More Terminals/Datapads!

Games Halo 5: Guardians
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First of all, I was very pleased with the Terminals in Halo 4 and the information they conveyed to the regular fan. But I can’t help but think that the overall Halo experience was soured a bit by the lack of lore that is given to the player in the campaign modes.

The Halo Universe is HUGE. So much lore has yet to make it to the majority audience, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one very disappointed when Cortana instantly concluded that the Forerunner foe we were fighting against was the Diadact. But this is only one example of the several experiences that could be enriched with a bit of background on the matter.

And another thing that bugs me is the fact that some events take place out of the games… (Inb4 “Where’s DeMarco at?”) Sadly, the majority of players do not read the books and comics, and have no idea of some of the vital things that are happening or that already have transpired.

Assuming future Halo games have the room (Blu-ray Disks), I would love to see the inclusion of more Terminals, and even the return of Datapads. Heck, even let the player have the option to walk around an area and talk to NPCs, similar to when the player was in the Infinity’s hangar and able to sort of free roam. The benefit? People will actually feel a connection with the Halo Universe, and perhaps even more players would buy the games and stick around to play after the release. (I’m looking at you, Halo 4.)

Thanks for listening to my suggestion, folks.

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This post has been edited by a moderator. Please do not bump.

*Original post. Click at your own discretion.

Bump. People need to see this!

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I would love to have more Terminals

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It depends how much 343i consider the books to be the cannon…Bungie overwrote Reach with an inferior story and retconned a few things in it which were carried through to 4.

I agree that more insight into the Halo universe is a good thing, the idea of more datapads and terminals would be nice to see. Especially since the majority of people still don’t understand how brutal the Spartan-II’s training was - it’s be nice if we could get some of the stuff mentioned in the Fall of Reach book in datapads as classified files etc.

After all if 343i brings the II’s back it’s hard for most people to see just how important the would be to John, since most people still think they’re all dead. I don’t know about the going around and talking to people idea…it feels a bit out of character for MC. I don’t think he ever really strikes up conversation with anyone that wasn’t Cortana or a Spartan. Bare in mind the IV’s are essentially normal people under the skin, which the Spartan-II’s have had a pretty poor relationship much of the time.

But I still like the idea of more Halo lore - it’s the thing that makes Halo more than an fps to me.

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I would much rather the terminals be completely unnecessary and only provide supplementary background information. For example, the CEA terminals provided some cool info on 343GS and the origin of the Halos (and a tie-in with the heretics in Halo 2; that was pretty cool), but they were completely unnecessary to understand what happened in the game’s campaign. On the other hand, I had no idea wtf happened in Halo 4 until I watched the terminals, and that shouldn’t happen.

Halo 5’s story needs to be inclusive enough that just playing through all of the levels will give you enough understanding to know what’s going on. If terminals or other additional stories exist, they should only be supplementary.

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> It depends how much 343i consider the books to be the cannon…Bungie overwrote Reach with an inferior story and retconned a few things in it which were carried through to 4.

343i does not have a canon hierarchy. Canon is canon. Game canon > book canon was simply Bungie’s way of justifying inconsistencies without having to provide an explanation for it.

This is obvious due to how much canon from the books was integrated into the Halo 4 campaign. Whether the transition was fluent and successful, is another matter. Example A) Cortana knowing who the Didact was automatically, despite not displaying any knowledge of the character before hand. I can’t say this is anything new though, because she seemed to do this with Gravemind, in halo 2, as well.

> Halo 5’s story needs to be inclusive enough that just playing through all of the levels will give you enough understanding to know what’s going on. <mark>If terminals or other additional stories exist, they should only be supplementary.</mark>

I quite like the way it was handled in CEA. I especially liked how it was narrated by GS.

On-topic: I would love this idea, OP. Regarding datapads, and other ways that the average fan can immerse themselves into the universe, i think a good way to do this is through the Infinity simulation, where upon entering the database, there are 2 sections; one being ‘Character Biographies’, whereby the player can read up on all of the important characters in the Reclaimer Saga, and how they factor into the story (akin to how Batman Arkham games did it.), which will provide important information, such as Spartan DeMarco, and the events that led up to his death, and/or what legacy he left behind.

Another example of a character biography can be ‘the Flood’, which would detail who the precursors are, who the Timeless One is, and where they originated, initially. Because i tell you now, no game-only fan is going to have a clue about anything related to the precursors, if they are not told by the game in some fashion. This can be the perfect solution.

The next section could contain ‘Pivotal events in the Halo Universe’, where certain key events are explained, that did not make it into the games. E.g. what lead up to the creation of the S-ll’s, the Insurrection, the beginning of the Sanghelli Civil War, ONI’s hand in said civil war, the death of Didact’s 3 children, and so much more that are too lengthy to list. This, i believe, would be the ultimate fan service for non-book readers. It would also do well to end the constant complaing about people getting confused, and not being able to understand the story.

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On the above poster’s idea of ‘pivitol events in the Halo universe’ wouldn’t it be nice to include something like the section from halo legends which details the human forerunner war? There’s a lot of content on all three sides (human, forerunner and covenant) which is omitted, the player could have something for each side. Datapads for humans, terminals for forerunner and something else for covenant - my only worry would be that this may cluster up the map somewhat…

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343 needs to tread lightly with the growing amount of vehicles available for moving a plot forward.

Comic books, novels, Ops cutscenes, live-action , terminals… It is impossible for all but the most devoted of fans to keep up to date (And let’s be honest, that is a small percentage of the population). Some of us just follow this as a video game and can’t be uber-fans.

My take: key plot points should be made available in-game. Anything outside the campaign would be ancillary. A player should be able to flow from H5 to H6 without any knowledge of books/comics/videos in between.

Case in point: I read the Bear novels prior to H4 and I still had questions about the characters, setting, Chief’s armor, and timelines.

I’m all for terminals, but they should be mysterious more than anything else, like H3 or Reach.

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@pulvis ira

I agree with your point of the devoted lore fans being a small percent. Although, if 343i were to make key points in the story all in-game, we’d be talking a massive series of games to cover it. The way I see it, there is a healthy medium in between that still has yet to be figured out. 343i does in fact need to tread lightly, but they need to figure out a method of linking all of the mediums of Halo lore together. For example, if Fred, Linda, and Kelly make appearances in Halo 5, the common Halo player is not going to have a single clue who they are and how their return impacts MC.