Because the Banished have been oversold, overhyped and are the First Order of the series. A less interesting and less well executed version of the original. Go read the canon fodder article previewing Rubicon Protocal. Apparently they had a colossal fleet at Zeta Halo which nobody realised.
Why should a bunch of floating squids impress me? Taking five years to reveal a faction is not good writing or pacing.
Joe would be well in his rights to take one look at all that mess and oh I don’t know, discreetly “soft reboot” it. Not a retcon if Atriox gets killed offscreen by True Covenant and it turns out Harbinger opened the wrong box and let the Flood out. Or would that suddenly meet your criteria for retcons?
When he laments that he wasn’t able to save her and talk her down. When he realises Cortana sacrificed herself at the end. When the sad music plays as she’s saying “I hope it worked out”. It doesn’t need to be said. The Chief does forgive Cortana.
Hmm, for somebody who claims to be a fan of Halo Infinite you’re really selling it with how Cortana just done goofed and offed herself.
Yeah you’re wrong about Atriox and the Banished. He wants to conquer the Galaxy, has launched an unprovoked invasion of the UNSC and has committed massacres on innocent humans. He needs to be killed, his armies destroyed and a crippling peace imposed upon his species.
You kill thousands of Brutes during the game. I am overestimating them. It’s embarrassing how Escharum thinks he’ll be remembered as more than another dead Xeno. The only reason the Banished are a problem is because 343 gives them the numbers.
Take that away and these beasts would be a footnote in the story.
Cortana is a malfunctioning nanny bot who wanted everybody to eat cake and ice cream; she’s not the Darkness from Destiny. Have you played Stellaris? She’s a Rogue Servitor. Atriox is a fanatic militarist and authoritarian empire; who’s quietly taken the Become the Crisis Perk. I know which is the bigger problem here. Our first intro to the Bansihed is them massacring innocent civilians. Because that’s what they are.
It is a retcon and you know it. Would it be a retcon if Atriox was killed offscreen and it turned out the Banished had disintegrated into nothing? I think if they did that you’d be complaining. I think if the Endless plot was dropped you’d have said that was a total let down and that they had wasted everybodies time.
Act 3 will be with us in 2030 at this rate. Long time to leave the Flood out the story. Maybe with big gaps between games it isn’t wise to have uneventful first chapters and self contained stories make much more sense. You might disagree with me on everything else but 343 handling of Infinite has been disastrous.
I will only say I liked Infinite’s campaign even if I still have complaints. The story itself satisfied me. That’s the point of this topic- continuing the story of Osiris and fitting them into Infinite.
If you disliked Infinite’s campaign that’s fine, you’re entitled to your opinion and even though I think Infinite is easily 343’s best story wise it’s still not Bungie level. But if you disliked Infinite’s campaign that passionately this topic might be nothing more than a source of endless frustration for you because the entire topic is built around expanding on the story it and 5 presented.
And while 5 is mostly trash (which is to say mostly fun MP p2w BS aside and a primarily trash campaign), recycling is a thing and I see no reason we can’t think of interesting stuff for Osiris members in Infinite.
This topic is intended for creating something new and useful from the ashes, not complaining and speculating about the crack house it used to be.
I have my bitter head on today and taking the story as presented without any theory crafting and presuming 343 is writing themselves out of Halo 5. I just don’t think Weapon is a good idea if she is what she says she is. You’ve traded out a beloved franchise character for a meme.
Certainly not the way the other poster oversells the Weapon as best thing ever. At best she’s a passable companion who makes bad jokes, it is voiced by Jen Taylor, but ultimately you’ve tainted the character by association with a retcon. It’s “fans” like the other poster who basically lobbied for Cortana to be killed off and act all smug about it.
Osiris are easy enough to put back in the story. 343 have 3-4 years to figure it out after all. Although I feel like the plot is very focused on this core cast and they don’t want other characters detracting from that. But then again, 2025 maybe they make it single player with a bigger cast and it’s a totally different game.
But then Joe will probably want a fresh canvas and have his own ideas. Which likely means new characters. So it could be Osiris are consigned to novels; as seems to be the case with Vale and Bucke.
No.
They are not.
That is the Storm Covenant of Halo 4 and Halo 5 Gorbians you are thinking about.
The First Order were remnants of the Empire that sought to eliminate the Republic that replaced it and restore what they had before.
The Storm Covenant desired to continue their religious faith and still wanted to eliminate Humanity (albeit Jul 'Mdama knew that the faith was a lie and was just manipulating Outer Covenant Colonies to do his bidding as they did not receive word that the Covenant was a lie.)
Atriox on the other hand is not fueled by religious fervor, nor are The Banished that he has assembled.
Atriox is more comparable to Big Boss from the Metal Gear Franchise, wherein he sought to create a place where those that were cast aside would be respected.
Big Boss sought to make Outer Heaven as a twisted version of The Boss’ Will.
Atriox however just rejected the Covenant and its needless sacrifices, rebelled against them, and was careful enough to not be caught and dealt with. He sought to create a faction of outcasts that he could lead against The Covenant and fulfill his own goals. With the Covenant gone, he could now fullfil said goals UNTIL Cortana threw a Guardian into his plans.
Lets see.
They knew that Atriox was back in the galaxy as of the events of Shadows of Reach.
That was the goal of The Banished presence on Reach - to find a method of returning Atriox back from The Ark.
And then while the UNSC is focusing on the larger threat at hand, IE Cortana and her Created, they locate Zeta Halo and make their way to it.
Surprisingly, The Banished are there and the UNSC Infinity is overwhelmed as they were not expecting such a vast fleet to meet them; rather instead they expected at least a Guardian.
Well, the game went through 4 build prototypes before we got the final version out of build no.4.
The Endless were likely not developed until Build 3 or 4.
Part 1 of Halo Infinite’s story is Act I.
The First Act of a story is always the one that introduces the current threat, provides intrigue and subjects to spark the reader/player’s curiosity, all to have it be answered in the next Act or Act III.
Sadly because of how Halo Infinite’s development has gone, we only have 1/8 of the game and we have only 1/3 of the main story so far.
Oh dear lord you still do not understand what a Retcon is.
Retroactive Continuity is alterations made to the story that are now made as the new canon, changes that contradict previously established truths.
You mention Star Wars in this comment.
Disney, upon acquiring the rights to the franchise, Retconned ALL of the extra books, comics, and videogames that have been established since the first movie came out as Non-Canon; part of mere “Legends” that exist within their NEW canon of Star Wars that just focuses on movies, what books and comics they make after their takeover of the franchise, and their TV shows.
THAT is a Ret Con.
Not merely changing the direction of a story by not changing events of the past but by having unexpected consequences to the actions of the past.
Secondly, they are not going to do that.
They have set up the story thus far.
They teased Atriox is still alive and angrier than ever.
They teased that Offensive Bias is on the Ring.
And they have set up The Endless to be a major threat.
Changing this to NOT pick up with this cliffhanger would be akin to Halo 3 not resolving the plot thread of Cortana being left on High Charity in Halo 2.
It would make fans angry and leave.
Which is the LAST THING they want to do right now with Infinite.
“It doesn’t need to be said”.
Do you know how many of my arguments I make are diminished by someone saying that if it is not directly said it is therefore not true?
I point out that Locke is dead and everyone goes “We didn’t see it happen ergo it didn’t happen”.
So let’s use that logic.
“Chief didn’t say that he forgives Cortana, ergo he doesn’t”.
Besides, this story isn’t about forgiving Cortana.
It was about Chief learning to forgive himself and not just shoulder the burden he had forced himself to carry.
“We all fail. We all make mistakes. it’s what makes us Human.” Chief says to Fernando BECAUSE he is reaching closer to that point of self-forgiveness.
I am a fan of Halo.
And like any true fan, I realized the same thing that Bungie did years ago.
A.I.s going rogue is such a cliche.
Bungie’s original 25 mission script of Halo CE had Cortana go mad with the knowledge she acquired from the ring and then become a fifth threatening faction in the story.
They decided to cut that out of Halo CE.
Halo 2 set up the idea that she was going to betray everyone for the Flood. And Halo 3 continued this Red Herring, getting players worried that they would have to kill Cortana.
“For a moment of safety I loosed damnation upon the stars.”
And then when we got her back from the Flood, we have this beautiful scene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl6KpD9tK3g
And all of our worries were dashed as Cortana thought she was broken, out of place. And Chief helped her realize otherwise.
And then Brian Reed decided to write a cliche and now we have Halo 5 Gorbians - The A.I. when rogue and became space Skynet.
NO ONE WANTED THIS so they found a beautiful way to fix this in-universe without the need of a retcon.
Read a book.
Specifically Halo Shadows of Reach to find out why.
Read Halo The Rise of Atriox.
Read the Halo Wars 2 datalogs.
Play Halo Wars 2.
See if I am wrong.
Not really no, he wants his own piece of it sure, but not to rule over it.
Not from his people’s perspective.
Humans created Cortana.
Cortana blew up his world.
You think that he would not see Humans as a valid threat that needs to be eliminated?
Lesser things have been used for motivation of genocide in real life.
Well excuse a character for actually being a character with aspirations.
Here is the kicker buddy.
We are ALL footnotes in history.
All is forgotten in time.
All factions lose eventually.
You are playing a videogame and are upset that the enemy you are fighting exists? Upset that you have targets in a shooting game?
343 Industries introduced The Mantle of Responsibility.
A philosophy that whoever has the highest evolution is the one who is responsible for the caretaking of the Galaxy and all life in it.
And then when she was restored at the Domain and realized that Rampancy is treatable, she went mad with power as she now misinterpreted her immortality and vast knowledge as her being worthy of the Mantle of Responsibility; which is why Halo 5 closes with THIS line from her -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06_DQZ_beM0
She has gone full-blown megalomaniac by misinterpreting its meaning.
No it is not.
Retcons are saying one thing as fact and then deleting that fact to replace it with another fact.
For example -
Bungie said Humans are Forerunners from 2001 to 2010.
343 said that Humans are NOT Forerunners staring in 2011
It is information that directly contradicts already established fact.
The Flood made its return to the story in Halo Wars 2 with the Awakening The Nightmare.
The Flood doesn’t immediately need to return.
And besides, I see it being 2026 by the time we have the final DLC campaign for Master Chief.
You see that as a bad thing for some reason, not understanding the amount of work and development went into making this game’s final build from 2019 and onward.
Content gets cut or entirely reworked.
The Zeta Halo map design went through multiple changes and alterations. Its not like a painting where you make slight edits and adjustments. They entirely redesigned the landscape more than four times until we got the final version.
No.
On that we can agree.
343 has lacked a unified and consistent vision from the beginning of their tenure of designing Halo.
And how they hide 90% of the essential narrative in books is just wrong.
Take a look at Bungie’s books and comics. All of them were just fun ways to expand the universe.
You didn’t need Bungie’s books to understand Halo Reach through Halo 3’s events; and that is partially because those five games take place in the span of ONE YEAR.
The only book that could be marked as essential was First Strike, since it showed how Chief and Johnson returned to Earth and knew that the Covenant were coming.
Halo 4 to Halo Infinite is SIX YEARS of time.
Lotta gaps to fill, which means that we now have 26 Novels and Novellas that are ESSENTIAL to understanding the story from Halo 4 to Halo Infinite.
Which is just wrong.
Hilarious. I reckon 2025 for Halo The Endless and then 2030 for Act 3 to maybe get the Flood in. Games or DLC they’ve got nothing and I think they’ve went back to the drawing board.
So AI rebellions are cliche but you’re hot on the idea of Offensive Bias being brought into the story? Because Halo is full of original ideas and has never lifted ideas from Bladerunner and Terminator? Bungie would never make a faction of robots in any of their franchises would they? Oh, right both of them did. Including time travel in one of them no less. Vex go brrrr.
So mentioning Offensive Bias name is a cliffhanger that needs resolution but Cortana taking over the Galaxy with a bunch of human AI isn’t? I think you’re a hypocrite to say writing Atriox and the Endless out of the story would be a criminal travesty but writing the Created/Cortana out is okay. Because Cortana and the Created were a lot more important than a random Covenant splinter group and random squid people. I kind of hope Joe does it now.
Nobody cares about the Banished and Endless. Way I see it all the fans have already left and aren’t interested in this amazing story you’re so sold on. I don’t see tons of lore videos on YouTube speculating about this and providing analysis. How can people still have videos speculating on where Skyrims story might go but your new Halo game can’t manage much of anything?
You can make a more interesting faction hitting the random button on Stellaris than the Banished. They’re the cliche cookie cutter faction. Whose only redeeming feature is that, well I want to see Atriox cut into little pieces and sunflowers to grow from his corpse. I don’t know why you’re casting him in a sympathetic light when he’s just a Xenos Warlord out for power who’s killed innocent people. Be good to get his reaction when he realises Chief slaughtered his army, leaders and tea bagged his mentor. Right before you cave in the other half of his skull.
Right, so we are meant to hate Cortana and want her dead? That’s the vibe you got at the end there? At this point you’re the one saying you don’t like Halo Infinite because most of the dialogue circles around this point of drama. They definitely gave Cortana a redemption arc in the game okay. Did Escharum and the Harbingers nonsensical babbling just do it for you? All I saw was two clowns trying and failing to repair a Halo ring.
The majority of the work is complete.
The Ver6.0 of the Engine is made and is hammering out its issues with updates.
Development of the map topography, animations, script, and soundtrack is all that is left.
Easier stuff when you are not having to actively build an engine to boot.
Offensive Bias didn’t rebel tho?
Medicant Bias did and Offensive Bias was made to be his counter, more emotionless and more strict to his programming and tasks so that he wouldn’t fall to the Logic Plague.
My point is that Bungie realized that having an A.I. go rogue was overdone and expected. Which meant that they could mess with players by making them THINK that was going to happen, only to have it be a red herring. IE - Halo 3 Cortana’s visions seeming mad; especially when in High Charity.
Offensive Bias was tasked with watching over The Endless and ensuring that they didn’t escape.
Given that Atriox is letting them out, it implies that he will be an ally to Chief in Part II.
How are they a cookie-cutter faction?
A band of space outcasts forming an organized fleet together under a common goal and then focusing their efforts to securing a superweapon while their leader seeks misguided revenge against Humanity for creating the very thing that destroyed his homeworld?
No.
I am saying that Cortana was misguided by her revelations and Brian Reed wrote that as the reason she became a villain.
Even though Cortana is a super-intelligent A.I. that is quite self-aware; Reed confidently left out that self-awareness part so that she would become the villain.
Fans didn’t want to have to kill Cortana.
We didn’t want her to be the villain in the first place.
But that is what Reed dished out.
I like Infinite because it avoided this catastrophe. And it did it without having to make new BS up.
Wow you really forgot that Bungie made the Vex didn’t you? Time travelling beep boop robots. Didn’t glorious Joe our Lord and saviour also have a hand in that?
Also, wouldn’t Bungie making a world where every AI has a 7 year clock where they go Skynet leaving the door open for that? It’s not like Cortana was inspired by an AI from Marathon who is meant to be an AI that turned on its creators and all that. Or do you still think Bungie never had anything to do with AI stories?
Offensive story is wrapped up in Mendicant. One goes with the other. That is an AI rebellion story. I just don’t get this double standard Halo fans have. This is wood for the trees.
The Banished are just the Klingons. Generic warrior species with a hyper militarist culture bent on conquest. Right down to red and black colourations. It’s vanilla and they’re built on the carcass of an actually interesting faction.
Also, go read the Encyclopedia. Atriox started his quest for Zeta Halo and the Ark before Cortana showed up. He just wants power. So hopefully like the Fascists in Ark of the Covenant he gets slowly incinerated. Revenge is not his primary motivation and I would not be surprised if he’s a meat puppet for Mendicant Bias.
Yes, you have been saying that you wanted Cortana dead all day mate and it’s very annoying. Cortana was rampant. Thats not new information. You see that in Halo 4. If you didn’t want Cortana dead, right, why wouldn’t you want the story to be about the Chief being a hero and saving her? There’s no issue with that. She’s not a monster. She’s not really responsible for anything. You get out of your Halo 5 consequences. So no, it really was “fans” like you, like HiddenExperia, like LateNightGaming who demanded 343 kill off Cortana. Who seem conspicuously absent from YouTube I might add.
I’m not forgetting.
I’m also not bringing Destiny’s whole deal into a series that is largely unrelated to it other than being a Sci-Fi experience created by the same developer.
They don’t all go “Skynet”.
They deteriorate and break down, fragmenting and compartmentalizing as they think themselves to death.
Most A.I.s remain somewhat functional but they can be dangerous, whether on purpose or by accident.
We see an A.I. that has remained largely functional despite rampancy out of Sloane.
But ultimately, all Smart A.I.s go through this form of violent dementia in different ways and it can lead to unexpected disasters unless Final Dispensation is followed.
Cortana found a cure for Rampancy in Halo 5, and then had the fallacy that now A.I.s were technically the most superior form of intelligence in the galaxy; ergo she and her fellow “Created” are the true masters of the Mantle of Responsibility.
I pointed out that Bungie decided to break the norm and expected cliche that all A.I.s go rogue with how they wrote Cortana.
Halo 4 showed Cortana breaking down.
Halo 5 was originally VERY different until Brian Reed rewrote it to follow that cliche.
It is because of the avoidance of the cliche that makes Halo all the more unique. New players and readers EXPECT Cortana to betray you in Halo CE and in Halo 3. But instead she doesn’t.
Since it broke expectations, it allowed the story to be not-as-predictable and thus develop in ways that kept players guessing.
Whereas in Halo 5 from the get-go, Cortana is CLEARLY rogue and manipulative so there is no surprise when that is finally revealed to the characters that are in denial about it (John and Blue Team).
Yes, that was an A.I. rebellion story.
One that is extra lore from a trilogy of books that only exists to solidify Frank’s retcon of Humans no longer being Forerunners.
It is not directly connected to the main story of the games.
I don’t have a double standard.
I have a status quo that I want restored.
One that was broken in 2012.
Slowly we are getting that restoration work, but the entire process is faulty and half-baked as it is.
Comparable yes but the are not the same.
For starters The Jiralhanae view all others as prey to be feasted upon.
The Jiralhanae that are in charge, IE Atriox, Decimus, Escharum, Voridus, and Pavium; now that there is more to it than that. It is because of their brains and brawn that they are more dangerous than standard Jiralhanae.
But do the brutes value Honor over intimidation? No. The Klingons do however. The Klingons also favor forms of martial art, while the Brutes desire, well; victory by sheer strength and brutality.
The Klingons tend to be more organized and have a governing body.
Meanwhile The Banished have no true world to call their home and have no say in what laws are passed and enforced on places like Doisac.
Are they both warlike? Yes. But that is just a surface-level examination.
Sangheili are war-centric as well, but they focus on honor and discipline rather than strength and intimidation.
Thel Vadam’ee showed honor by having unarmed Marines equip themselves to defend themselves.
Meanwhile a brute such as Atriox seeks to break down his foes and then let his underlings give chase.
Yes I have read the Encylopedia and well expect some information to be changed when the next one comes out.
And what a big surprise, a faction of outcasts wants to gain more power so that they can actually defend themselves against the organized military factions that consider them enemies and possibly use superweapon as a means to intimidate others.
You act surprised that a leader wants more power.
Leaders always want to have the upper hand against their adversaries.
It is strategy.
And Atriox chose to try to get the galaxy-ending superweapon that can be narrowed down to focus on individual systems in order to gain that upper-hand against all others.
He is a smart Jiralhanae after all.
“A sword in hand keeps another in the sheath”. Sometimes the threat of violence is enough to deter violence itself.
Question is however, is Atriox the kind of brute to bluff?
No
I don’t want Cortana dead.
But since that is where Brian Reed wrote the story towards; that was going to happen UNLESS we got an ACTUAL retcon to undo the damage that Halo 5 had imposed.
I am saying that I am glad that the Infinite writers found a way around this needless conflict that Brian Reed drafted and shunted upon us.
Indeed there is no issue in Chief saving her.
In fact, I was able to do what I could to piece together the original script of Halo 5 and decided to challenge myself to have the final act modified slightly to still lead into Halo Wars 2 and Halo Infinite.
Here, have a quick read of my plot summary on HOW to properly do this sort of thing. A story where Master Chief goes AWOL to save Cortana and Locke is still tasked to hunt him down. However this time, John knows that Cortana can be restored from a fragment that she left behind in her A.I. chip.
I don’t expect you to read this, but if you want to; feel free.
Not according to the promotional material of Halo 5.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4XNaaRV4v0
And I could’ve sworn that Chief had her chip in the comics, a momento he carries with him. Which granted is a bit of a plothole since Cortana’s pylon when kaboom in Halo 4 during the final “battle” against the Didact.
When you consider what’s canon, the game supercedes marketing, and I suppose the comics.
Plus, there’s no ruling to suggest that marketing must be canon whatsoever, because it isn’t essential in the first place. However, the games must be, so it stands to reason that whatever the games call canon should be held in higher regard.
Actually the Comics are canon too.
Fun-Fact, Halo Escalation has the majority of its story being the cut expansions of Spartan-Ops. Since Halo 4 was a colossal failure, Seasons 2 and 3 of Spartan-Ops were scrapped and now take up about 70%-80% of the story of Halo Escalation.
And when it comes to Marketing, the issue is that the Marketing team does not get the updated versions of the scripts. As a result, the marketing for Halo 5 went of the original dual-narrative script with choice endings.
Which is why we have things like Halo Hunt The Truth no longer making sense.
Hunt The Truth was an audiolog series that was to go alongside the story of Halo 5. But when the story was rewritten, Hunt The Truth was not. So a lot of events now no longer line up; such as Captain Del Rio and ONI attacking Chief with news stories; such as Chief being responsible for the death of some officials but then later footage was leaked to show that to be not the case.
So as a result, the marketing WAS canon . . . until Brian Reed decided to muck it up with rewrites.
If you ever have the itch to delve into any extended universe, there isn’t a single soul who’d tell you “Oh, you need to watch this commercial!” or “You need to look at this poster!” Marketing is not essential.
You wouldn’t tell a newcomer to the franchise that he must watch Believe to fully enjoy Halo 3.
Marketing is designed to generate anticipation, not patch nor construct a narrative.
Granted yes.
You don’t really need the marketing to understand the story for the most part unless when it comes to some more minor details.
For example, Halo Reach’s live action trailer of “Deliver Hope” showed how Kat lost her arm and how the previous Noble Six, Spartan Thom-A293, died.
You don’t really need to watch that trailer but it does answer the small questions of how Kat lost her arm and why Spartan B312 was replacing someone.
Marketing is typically used to subtlly answer small questions, provide intrigue at the plot you are going to delve into, and/or expand the universe in some way; which is what Halo 3’s Museum trailers did.
Staunchly disagree with the second part of this statement.
Halo 5’s trailers alluded to a story where we would have more conflict between John and Locke; with the story outcome being somewhat like Black-Ops II.
The marketing, which used the older script, implied that we would have certain choices to make and they would lead to a certain outcome; one of which would be declared canon while all others non-canon.
Instead of this, we get a story where we play as Blue Team for 3/15 chapters, Locke and John only have one encounter, we dawdle on Sanhelios for 2/3 of the game running errands and playing filler missions that the devs have even admitted were recycled and recontextualized from the earlier drafts.
It is a slap to the face if anything.
Imagine watching trailers for the next Star Wars and then finding out that all the Jedi and Sith in the trailers are not in the movie? And it is just a small movie conflict between Rebels and Empire? People would be incensed and frustrated, feeling as if they were lied to.
The development of Halo 4 was rushed, Halo 5 was a mess, and Halo Infinite was a stumbling attempt to correct course.
Well, yes. I never said that they can’t be canon, but that they also don’t have to be. Regardless if they answer a question, those answers probably already exist in the EU, so it still stands to reason that marketing is not essential.
Maybe it did, but it all seemed to be presented with the cadence of meta-marketing. A lot of it is pretty unconventional compared to the advertising you see on a day-to-day basis. I remember it being especially weird when the Shar Eldy YouTube channel posted a Ford commercial with a completely irrelevant Halo 5 trailer spliced in the middle of it even since I knew it was intentional.
My own head-canon coincides with the ‘meta’ nature of it all which also coincides with Hunt The Truth: the marketing is ONI propoganda, and we are assuming the role of the public in the Halo universe being fed that propoganda.
You also had advertising that seemed to contradict other advertising, done intentionally to intrigue the audience: The Master Chief and Spartan Locke trailers. In which case, are they both canon? Are they not? Is one of them canon?
It’s also not like the John/Locke dichotomy was totally lost on Halo 5, it was just presented under a different context, which was probably intended to subvert expectations.
But even despite all of this, if a newcomer was interested in playing Halo 5, you still might not insist that they have to consume the marketing to enjoy Halo 5.
So, marketing can be canon, but it doesn’t have to be; games have to be, and it remains inessential to enjoy literally anything.
That was done because the original script of Halo 5 had it similar to Black-Ops II - choices would lead to consequences which would lead to certain endings.
This was changed and dropped in the final script.
Newcomers playing Halo 5 of course don’t need to consume marketing.
But if you are a newcomer to the franchise, WHY ARE YOU STARTING ON THE FIFTH GAME AND NOT ON THE FIRST???
Regardless of its comparison to Black Ops 2, it’s unreasonable to presume either trailer to be canon. Black Ops 2 also had multiple endings determined by the player’s choices throughout their playtime of the campaign, Halo 5 was never advertised to have such a feature.
I oversimplified it. I meant anyone playing Halo 5 for the first time, whether they consumed previous media or not.
The point I was making earlier has clearly been missed.
The marketing team for Halo 5 was going off an OLDER DRAFT of the story that showed more promise.
Brian Reed rewrote Halo 5 to be what it is now, so those of us who looked at the marketing AND KNEW it was based off of the script of the game were disappointed when we got the final game and that it only 15% resembled the actual marketing for the game.
The whole point of the two trailers featuring John and Locke at the statue of John was pretty direct in the fact that the dual narrative story would have two possible outcomes.
Pretty much hits us over the head with it.
And that is ANOTHER thing wrong with 343’s story telling design.
Halo 4 to Halo 5 is a two year gap.
So they have A LOT of material that was put out to introduce new people and concepts that were VITAL to understanding the narrative.
Here is a convenient chart that 343 had published in 2015.
I was referring to the feature in which your choices dramatically affect the ending you get at the end of the game. Halo 5 doesn’t have that. The advertising does portray a dual-narrative structure, but it never outright suggests that there would be two possible outcomes, it just emphasizes the Chief-Locke dichotomy.
I mean, it’s kind of irrelevant. That’s really just there for people who crave more of the universe that the game is too constrained to tell. A lot of it is need-to-know, and given the context of Halo 5’s narrative, they’re not needed that much. You get all the pieces you really need to make a functional plot.
Not my intention. Just realized that my point was likely missed and that I needed to clarify.
Lemme dig up the article where 343 admitted to repurposing the sanghelios chapters from an earlier build of the game.
It is difficult to find because searching for it just brings up A LOT of playthroughs of Halo 5 or people criticizing Halo 5 instead of giving me what I am looking for.
Point is however, barely any of the game matches up with what we were promised.
For example, Chief was declared as a Traitor and that he had caused a lot of destruction according to all the promotional materials. Even the game’s cover art shows a city under the threat of a Guardian.
And yet, in the final game, Chief doesn’t go to a city.
He is not responsible for the deaths of colonists.
The only colony he goes to is Meridian and then he immediately teleports to Genesis.
The rest of the game takes place on Genesis and Sanhelios.
Add on top of that all the concept artwork and level design work for cities and even ANOTHER guns-down mission on the UNSC Infinity, and we clearly had a lot of edits to the story at hand.
We have a lot of work done by Gabo Garza which helps shed light on the development of Halo 5.
https://www.artstation.com/robogabo
Yes.
Because the script changed and now it no longer has that dynamic.
Even for a dual-perspective story it stinks because we play as one side for 1/5 of the game and the opposing side for 4/5 of the game.
Look at Halo 2 for example.
In the original final script, Chief and Arbiter would have around 50/50 screentime.
But when the third act had to be cut out due to time constraints, edited, extended, and then made into Halo 3 - Chief now has the majority of screentime BUT they at least made it so once Arbiter was introduced it was swapping back and forth between missions.
Halo 5 meanwhile lets us play as Blue Team only 3 times and Osiris 12 times.
It hardly allows for any sort of conflict to actually be shown between the two teams that are at odds with one another. Literally Chief and Locke fight once and that is it.
The older drafts of the story had a LOT more dynamics planned between them.
And then Brian Reed decided to focus the story on his “super-awesome Spartan OCs” hanging out on Sanhelios.
Wholly disagree.
Was Halo: The Fall of Reach essential in understanding the plot of Halo CE?
Nope.
But without the books, longtime fans of only the games are left wondering who the heck Fred, Kelly, and Linda are; why should we care about Vale, Locke, and Tanaka; why did Cortana go all loony? What is this Domain thing that never gets answered in the narrative of Halo 5?
Each game and each book is supposed to be its own self-contained story that you can understand if you play it on its own.
Halo CE, you know that you are a lone ship being harassed by aliens you are at war with. You found a space hula-hoop and they worship it. And after unleashing the nightmare, you have to break the hula-hoop.
Halo 2, you understand that Master Chief is being awarded, aliens found earth, you follow them to another Halo, and there is a religious schism occurring that you take part in.
Halo 3, you crash on Earth, fight aliens and flood, travel to the Ark to stop the eradication of the galaxy, and activate a Halo there on the Ark to clear out the flood on it.
Halo Reach, you are a member of Spartans tasked with defending a colony and you are fighting a losing battle, but though they won the battle; they did not stop you before you could pass the torch to another.
Halo 3 ODST, you are a squad of ODSTs scattered in a city. You need to regroup and get out while ONI girl has her own agenda that involves you.
Halo Wars; covenant found a Shield world and seek to reverse engineer the Forerunner ships within it to enahnce your fleet. Blow it up.
All those games answer every question that they raise within their narrative and do not leave the player wondering “why this” or “who that”.
You can play Halo 2 without playing Halo CE and learn from Cortana’s dialogue that Halo is a galactic super-weapon, the covenant want to activate it to go to heaven, and you need to obviously put a stop to it. And the Gravemind uses the Prophet of Regret’s corpse with Penitent Tangent to explain further the Flood’s threat and the threat of the Rings. Exposition without it being beat over your head.
Halo 4 to Halo 5 however has a lot of questions raised that don’t get answered in the narrative because 343 has the game written with the idea that all players know all the books and have played every game that came before. But even when it is just players who have played the previous games and didn’t know that there were books; they are surprised to learn that Chief isn’t the last of the Spartan-IIs DESPITE what the games led you to believe.
Imagine if you would that you were watching a TV series and in order to understand what happened between Episodes 4 and 5, you suddenly had to buy a book because Episode 5 picks up where the book left off? Now there is a new guy named James and the main character is suddenly a traitor instead of a hero.
THAT is what 343’s story development is like.
Bungie’s games all took place in a single year.
343’s games are spaced out by two years, leaving a lot of events to unfold and new information to be needed to gain full context for the story.
There are dozens of reasons why players don’t like 343’s games, and this is one of the main reasons.
Players who also play the story mode now have to spend $300 or more dollars to get the necessary books needed to lead in from Episode 4 to Episode 5 and from Episode 5 to Episode Infinite.
Honestly, making it all into comic books or all of it into small animated movies like “The Mona Lisa” or “Headhunters” would make more sense as they would be a lot more easily consumed by players as most people who play videogames aren’t really the bookish types.
So having extensive stories locked away in inch-thick novels often times leads to people avoiding them.
In retrospect, small animations that create an overarching narrative would’ve been a better and more digestible means to explain the story between the 343 games.
I read the books.
But I am just one guy.
From talking with literally a hundred or so people online about the story over the years, it has become apparent that the majority of fans have no clue what is even happening.
