In the original trilogy, the reclaimer saga, the halo wars series, the feelings of certain factions are different because there are so many in these games.
Usually, the Covenant is the enemy, the arch nemesis. The “Axis” to the UNSC’s “Allies”. It goes through it’s own trials and trivelations, splinter groups and remnants.
The Flood gives that sense of fear, of death. The Flood is the enemy that is supposed to be more dangerous than the covenant, that’s why it’s stressed in Combat Evolved that that’s the only enemy the covenant fears.
And, lastly, the Forerunners give that sense of mystery and of speculation, and sometimes the less you know is better.
But it seems like Halo 3: ODST and Reach are different.
There’s really only 2 factions that matter:
Humans and Covenant, with a minor importance to the forerunners in both.
So with a lack of factions, they still have to convey certain feelings.
Halo 3 ODST for example, has the level Data Hive, an underrated level in my opinion because of one vital element that changed the atmosphere of the mission,
The Hive.
Halo hadn’t ventured too far into the lore of drones, and so this mission gave a little bit of information about how drones live and their military rankings.
Halo 3 ODST didn’t have the flood, but Data Hive still felt like a flood mission with the sense of fear and death.
The screams of the officer who gets killed by drones, the drones feeding on dead bodies, and the hive all seemed to fill the gap of the flood.
This mission also gave better lore to the Engineers too, which almost took on a silent sentinel/monitor-esc role.
The minute Data Hive starts with the bodies laying everywhere, then the frost on sub-level 9, and even the scene in which vergil is revealed.
Data Hive, in my opinion, is on par with 343 Guilty Spark, Oracle, Sacred Icon, and Floodgate.
But throughout the whole game until the legendary ending besides the engineers, Forerunners are absent from the main storyline.
However, the Engineers, Dare, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the murdered Elites, and the Superintendent all give that sense of mystery and speculation.
The UNSC is the UNSC, and Rookie does a great job at taking a shot at Master Chief’s role to the player as a big suit of armor to play in.
Then, the Covenant, the feeling of hopelessness for New Mombasa, the sudden change to Brutes, subjecting the Engineers to essentially slavery, the searching city streets at night and glassing by day.
There are so many great ways ODST convey’s the Covenant, but here’s where Reach shines.
The Covenant is the sole enemy in Reach.
Every feeling from previous games is mostly in the Covenant.
From the shock of the presence of Covenant on Reach, to the feeling of victory after destroying Long Night of Solace, only to replaced with a feeling of defeat when the Fleet of Particular Justice arrived.
The cutscene where the elites ambushed noble team on Winter Contingency almost reminds me of the flood introduction in Halo CE.
Then Exodus and New Alexandria…
These two missions filled that entire feeling of hopelessness in New Mombasa from Halo 3 ODST’s entire campaign.
In Exodus, we see the Covenant bombarding the city, killing civilians right in front of your eyes (in the introduction of brutes at that, way better than Gravemind’s gameplay introduction to Brutes), shooting down evacuation shuttles, and then New Alexandria.
This is in the top 5 Halo Missions of all time.
The feeling of hopelessness begins from the start.
The rainfall, the twilight, the flaming skyscrapers and the city streets an abyss of fog.
Once again, the drones make a fearful appearance in this mission. Not quite as well as Data Hive, but it was still enough to make that one marine suicidal.
Like Coastal Highway, we see the city being glassed, and like Mombasa Streets and Kikowani Station, there is plenty of phantom and banshee air patrols. You even might meet and have to help Buck in this mission (Which is why Buck mentions New Alexandria in Halo 5’s mission Evacuation, which by the way, did a terrible job of making you feel the level of fear on Meridian).
By the end of the mission, banshees are being used as bombs and Kat is killed by the Covenant in less than a second. I mean, Romeo got hit with a gravity hammer blade in the lung and lived, but Kat got shot by a single Needle Rifle shot in the head, and was dead mid-sentence. The covenant killing a Spartan III with one shot is scary as hell.
Then the Package, which may have reused places from ONI Alpha Base, but I almost believe this is like the Halo Reach version of Two Betrayals, Keyes, or the Maw. You’re back at where you were at near the beginning of the game, just heavily damaged. Then, you go under Sword Base. This already provokes mystery as Noble Team didn’t even know how to get under Sword Base until their elevator opened, once they stepped in and were being briefed by Halsey, and you saw the huge forerunner artifact, it was like a foreshadow to the entire trilogy. You get Cortana, as you enter Halsey’s mysterious lab, all provoking speculation. Pillar of Autumn gives you the same running out of time feel as the Maw or Great Journey or the last level from Halo 3, yet you realize you have to make a sacrifice.
All the fear and loss in the campaign boils down to the last 2 missions.
You take the gun and finally shoot down the carrier and the Autumn takes off, a sign of hope, much like the longsword flying away in Halo 1, the dreadnought heading towards Earth in Halo 2, the Dawn drifting in space or Shadow of Intent departing for Sangheilios in Halo 3, the phantom flying off in ODST, Spirit of Fire in Halo Wars 1 and 2, or even Chief on the infinity at the end of Halo 4.
Lone Wolf is another one of the best levels in Halo’s history.
Reach is gone, it has fallen, all hope is gone and death is guaranteed. Fear leaves you as you try to fight your best to survive, until your last breath at the point of an Energy Sword blade, something that failed to kill you in the 1st mission. Your damaged Helmet sits on a lost stronghold, an entire mountain glassed in 2 in the background, a reminder of the covenants power, but then a sweet sight, the future, the rehabilitation of reach. The effects of your sacrifice pay off right in front of you, with the awesome dialogue from Halsey, and the intro to Halo Combat Evolved shown at the ending to tease exactly how your sacrifice payed off.
Since the end of Bungie, we haven’t seen any campaign that made us feel these kind of feelings, and I think it’s great to recognize what made the older halos Halo. Maybe they tried with the Prometheans to convey some of these feelings, but they don’t hit me in the same way. The only time I can think of where Prometheans really kind of scared me was the outro to the level Composer, and after that I wasn’t really scared at all. Even New Phoenix being fired at was like, “Damn”, you didn’t really feel much then because you don’t see New Phoenix WHILE it’s being composed, you see it AFTER. Halo 5 just failed miserably, Evacuation was the closest it came to making me feel something, and that was ruined by Sloan and Osiris and the lack of actually SEEING the destruction happening. The difference between being shot at by the AWOL Marine in Halo 1-or listening to the Marine with PTSD on Uplift reserve in Halo 3 ODST and in Floodgate on Halo 3, or the suicidal marine in Halo Reach-and hearing the woman over the intercomm abandoned at Meridian Station shows how 343 has lost sight of the Halo’s ideals.
I agree with alot of what you say. The problem with ODST for me was the fact that we already knew Earth was safe because of Halo 3. We knew the result of New Mombassa already and despite the atmosphere, I think the lack of civilians/major engagements between the ODST’s/UNSC vs the Covenant made it feel a little less desperate. If they had a scene near the beginning of the game with the Second Covenant Fleet arriving to resume the Battle of Earth and if we got to hear the Home Fleet’s COMMS and desperation, I think the game would have had a different feeling to me. Definitely agree with you about the Hive, hands down the best level in the game but also the most difficult on Legendary.
Reach as a full game had the time to be fleshed out a bit more but it still suffered from ‘we know Reach will fall’, like ODST and New Mombassa. Though Reach did have some real good desperation moments - The end of LNOS with the Covenant Fleet arriving and the aftermath of Kat’s death, as well as the intro to New Alexandria were all moments where I actually felt sad for the characters and the situation they were in. Still would have liked to have had more than a brief one sentence cameo for the Spartan II’s but that’s another story.
The trilogy had the desperation though. We knew Humanity was hopelessly outgunned in space but could fight on the ground so the Covenant always had that feeling of being overwhelming, unlike in Halo 4 and 5 where we have Spartan’s everywhere to the point the Covenant feel like nothing. Halo 2 and 3 we did not know if Earth would make it or if it did, how badly damaged Earth would be, which characters would live etc. There was a sense that we had to do something, we had to stop the Covenant at any cost.
The Flood I only felt had a major impact in Halo CE and Halo 3. I’ve mentioned in other posts I think they were completely mishandled in Halo 2, right from their very introduction. They felt completely out of place throughout the game, regardless of how cool the Gravemind is. Otherwise, the Flood invasion of Earth could have used another level, perhaps showing a city falling whilst CE’s only issue was the Library but that’s an issue with level design more than anything.
Interesting post OP.