Does it bother anyone else that we haven’t seen any new enemy types from the trailers and blogs so far?
The Banished have an awesome visual design from their color scheme to the menacing and steely aesthetic of their architecture, weapons, and vehicles, but visuals can only do so much. None of that affects gameplay, the most important aspect of the campaign.
I feel like 343 has struggled hard to add any new species to the Covenant/Banished to shake up the dynamic, come to think of it, I don’t think they’ve added any new enemies other than Prometheans, and they’re nowhere to be found in Infinite- so what is there to look forward to as far as new enemies to fight?
Yes, I know we’re seeing good variety among the existing species, ie Grunt Mules, Brutes using human weapons, and there’s also probably a lot of flexibility with new sentinel types since the setting is Zeta Halo. I also realize you don’t need there to be new species just for the sake of new species or for it to be a fun campaign, but this is the Banished’s big debut here- are we really not getting a new species type to shake up the dynamic?
Bungie never stopped building on the Covenant force. They made significant additions in each game besides Reach. I know it’s a lot harder now since the lore is so established, but still: what’s the problem with at least bringing back buggers or engineers?
There don’t really need to be new species for the Banished to distinguish themselves. While the Covenant was an organized military operation, the Banished are a much more blood thirsty mercenary organization. If their AI reflects this, then they will still feel separate from the Covenant without shoehorning a new species into an ongoing conflict.
It doesn’t bother me that there’s no new species in the Banished. I like what 343 is doing with the enemy pool so far, but I have no faith in them to add a completely new piece. If they want to add different enemy types, they should do so within the Promethean ranks. Changing the Covenant/Banished meta rather than refining it would be a mistake.
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> Bungie never stopped building on the Covenant force. They made significant additions in each game besides Reach.
They added Brutes and Drones in Halo 2, but there weren’t any new Covenant types in any of the other games other than Engineers in ODST and Skirmishers in Reach (which are a bit of a stretch for “new”).
I think we will see more diversity amongst the same species in Infinite, instead of them handwaving a new Covenant Species into existence (It worked horribly for the Yonhet).
If there is to be new species added 343i really needs to break away from making them look Human. The Forerunners, and Yonhet look like a dude wearing a mask and a pair of gloves.
I know designing a totally new alien species that doesn’t look like dude in a costume in an early 90’s horror movie is hard, but use some different influences please. Instead of using just a Human as a template get creative and use animals, or insects for ideas, and combine them. “But they won’t be able to emote like Humans”, they aren’t Humans… They do not need to emote on a Human level, that’s what makes them aliens.
Take the movie “Arrival” for instance. The alien design is an octopus mixed with a spider. The outcome is fairly successful.
TL;DR: Break the mold, stop calling a dude in a mask an alien. Use different influences for new alien designs instead of slapping some gloves and a mask on some guy and calling it a day.
I was thinking maybe we could see some of the Covenant fringe, like the covenant species in halo Lore that never made it into the games, or was cut from the game. Big difference obviously being its the Banished, not the covenant
There might be new species within the Banished. For example, some new beast species that work for the Banished and other Covenant remnants. Some cut species like the species that’s referred to as the “Special Purpose Sniper” might also become something in the lore that’s part of the Banished as well.
there will be 0 new species. At most, there will be “new” archetypes which in the context of 343, there are already a ton of new ones. Brutes as a whole are new to 343 games. If we look outside of 343, tech berserkers are a new archetype though all brutes berserk in 2 and 3 (prob will in infinite with a few that do by default). the pack mule is brand new as well. Sure it’s a grunt but it functionally does different stuff in the context of the AI sandbox.
We then have to look at how the AI functions. While the species may be the same, if the AI functions in different ways (which we have seen elements of) then new species are not needed.
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> If there is to be new species added 343i really needs to break away from making them look Human. The Forerunners, and Yonhet look like a dude wearing a mask and a pair of gloves.
I agree- Brutes, Elites, even Prophets and Jackals fill the quota for humanoid species. That’s why I’m arguing how there’s a glaring hole in the forces that buggers or engineers could fill.
And come to think about it, what’s stopping them from taking the hunter worms out of their usual form with the armor and everything, and having a thousand of the words swarm you like in Halo: Nightfall?
And speaking of Nightfall, are the Yonhet those weird alien civilians from that movie? That species came out of absolutely nowhere, I didn’t like them at all.
> 2533274860752574;1:
> Does it bother anyone else that we haven’t seen any new enemy types from the trailers and blogs so far?
>
> The Banished have an awesome visual design from their color scheme to the menacing and steely aesthetic of their architecture, weapons, and vehicles, but visuals can only do so much. None of that affects gameplay, the most important aspect of the campaign.
>
> I feel like 343 has struggled hard to add any new species to the Covenant/Banished to shake up the dynamic, come to think of it, I don’t think they’ve added any new enemies other than Prometheans, and they’re nowhere to be found in Infinite- so what is there to look forward to as far as new enemies to fight?
>
> Yes, I know we’re seeing good variety among the existing species, ie Grunt Mules, Brutes using human weapons, and there’s also probably a lot of flexibility with new sentinel types since the setting is Zeta Halo. I also realize you don’t need there to be new species just for the sake of new species or for it to be a fun campaign, but this is the Banished’s big debut here- are we really not getting a new species type to shake up the dynamic?
>
> Bungie never stopped building on the Covenant force. They made significant additions in each game besides Reach. I know it’s a lot harder now since the lore is so established, but still: what’s the problem with at least bringing back buggers or engineers?
I just want them to nail the established species, all of them. And fine tune the prometheans, the concept in 4 was great and 5 had cool hunters. Flood forms in halo wars 2 were cool. The ones that rolled could make for a great new encounter design.
Also there is a certain species introduced in point of light that could be really cool. If you read the book you know what I am referring to.
> 2533274860752574;10:
> > 2533274975565198;6:
> > If there is to be new species added 343i really needs to break away from making them look Human. The Forerunners, and Yonhet look like a dude wearing a mask and a pair of gloves.
>
> I agree- Brutes, Elites, even Prophets and Jackals fill the quota for humanoid species. That’s why I’m arguing how there’s a glaring hole in the forces that buggers or engineers could fill.
>
> And come to think about it, what’s stopping them from taking the hunter worms out of their usual form with the armor and everything, and having a thousand of the words swarm you like in Halo: Nightfall?
>
> And speaking of Nightfall, are the Yonhet those weird alien civilians from that movie? That species came out of absolutely nowhere, I didn’t like them at all.
Yeah, it was they one they interrogated early into the movie. Forerunners already look way to close to Humans, and the Yonhet aren’t far behind them.
> 2535469072044761;8:
> There might be new species within the Banished. For example, some new beast species that work for the Banished and other Covenant remnants. Some cut species like the species that’s referred to as the “Special Purpose Sniper” might also become something in the lore that’s part of the Banished as well.
The problem is the covenant covers most battlefield roles pretty well.
The “special purpose sniper” likely got axed in favor of the Sniper Jackal.
Similarly, why introduce a new big beast race, when we already have both Brutes and Hunters (of which have like 2-3 diff big beast forms).
The covenant has a lot of species already, it’d be better to use new unit types to expand and enrich their story, rather then inventing more species out of the blue which then have to share development time and lore focus with the rest.
> 2533274964189700;14:
> > 2535469072044761;8:
> > There might be new species within the Banished. For example, some new beast species that work for the Banished and other Covenant remnants. Some cut species like the species that’s referred to as the “Special Purpose Sniper” might also become something in the lore that’s part of the Banished as well.
>
> The problem is the covenant covers most battlefield roles pretty well.
>
> The “special purpose sniper” likely got axed in favor of the Sniper Jackal.
>
> Similarly, why introduce a new big beast race, when we already have both Brutes and Hunters (of which have like 2-3 diff big beast forms).
>
> The covenant has a lot of species already, it’d be better to use new unit types to expand and enrich their story, rather then inventing more species out of the blue which then have to share development time and lore focus with the rest.
I’m not necessarily looking for any new “beast” species, just one or two species that fill a certain niche, like how buggers fly around and are tough to pin down, or how engineers are docile but contribute through other supportive means. The enemies we’ve seen so far just stand there and shoot at you from the ground (disregard the jetpacking brutes). I want a little more variety than that.
Im not really that into Destiny but surprise-surprise, at least Bungie designed the enemy factions so that each species or robot or whatever play unique roles, and again, not all of them are there to just waddle up and try to shoot you.
There are major problems with adding new species to fight, because as you said, the lore is a bit too established to bring in a lot of big new stuff
But maybe 343 could dig up some alien race that was indexed by the forerunners and was only found recently
Then they could flesh out the lore around them afterwards, I agree, it would be nice to have some fun new enemies to fight
Although the Prometheans were pretty bad in my point of view, so 343 should just stick to the tried and true halo formula
> 2533274964189700;14:
> > 2535469072044761;8:
> > There might be new species within the Banished. For example, some new beast species that work for the Banished and other Covenant remnants. Some cut species like the species that’s referred to as the “Special Purpose Sniper” might also become something in the lore that’s part of the Banished as well.
>
> The problem is the covenant covers most battlefield roles pretty well.
>
> The “special purpose sniper” likely got axed in favor of the Sniper Jackal.
>
> Similarly, why introduce a new big beast race, when we already have both Brutes and Hunters (of which have like 2-3 diff big beast forms).
>
> The covenant has a lot of species already, it’d be better to use new unit types to expand and enrich their story, rather then inventing more species out of the blue which then have to share development time and lore focus with the rest.
I’m not talking about having these new beast races being part of the Covenant Empire as they were never part of the Covenant Empire but did joined some Covenant remnants and as well as being also part of some Forerunner organizations. Yeah I know we have Brutes and Hunters but I just thought it would be a good idea to put some more diversity to the intelligent set of (non-Flood) alien species.
I wouldn’t exactly be a against bringing in a new species from the Covenant fringe but the safer bet for unit variety would in all honesty be to just use things from Halo Wars 2 and just bring them over to Infinite. The Banished have a wealth of potential unit variety that can be brought over from that game, they just need to be able to repurpose some units to fit a fps role rather than rts.
I find it odd that drones are not shown to be apart of the banished. Brutes weren’t allowed to work with engineers in the covenant so drones filled that role in brute ranks.