced 3 of master chief’s old friends, neither of which are properly expanded upon in previous games, or the games they appear in. Halo 1 has to get a pass since it’s the first game in the series, and it still does a good job of establishing what you need to know right away. Halo 4 introduces a lot of things quickly without really explaining any of it and leaves you with a seemingly cookie-cutter set of characters who are much deeper if you read the lore surrounding them.
> > >
> > > …
> >
> > …
>
> I’m willing to have a conversation, but you need to knock off intentionally making things sound more obtuse than they really are.
>
> “the Prometheans, who were the faction to which I was referring, are metallic creatures who strangely have some decidedly human characteristics, who just kinda show up out of the big mysterious glowing egg thing and start killing you without a clear motivation.”
>
> Big, mysterious glowing egg thing? Seriously? You expect me to beloeve this is a good faith discussion with that kind of talk?
>
> Also, religious zealtry isn’t the actual reason humanity was painted with a target by the Covenant, at least as far as the motives of the Hierarches was concerned. They believed that Mendicant Bias was telling them humans were actually Forerunners and therefore threatened the whole reason the Covenant was held together. They knew their religon was a sham, but to preserve the “unity” of the Covenant they ipted to genocide the human species. Why is it OK to have that be left in a book outside the games but the Didact’s motives, which are still in-game (that’s what the whole conversation with the Librarian was about) is somehow bad because the books touch on that? Again, you are intentionally being selective.

The true motivations of the covenant’s leaders aren’t necessary to the story of the halo games, because you’re fighting thinking creatures with their own motivations. Sure maybe the hierarchs have their own reasons, but you never meet the hierarchs and the elites and brutes and stuff are totally sold on the great journey and really do want to kill you for zealotry reasons. Meanwhile the Prometheans are mindless machines who hiss at you, controlled by a guy with confusing motivations who is really not expanded upon much in-game. I love the didact’s character but halo 4 did him dirty. and yes, seriously, as far as the player knows for most of halo 4, it really is a big mysterious glowing egg thing. Halo 4 was extremely bad at conveying the lore of the Prometheans in a digestible way. Luckily I love halo lore and sought out the book it was pulling from, but without that I would’ve been totally perplexed by the Prometheans as a faction.

The original Halo games applied depth to things that weren’t necessary to the surface-level story of the game. You didn’t need to know the covenant’s caste system, or the hierarch’s life story, or how elites are born to not be confused by Halo 1. Nor do you have to know about Noble team’s existence to not be confused by Halo:Reach.

Maybe you’re some kind of genius who picked up on every detail in the explanations and latched on to every fact, but for most people the stories of halos 4 and 5 were confusing lore-wise and unsatisfying. AS for the librarian cutscene, it doesn’t help that the ‘mantle of responsibility’ isn’t explained, nor why the didact hates humans so much even after finding out that we were running from the flood, and after all of humanity was already destroyed BY HIS OWN RACE, nor why he even engages in normal combat with the master chief in the first place. You’d think the super-advanced civilization of old who built the galaxy-destroying superweapons of the franchise’s namesake would be better at killing humans who had their entire species reset. If anything, the explanation is only made more confusing by gameplay, since we go right back to killing Prometheans even after the big reveal that the enemies are actually humans (which should have been emphasized much more, seeing as this is essentially the forerunner version of flood infection) and this super-powerful guy who supposedly hates humanity and has done so for thousands of years is unprepared for one dude with a gun and a car. The covenant was always portrayed as incredibly powerful, able to wipe out cities with almost no effort, but they were also portrayed as internally disorganized. Constant power struggles confused their troops and weakened their forces, as seen by the betrayal of the elites in H2, whereas the Prometheans are robotic entities with super-advanced weapons, even more powerful than what the covenant wielded. They’re basically laser-gun wielding terminators and Master chief mows them down like they’re just another organic being. This also hurt gameplay because promethean weapons are tracking and hitscan, which makes them a -Yoink- to fight. Prometheans should have never been introduced in the form that they were, they should have been built up to better, designed for gameplay first, and explained in more relatable terms. Would’ve helped if the faction had any personality at all. They’re not mythical and slightly comical like the covenant units are, and their not grotesque like the flood units are, they’re just glowy robots with hitscan guns.