There were a lot of things about Halo 5 that annoyed me. Mostly the campaign part of it - Stupid AI rebellion plot & Cortana being brought back and turned into the villain without any real explanation would definitely be at the top of the list. But next to that would be how the Prometheans are portrayed now.
I loved the way 343i introduced them into the Halo Universe. When you first encounter the Prometheans in Halo 4 (Which I really enjoyed the campaign) they were this mysterious new enemy armed with advanced Forerunner weapons and technology. You had no idea who or what they truly were and part of what (IMO) made them a interesting was discovering:
Why did the Forerunners build them? - Why they have suddenly appeared? - Why has no-one ever seen them before outside Requiem? - Are they just machines or are they something far worse? - What is there goalThe moment when the Librarian tells you that they are actually ancient Humans really was a big surprise for me.The terminals in Halo 4 also did a great job explaining their back story and why they were originally created. That moment learning what they were actually filled me with a bit of fear - the same kind of fear I felt when I first encountered the Flood all those years ago back when I first played Halo CE. The Composer was used to turn an entire city of people into probably millions of Prometheans which made them an even greater threat than before. After Halo 4 one of the things I was really looking forward to was finding out more about the Prometheans, more enemy types, the process of creating them - to see something that would solidify them as an enemy to be respected and feared.Then… Halo 5 happened. And all that mystery, character and fear of them just suddenly vanished. All the plots from Halo 4 were just discarded or concluded in other media. The Prometheans are now pretty much classified as nothing more than robots. There was no digging into more of their Lore, in fact they felt like they were there just so you could have something to shoot at. The new soldiers are pretty much nothing more than bullet sponges with guns. The Phaeton was a pretty good flying vehicle, which was a good addition, but I would have liked to see something like a Promethean tank or quick vehicle like the Warthog or Ghost. I like the new way to fight the Knights. The Crawlers I guess are suppose to be the equivalent of Grunts and Jackals, the only thing I like about them is that they can scale walls and hit you from different angles.Then there was the Warden Eternal… oh don’t get me started on him!So to sum up, I think that 343i did a great job of introducing the Prometheans, but it makes me sad that they didn’t continue the trend that they set up in Halo 4. I actually enjoyed fighting them in H4 because they were making their big entrance, but Halo 5 felt like there were just there for target practice. For me the Prometheans could have been something so much more and I can only hope that with Halo 6, we will dig a bit more into them and that it will reignite my interest in them.Anyway, these are just my opinions, but I’m interested to hear what you guys have to say. So please comment below.
I want to add one more:
-Why are they so weak?
I know gameplay isn’t canon but I still think it’s weird that superbly powerful alien race which has had millions of years time to develope makes so bad battle robots. Logically they should be faster and more durable than anything we know but instead we can kill thrm with bullets. So I would love to have a canon explanation. Battery saving mode?
Well, at least each new Halo game(and new writer, since we’re getting a new one) is a brand new chance to get it right. Regardless, though, I don’t see how there could be anything more to know about them - what else could they add? I can’t think of anything else that we need to know about them.
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> Well, at least each new Halo game(and new writer, since we’re getting a new one) is a brand new chance to get it right. Regardless, though, I don’t see how there could be anything more to know about them - what else could they add? I can’t think of anything else that we need to know about them.
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> > 2533274974033696;3:
> > Well, at least each new Halo game(and new writer, since we’re getting a new one) is a brand new chance to get it right. Regardless, though, I don’t see how there could be anything more to know about them - what else could they add? I can’t think of anything else that we need to know about them.
>
> who’s the new writer??
We don’t know yet. All we know is that Brian Reed was moved to Lead Narrative Director, rather than Lead Writer.
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> > 2533274936927904;4:
> > > 2533274974033696;3:
> > > Well, at least each new Halo game(and new writer, since we’re getting a new one) is a brand new chance to get it right. Regardless, though, I don’t see how there could be anything more to know about them - what else could they add? I can’t think of anything else that we need to know about them.
> >
> > who’s the new writer??
>
> We don’t know yet. All we know is that Brian Reed was moved to Lead Narrative Director, rather than Lead Writer.
good cos he has good ideas he’s just terrible at executing them under such a stringent management
The fact their status as composed humans doesn’t come up in Halo 5 is pretty sad given how much doubt that casts on Cortana’s true motives about helping AIs when she gladly uses the Promethean Knights as slave soldiers.
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> I want to add one more:
> -Why are they so weak?
> I know gameplay isn’t canon but I still think it’s weird that superbly powerful alien race which has had millions of years time to develope makes so bad battle robots. Logically they should be faster and more durable than anything we know but instead we can kill thrm with bullets. So I would love to have a canon explanation. Battery saving mode?
To further pour salt on that wound, Bungie (and by extension 343i given how they put the final nail in the coffin) made the majority of UNSC weapons weaker than their modern counterparts.
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> The fact their status as composed humans doesn’t come up in Halo 5 is pretty sad given how much doubt that casts on Cortana’s true motives about helping AIs when she gladly uses the Promethean Knights as slave soldiers.
Makes me wonder if that’s intentional, or just a coincidence. It seems interesting that she’s suddenly started talking about how she was practically a slave, at the same time that she’s using humans-turned-AIs as her slaves.
I always thought it might be cool to have a single Promethean turn ally because it recognized it was human or sought to contact it’s family and let them know they’re okay. Like a father composed in New Phoenix turns into a Promethean Knight and the Knight goes rogue (real rogue not fake halo 5 tell everyone chiefs a traitor and AWOL but not really BS) in order to track down his adult daughter and just send her a message he is okay and not to worry about him or something akin to that. Or at least having some go rogue and turning on the Didact had they not killed him because they were like “you DID this to us a-hole!” and turn on him. I don’t know. Maybe stupid ideas but at least we’d get some kinda depth to them rather than what Halo 5 gave us.
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> I always thought it might be cool to have a single Promethean turn ally because it recognized it was human or sought to contact it’s family and let them know they’re okay. Like a father composed in New Phoenix turns into a Promethean Knight and the Knight goes rogue (real rogue not fake halo 5 tell everyone chiefs a traitor and AWOL but not really BS) in order to track down his adult daughter and just send her a message he is okay and not to worry about him or something akin to that. Or at least having some go rogue and turning on the Didact had they not killed him because they were like “you DID this to us a-hole!” and turn on him. I don’t know. Maybe stupid ideas but at least we’d get some kinda depth to them rather than what Halo 5 gave us.
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> > 2533274812652989;7:
> > The fact their status as composed humans doesn’t come up in Halo 5 is pretty sad given how much doubt that casts on Cortana’s true motives about helping AIs when she gladly uses the Promethean Knights as slave soldiers.
>
> Makes me wonder if that’s intentional, or just a coincidence. It seems interesting that she’s suddenly started talking about how she was practically a slave, at the same time that she’s using humans-turned-AIs as her slaves.
Well these would certainly have added a bit more depth and drama towards the Prometheans.
Wasted potential is a good way of putting it. Once again, 343 and the current batch of writers actually DID come up with a really cool idea - the fact that they’re composed former humans (well, the Knights anyway) actually IS really neat and opens up all sorts of storytelling possibilities… but then we just forget about it in H5 like it was never a thing. 343 IS capable of coming up with really cool subplots and plot points but it seems like when they’re brainstorming these things, they don’t have a vision of exactly what to DO with them.