Disappointed.
I was super hyped when all the Halo 5 stuff was happening but I wondered what went wrong after that game with the robot dog started coming up. Did my DVR skip in the recording process? Did Spike cut out because of high broadcast or something? Did an object knock the DirecTV satellite off track temporarily? Why was this it? Sure, the trailer, campaign demo, and Warzone announcements were awesome, but I’m sad that that’s all we got.
Let’s start with the trailer. I’m psyched about the trailer. I thought what we saw in H2A was about all we’d see of the Arbiter regarding the future of Halo, but I’m glad to see that 343 is giving him some more camera time in Halo 5. It was cool seeing some of Osiris without helmets, and I loved hearing Buck again and it reminded me a lot of Halo 3: ODST. My favorite part was Buck saying something along the lines of, “Everyone’s gonna hate us for this. You know that, right?”. Glad to know these characters are subtly acknowledging what the fans are thinking about their actions toward Master Chief.
The campaign demo was exactly as I expected, and did not exceed that. Well, to be honest I expected to see the Blue Team mission that Greenskull has told us about, so it was cool to see Fireteam Osiris in action. Again, loving Buck and his comedic quips. Can’t wait to play as him. Also funny hearing the Grunt run by screaming, “I regret everything!!!”. I also enjoyed seeing the Promethean Soldiers and learning why Chief is considered a traitor, for working with the Forerunners and the Guardians. I would say it’s cool seeing a new weapon, the Plasma Caster, but it’s just a Covenant copy of the Grenade Launcher. Meh. The whole time I was watching the demo, I was thinking of how much the area looks like Destiny. The mood of the area felt just like indoor areas of Old Russia or the Moon. The hologram Locke projected to find Chief’s AR reminded me of pulling out my Ghost. And don’t tell me this Promethean flying vehicle Buck took out didn’t look like some weird Vex or Cabal thing. I’m not accusing 343 of copying Destiny this time around, because they’re not, I’m just pointing out the resemblances.
Warzone looks overwhelming and awesome, but why didn’t they show it during the conference? Not everyone is going to go on YouTube and find E3 goers’ off-screen recordings of the game. I wish they would’ve done it like they did last year when they had some of pro team come in to play H2A with Dan on Zenith during the show. I’m also worried that this may be another replacement of Firefight. Since Spartan Ops certainly didn’t work, and since Warzone has team scoring based on PvP and PvE kills, I can’t help but think this is yet another replacement. Let’s hope not, though.
And why didn’t they mention MCC? I was almost certain they would’ve said something about it, maybe announcing firefight or a tiny extra sprinkle on the compensation cake for us, but it looks like a certain YouTuber that makes controversial anti-preorder videos is right. I didn’t want to believe that 343 moved on from MCC quite yet but it unfortunately looks like that’s the case. My main reason for thinking they would announce something for it is because awhile ago in a community update, Bravo said he was testing [redacted], and that they would have more info on this redacted thing later this year. I hoped it was more MCC compensation but it was probably just Warzone. Oh well.
So that’s about it for my thoughts on this. Unfortunately 343 met my expectations, and did not exceed them like I’d hoped. What did you guys think of the reveals?