So, Halo 5 had a massive rewrite before release

Games Halo 5: Guardians
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I think everybody who played knew that something was up with the story, with 5 basically having nothing to do with 4. Based on comments by Reed and now this video I think it’s obvious that major changes were made at the last minute after people got mad that Chief might be a villain. That’s why the Halo 5 campaign is incoherent and only 4-6 hours long, they had to scramble to put something out. It’s a shame that 343 didn’t have the guts to stand their ground and stick the the story they had planned years ago, I think it would have been GOTY caliber. Instead we got Halo 5 which legitimately killed my passion for Halo moving forward. Halo 5 could have been an amazing story instead we got a generic evil AI story because 343 couldn’t handle the pre release criticism. That’s what separates average from great, the ability to stick to your vision even when under fire. No great creative company lets their audience control their vision, 343 just doesn’t have the leadership needed.

Here’s the video, he talks about it in the first 4 minutes

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> 2533274853720708;1:
> I think everybody who played knew that something was up with the story, with 5 basically having nothing to do with 4. Based on comments by Reed and now this video I think it’s obvious that major changes were made at the last minute after people got mad that Chief might be a villain. That’s why the Halo 5 campaign is incoherent and only 4-6 hours long, they had to scramble to put something out. It’s a shame that 343 didn’t have the guts to stand their ground and stick the the story they had planned years ago, I think it would have been GOTY caliber. Instead we got Halo 5 which legitimately killed my passion for Halo moving forward. Halo 5 could have been an amazing story instead we got a generic evil AI story because 343 couldn’t handle the pre release criticism. That’s what separates average from great, the ability to stick to your vision even when under fire. No great creative company lets their audience control their vision, 343 just doesn’t have the leadership needed.
>
> Here’s the video, he talks about it in the first 4 minutes
> - YouTube

Lazy link.Take note I haven’t watched the video and cannot vouch for the content.

3

Meh, whilst the campaign is pretty shocking, it still beats Destiny’s lol

4

It’s all our fault!!! HA LO 4 campaign was awesome tho.

5

I’m shocked. :confused:

6

Who exactly was complaining about Halo 4’s storyline? I don’t think I ever saw someone complaining about the story itself.

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> 2533274842918190;6:
> Who exactly was complaining about Halo 4’s storyline? I don’t think I ever saw someone complaining about the story itself.

Actually, I didn’t like Halo 4’s story very much. The Chief/Cortana stuff was alright. But the Didact was a horribly generic villain, his whole imprisonment was terribly thought out, and his mere existence negates the magnitude of the Halo array firing 100,000 years ago.

EDIT: here are the thoughts I posted about it back in September:

> 2811398874529013;33:
> H4’s campaign felt more like bad fan-fiction than anything
>
> Writer: So you know how all the forerunners died thousands of years ago when they fired the Halo rings? Well what if one of them was still alive anyway! How cool would that be!?
> Other guy: But if the forerunners had the technology to survive the Halo firing, why wouldn’t they save more of them?
> Well, because THIS guy is super important to the forerunners. They could only save the one.
> So… he was spared in order to make sure the forerunners’ plan to ensure human ascendancy succeeds?
> No way! It turns out that he’s, like, super opposed to the humans.
> So why would they choose him to be the only one spared?
> He didn’t want it. He’s actually in some kind of prison, and he’s guarded by all these robot thingies that we’ve never heard mention of before.
> Hmm… Well at least he’s well guarded.
> You would think so. BUT, as soon as he gets released, he takes control of them all with his mind and turns them on his side. Like, the moment he gets out. He’s so bad-yoink- that it takes him literally zero effort to do this.
> That sounds like a pretty poor plan by the forerunners. Are you sure there’s no other failsafe?
> Ah Ha! I’m glad you asked. You see, it turns out that the forerunners can also preserve their consciousness in the form of a pseudo-A.I. Do you remember the Librarian? Well she totally does this in order to watch over things.
> Whew… So, she intervenes, right?
> Nope. She can’t do anything to him cuz she’s just an A.I.
> Oh dear… Well this living forerunner sure sounds formidable.
> You haven’t even heard the half of it. He can also levitate things with his mind! Like he has the force!
> Whoa! An enemy like that could force-crush the Master Chief’s throat and break him in half the first time they meet!
> Yeah, yeah! He totally could. But, he WON’T!
> Umm… O… Ok. Why not? That seems like the logical thing for a super-powered enemy that hates humans with a passion.
> EH NENENENE. Don’t worry about that. He also has this nifty ship that can fly around and scan things. Even though he was imprisoned, the forerunners left him with a ship to fly around in, in case he escapes.
> Oh man, with an enemy like that, I bet the player is in for one hell of a climactic showdown at the end of the game.
> Well, that’s the thing. This guy is so crazy awesome, that no fully-interactive sequence could do it justice. The final showdown will be a cutscene.
> That… doesn’t sound very climactic… or difficult.
> Yeah, but the player will mess up the first time because we’ll throw in a quick time event when it isn’t expected. Then the player will have to do it again.
> I don’t think that ending will go over very well. At least the beginning you described sounds cool.
> Oh no, my friend. That’s not the beginning. You’ll have to fight the Covenant through a few levels first.
> The Covenant? I thought the war ended in Halo 3. Doesn’t the UNSC have a truce with the Covenant?
> Heh heh heh, Oh you poor deluded fool. A lot can happen in four years.
> Oooooh, that’s ominous. I can’t wait to learn what happened.
> Yeah, well don’t get your hopes up about that. Because instead of explaining that, we’re going to introduce, like, the biggest, hugest UNSC ship ever. And it’ll get its defenses breached a whole bunch of times. Like, more times than can fit in a single campaign. We’ll have to save some of those breaches for Spartan Ops.
> **I’ll be honest, I think you need to bounce some of these ideas off of some other writers. Your plot is a little rough around the edges.**No way! this is, like, way to freakin’ awesome.

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I’m amazed and dumbfounded. Will have to go back and replay some campaigns to understand the incoherent storyline. I recall having a good time playing 4 and 5 - wasn’t really disappointed either…:slight_smile:

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> 2811398874529013;7:
> > 2533274842918190;6:
> > Who exactly was complaining about Halo 4’s storyline? I don’t think I ever saw someone complaining about the story itself.
>
>
> Actually, I didn’t like Halo 4’s story very much. The Chief/Cortana stuff was alright. But the Didact was a horribly generic villain, his whole imprisonment was terribly thought out, and his mere existence negates the magnitude of the Halo array firing 100,000 years ago.

You do realize that the Didact had 3 whole books that were released in tandem with ‘Halo 4’ by master sci-fi author Greg Bear, right? And that those books brought an incredible amount of depth to both his character and Forerunner history and culture? …Though even then his origins and motivations were still summarized by the Librarian when talking to the Chief, and he was slated for further development as an antagonist in ‘Halo 5’.

The only thing that is “bad fanfiction” here is 'Halo 5’s nonsensical story that comes literally out of nowhere and completely negates all the character and setting development of the last 5 years.

10

Ugh, can you maybe put up a warning that your link is a youtuber rant/talk video?

I don’t think they could have changed that much from the time of that trailer to the actual release. Not that I don’t like the idea of the communities’ complaining back firing on them.

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A: this has been a well-established theory for a long time, look at pre-release screenshots of menu UI and you will see vastly different mission descriptions that are not just placeholders, but fully fleshed out missions
B: I doubt this guy has a source, because honestly, everything he said was already assumed by a great deal of people, most notably Haruspis on tumblr.

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Isn’t that what everyone says about modern sci-fi shooter now a days. To be honest the game play really covered up th lacking story. The cut scenes were nice as well. It wasn’t as lacking as destiny’s original story line though.

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I for one, Would have despised them turning MC into a trader. As I really believe would have the majority of the community. H5 as it stands sets up 6 for 3 different stories. H5 on its own you might not be happy with. But H6 can really be awesome if IF the Didact and OR the Gravemind are found the be controlling cortana. This would bring the whole story full circle. We know the Gravemind could affect Cortana. We know the same is true for the didact. H6 has LOADS of potential. The just have to take that step. They can write it to where Halsey has been slowly uploading code to Cortana, to offset the influence, Which would tie in to the line at the beginning of H5 where UNSC will want her dead or in prison before its over. I could easily EASILY write enough story to tie it all together and , then you could look at the whole series and say WOW. and I have almost zero creative ability. so If I can do that I know 343 can. They just can’t rush it. It has to be well thought out and executed to bring it full circle. So a new saga can begin with all new Spartans all new adventures all new enemies and planets. Keep your fingers crossed.

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What does it matter… it’s already been stated that the games are cannon nothing else. They could write it anyway they want.

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> 2533274900367576;11:
> B: I doubt this guy has a source, because honestly, everything he said was already assumed by a great deal of people, most notably Haruspis on tumblr.

Makes me wonder if his source was that guy on -Yoink!- who was supposedly an ex-343 employee that did an AMA. He mentioned things about the campaign that were rewritten.

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You guys do realize that Cortana and Chief, albeit mainstays of the franchise, are not originally from 343i? Those are Bungie’s characters, so why is it such a shock to see MC, Cortana, and even Halsey suddenly switch sides? They are trying to make you move on with a new Spartan, look at the introduction of over 9 of them in the first 10 minutes of Guaradian. I’m sure Locke or Palmer, if 343i has it there way, will eventually do some corny-ish and one of them will don MC’s uniform, literally, after a epic duel which sees John die…so the studio doesn’t have to take the heat of completely altering the appearance of the title.

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> 2533274891841289;10:
> I don’t think they could have changed that much from the time of that trailer to the actual release.

It went from master chief potentially rebelling against ONI/UNSC to deal with some greater threat, coping with the death of cortana, and possibly dealing with the didact, to Halo 5:Skynet. Why do you think none of the marketing matched up with the game? Those commercials and hunt the truth were obviously made prior to the massive rewrite, hence 90% of the fan base being mad about false advertising.

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> 2533274825101441;13:
> I for one, Would have despised them turning MC into a trader. As I really believe would have the majority of the community. H5 as it stands sets up 6 for 3 different stories. H5 on its own you might not be happy with. But H6 can really be awesome if IF the Didact and OR the Gravemind are found the be controlling cortana. This would bring the whole story full circle. We know the Gravemind could affect Cortana. We know the same is true for the didact. H6 has LOADS of potential. The just have to take that step. They can write it to where Halsey has been slowly uploading code to Cortana, to offset the influence, Which would tie in to the line at the beginning of H5 where UNSC will want her dead or in prison before its over. I could easily EASILY write enough story to tie it all together and , then you could look at the whole series and say WOW. and I have almost zero creative ability. so If I can do that I know 343 can. They just can’t rush it. It has to be well thought out and executed to bring it full circle. So a new saga can begin with all new Spartans all new adventures all new enemies and planets. Keep your fingers crossed.

I would love to have Gravemind return. Perhaps the teaser at the end of H5 is Cortana meeting Gravemind on another Halo ring. This also foreshadows the return of the flood.

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> 2533274853720708;17:
> > 2533274891841289;10:
> > I don’t think they could have changed that much from the time of that trailer to the actual release.
>
>
> It went from master chief potentially rebelling against ONI/UNSC to deal with some greater threat, coping with the death of cortana, and possibly dealing with the didact, to Halo 5:Skynet. Why do you think none of the marketing matched up with the game? Those commercials and hunt the truth were obviously made prior to the massive rewrite, hence 90% of the fan base being mad about false advertising.

I’d like to add that’s not the studio’s fault, that’s the gamers and the community for believing the “try hard” efforts, free DLC, and forgettable prior entries, H4/MCC, were going to be good in the first place. Can’t keep blaming these guys, cause they might cut more content out of panic and fear, 343i you did a good job! Wrote a backwards story, gave a loyal community reason to leave, and ultimately took one of the last franchises not to be stained by micro-transactions and “pro-level competition” and drenched that -Yoink- in the f’duck sauce. I guess hitting that f’it button too many times made it brokes.

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I freaking new it. 343 was so confident in their story, yet is was so bad. It didn’t add up, 343 is not a stupid company and them getting so excited about something that obviously was bad, didn’t add up.