It’s no secret now that 343 made a mediocre campaign with too much emphasis on an underdeveloped lead and misleading marketing being my main concerns personally. But what if 343 took action on this widespread criticism and diverted attention from weapon skins and armour permutations and gave us 3-4 extra missions where we play as Blue Team to even out the campaign? What if (in the fashion of Mass Effect 3) they added an ‘Extended Cut’ of sorts and gave us updated cutscenes and in-game dialogue to flesh out not only Blue Team but Osiris and Locke as well culminating in a boss battle against the team we sympathise with less (meaning that we the players got to choose whether to play as Locke against Chief or vice-versa). If this forum gets a few responses I’ll add my thoughts on how this sort of expansion could be executed without changing the overall plot and ending of the game. Would you all be happy or disappointed to have 343 focus time and money on fixing Halo 5’s story instead of multiplayer? Please share your opinions.
Still waiting for a Flip Flap focus campaign.
343 is not “focused” on REQs and armour, only a select team. The members of the company who focus on the campaign are undoubtedly working on Halo 6. I’d rather they stick to that and try to at least match what Halo 4 did than pull people away (or contract in) for missions that would hardly add to said mediocre campaign.
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> 343 is not “focused” on REQs and armour, only a select team. The members of the company who focus on the campaign are undoubtedly working on Halo 6. I’d rather they stick to that and try to at least match what Halo 4 did than pull people away (or contract in) for missions that would hardly add to said mediocre campaign.
Well I’d rather have a disjointed campaign fixed leading up to Halo 6. Personally I’m happy to wait as long as it takes for the next entry in the series as long as its good. Halo 5 made too many mistakes in it’s story and I would personally like to see them rectified before moving on. Bioware had the sense to do this with Mass Effect 3 (though I am no at all saying that Halo 5’s ending was worse than that abomination) and address fan concerns to give us closure going forward. Now though there is some apprehension many people are looking forward to Mass Effect: Andromeda. Imagine if they left the ending as it was? I want this campaign fixed and I do believe with a few extra Chief missions and expanded cutscenes it can go from a 5/10 to at least an 8/10.
The campaign was fine to me, and the Halo 5 trailers actually tie into 6’s campaign/story.
I’d play it.
Anything would be better than Halo 5’s campaign at this point
A back-story for both Osiris and Blue Team would be perfect and necessary.
i would love it, the campaign needs total and immediate help. My biggest complaint with the campaign after all was “NOT ENUF CHIEF” I mean seriously, what makes the game feel so off is the absence of the mysterious hero, Chief. Chief was he core of Halo, and playing as him was glorious. i would love to see tis happen, but i’m afraid they can’t They don’t have the time to hire voice actors or create more map designs
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> The campaign was fine to me, and the Halo 5 trailers actually tie into 6’s campaign/story.
Not really. Those trailers with Locke and Chief in a destroyed location accusing the other of what happened while the Infinity burns in the sky? Neither come to blows over the destruction the Guardians cause. All the stuff about ONI and their actions across the colonies in Hunt the Truth? Nothing. All that hype about Halo 5 being a manhunt? That lasted all of three (being generous with Meridian Station) missions before Locke catches up with Chief and quickly becomes a search and rescue. How about those MCC bookend cutscenes with Locke not knowing about Chief’s motives while with the Arbiter? Locke knew what was up by the time Osiris is on Sanghelios.
A Campaign expansion is a much larger undertaking than simply fixing Multiplayer.
Create new missions from scratch (modeling, texturing, programming), animate cutscenes, write plot for those missions…probably have to heavily rework the plot of Halo 6 since the expansion most likely covers things that the early-game of Halo 6 was supposed to cover.
In the end it would be pointless because a paid expansion wouldn’t make the flaws of the mediocre Campaign disappear, and -lolyougottabejoking- if you think they’re going to give it to us for free.
Yeah I would like a story expansion. I’m really not satisfied with what we got.
343 announced already that there will be no story DLC
“If” they were going to, they should make it about when chief and didact battled on halo installation 03, that would be awesome.
How many of you would like to know what the hell 343 was thinking when they were making the campaign for h5? Because I sure as hell would! 343 was putting so much emphasis on its multiplayer but not as much on its campaign because to me,as long as the story is good I can care less if the mp sucks. 343…sigh ya done f-ed up on the story and you better as hell start listening to the community ie: Halofollower and ReadyUpLive.
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> > The campaign was fine to me, and the Halo 5 trailers actually tie into 6’s campaign/story.
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> Not really. Those trailers with Locke and Chief in a destroyed location accusing the other of what happened while the Infinity burns in the sky? Neither come to blows over the destruction the Guardians cause. All the stuff about ONI and their actions across the colonies in Hunt the Truth? Nothing. All that hype about Halo 5 being a manhunt? That lasted all of three (being generous with Meridian Station) missions before Locke catches up with Chief and quickly becomes a search and rescue. How about those MCC bookend cutscenes with Locke not knowing about Chief’s motives while with the Arbiter? Locke knew what was up by the time Osiris is on Sanghelios.
I agree %100
Absolutely. Anything to explain away that piss poor lazy writing when Locke catches up to Chief.
‘CHIEF, CORTANA IS EVIL.’
‘I know’
How the eff did Chief figure this out offscreen?! Seriously, it would’ve been great to have another level where he arrives at this freaking conclusion. Did Brian Reed leave Halo yet?
Even though osirus team has some very good levels, they just didnt have the same spark blue team had, and it just didnt feel as epic playing with character with no real background compared to blue. It was such an awsome thing to bring back blue team, they cant leave halo 5 as the last time we play as blue team. Im guessing going into halo 6 after the flack they took with the lack of master chief and blue team levels in h5 that we will get another lopsided campagin but in favor of blue team this time. Hell i wouldnt be surprsied if they dropped osirus team completly had chief and lock play togther so you get to pick either one if you so choose.
Either way yes i think they could easily make a halo odst type side game with chief and blue team doing some stuff, hell just have the odd side game inbetween halo main story that is a flash back to old blue team missions, that a be somthing im sure alot of people would enjoy.
Yeahhh we need a new writer that’s actually good this time. I’m not sure who makes the big decisions at 343 but this game should be solid proof that someone needs fired and obviously 343 can’t be rushed like they were with this game since the campaigns story was half-(insert bad word here) and just didn’t go into the right direction it currently went when the game came out. They do get great credit for making the environment look so good and unique in each level but just the story behind going into those levels is what killed it for me. The whole “Cortana is bad now” thing is the worst thing I have ever experienced in a Halo game when it came to the development up to that revealing point and how it was put into motion during the whole story (Which had absolutely no character development whatsoever besides the end with the emotional scene including chief and cortana where the plot finally gets to shine). I loved some of the cutscenes 343 created like the Prologue scene and some of the others but that’s all I liked about the campaign besides Keith David, Master Chief Missions, and the Environments 343 introduced into this build of the Halo universe. Final verdict is cut Locke’s team and include either just 1-2 missions of them while also including 1-2 missions as the Arbitor with the rest being available to the main hero of the story, Master Chief. I am never going to trust 343 again until they deliver a FULL game that dosent have any strings attached to it that wont woo the audience with disbelief and total dumbfoundingness when it comes to a bad campaign such as this one. Btw that’s just my opinion and verdict on the campaign alone and I have many more negative (and positive) opinions over what went wrong and what they got absolutely right (Sound design, forge, Soundtrack, ect) with the development of this game.
Here is my proposal of what an updated Halo 5’s campaign would look like with bold text denoting Blue Team missions:
1.Osiris
2.Blue Team
3.Orbital (Covenant fleet attack after Argent Moon is destroyed, some space combat, Blue Team dialogue to expand on characters, talk of ONI and AWOL repercussions)
4.Glassed (More debate on Blue Team, Locke revealed to be bitter at Chief for not saving his homeworld from being glassed and is disillusioned with the idea of Chief being the saviour of humanity “Our greatest threat is believing in a hero”)
5.Meridian Station
6.Hunted (Blue Team learns of Locke and Osiris hunting them, revealed to be declared KIA by ONI “The official word, an evolving lie”, attacked by Prometheans on way to Guardian)
7.Unconfirmed
8.Evacuation (Much more debate and friction on Blue Team, Locke is determined to bring in Chief, Tanaka is sympathetic to Blue Team, Vale doesn’t have an opinion, Buck is more angry towards Sloan and Cortana)
9.Reunion (More debate within Blue Team about going AWOL, Blue Team beginning with Fred starts to question Chief’s leadership and moral high ground)
10.Swords of Sanghelios (Halo 2 Anniversary cinematic at the end because when did that meeting happen? Was it even canon)
11.Alliance (Cortana misleading Locke on Chief’s absence in that he is helping her activate Guardians to build Locke’s resolve against him “My mission is clear, take down a verified traitor”, driving Chief towards her side "Spartans never die, but equipment can be retired)
12.Whispers from the Past (Dialogue mission, context behind Cortana’s return, Warden’s origin, Chief’s destiny, Didact’s fate)
13.Enemy Lines
14.Before the Storm (Edited to include Locke warning Osiris that ONI wants Chief dead and prepping them on the possibility of having to put him down)
15.Gateway (Exploring the Domain facility, exposition behind where Promethean soldiers came from and Bastion Forerunner Builder, debating what to do with Locke)
16.Battle of Sunaion
17.Genesis (Edited to include Blue Team**/Fireteam Osiris** boss battle at the end but Cortana**/Exuberant Witness** breaks up fight before player lands killing blow, player can choose which team they play as according to who they think is more morally superior)
18.The Breaking
19.Gaurdians (Librarian reveals the overall importance of the Master Chief to Locke and how Chief must be saved from Cortana, Chief witnesses Osiris’ efforts to save them and forgives Locke for hunting them)
Upon reading that you may notice that a running theme in my updated campaign is the hunt for Chief and the conflict of interests between him and Locke. I believe that one of the main reasons the campaign is considered to be a letdown is how it was marketed opposed to what it was. We were told through the excellent podcast “Hunt the Truth”, the live action trailers “All Hail”/“The Cost”, the “Halo 5 Experience” and “Fall of a Hero” commercials and even the front cover depicting the two Spartans opposing each other that this campaign was revolved around a conflict between two soldiers with different ideologies, histories, personalities, goals and methods that in their mutual concern for humanities safety clash. This dark plotline was highly anticipated and we were ready to see how this conflict would play out, the ambiguity created around the Chief’s disappearance and whether or not he was a traitor had terrific potential to venture into new story paths that Halo hadn’t gone before. Instead this Hunter vs Hunted plotline was basically stopped after ‘Unconfirmed’ where Chief and Locke fight for 30 seconds. The next time they meet Chief and Locke bury the hatchet in 10 seconds and become best friends by the end. The intrigue we were expecting and the tension between these two heroes was nearly nonexistent and the plot unwisely shifted to stopping Cortana/Warden.
Having 80% of the game about Locke and Osiris COULD have worked if Locke himself was a compelling character, however without having any exposition around his backstory, morals and supposed skill as an assassin tracker we aren’t that invested in him. My proposal actually does more to develop Locke’s character as when we learn of Locke’s long held grudge towards the Chief for not saving his home planet despite being hailed as the ‘saviour of humanity’ we get to see a side of the Halo universe we haven’t seen yet, that maybe Chief isn’t a saviour and Locke is right in saying “Our greatest threat is believing in a hero”, which he will come to think more on by the end of the game and maybe change his mind. Locke can be seen as the anti-Chief, the only one who won’t bend over backwards to glorify to legend of 117 and this is summarised perfectly by his “All hail the conquering hero” speech. If you would have run Locke’s character on this premise alone I guarantee you the fans would warm up more to his character. As for Chief we have his arc based on the “Is this what you wanted?” speech in which he is so obsessed with finding Cortana that he has blinded himself to the bigger picture and how much of a threat Cortana has become. Through Fred (the only member of Blue Team who can offer constructive criticism to John’s actions) we will start to doubt if Chief is making the right choices and whether we should side with Locke in the end. At the end of the mission ‘Genesis’ we would get the climax of this conflict, Locke who believes that Chief is a fallen hero who for the good of humanity must be put down vs Chief who is obsessively trying to save his AI friend at the expense of the safety of the galaxy at a whole. We the players after seeing both sides would get to choose who we go with, if we choose Osiris we fight Blue Team right up until Locke is going to deliver the killing blow and Cortana teleports an injured Blue Team away BUT if we the players stay loyal to Chief we fight Osiris until Exuberant Witness intervenes and teleports Blue Team away before Chief can execute Locke. After that ‘The Breaking’ would continue as normal. In the last mission ‘Guardians’ the ghost of the Librarian would finally appear to Locke and reveal that Chief is essential to humanity claiming the Mantle and despite Locke’s personal issues with him; Blue Team must be saved. From his Cryptum Chief would witness Locke’s efforts and once he is freed they will make up.
Though this updated campaign, the conflict we were hoping for between the Hunter vs the Hunted is resolved with all the intrigue and duality we were hoping for. Though the flaws of the Chief, Locke becomes a fascinating character who gives us context to John and whether he really is the saviour of humanity. During the campaign Osiris would also argue about Chief’s absence and define themselves by it, giving them personality that is sourly lacking in the campaign as it is (except for Buck who we all love). In the end I will say that the central theme of Halo 5: Guardians should be 'What is a guardian?", is Locke the guardian of humanity by having the conviction to do what no other Spartan can OR is Chief the guardian of humanity because he’s the -Yoink- Master Chief and he’s earned the right to make executive decisions like going AWOL and pursuing Cortana at his discretion. If the campaign is updated to primarily reflect this question (as greatly implied by its marketing) while giving somewhat equal time to both its protagonists I promise you it will be redeemed (a passing mention to the events of Halo: Nightfall would be nice too because seriously, what was the point of that?)