Will start off by saying I’m in the military. RAA, Royal Australian Artillery and 8 years counting.
So when I play through Halo 5 campaign and see Spartans wearing red and other non tactical colours it confuses me.
After reading the books, The Fall of Reach, The Flood and First Strike their armour colour was olive green. Why are there Spartans running around with rediculous non tactical armour colours in the story mode???
Is this turning into a superhero kiddy universe now instead of the serious tone from the early games…
Warden boss fights and Prometheans. Felt like half a Transformers game. Has changed a lot and not for the best.
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> Is this a superhero kiddy universe now…
https://youtu.be/Y5ve5MDfBRs?t=171.
I will give you the bit about the Warden. Didn’t care for him. But in all seriousness, I don’t think there’s anything subtle about a 7 foot, 1,000lbs Spartan, so the color isn’t going to make much of a difference. Lore wise, they were all in the same armor and color early on. In one of the early books (Fall of Reach?) it mentions how Captain Keyes can only tell which Spartan is which by their mannerisms. So as you can imagine in the games, it’s really just there to differentiate between the characters. Armor variants and colors. It would get a bit confusing if everyone had the same Mark V or VI in Sage green. And I don’t mean multiplayer, we can suspend out disbelief there. I mean in games like Reach & Halo 4 & 5 where there are multiple Spartans running around campaign.
… although now that I think about it, Halo Wars (both games) did a good job of it with all the Spartans looking the same. So I don’t know.
A red coloured Spartan running around in the story mode of Halo 5 makes no sense. Halo: Reach it was player preference and not lore.
It just appears as if 343 are not taking the universe of Halo or the lore serious anymore. They need to look at our world militaries and tactics. So some believeability can be instilled to make the atmosphere of Halo 6 immersive and not silly like Halo 5. Even Halo 4 was much better. The Wardens shooting EMP orbs. Like what the hell. Felt like I was playing against a Dragon Ballz character.
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> A red coloured Spartan running around in the story mode of Halo 5 makes no sense. Halo: Reach it was player preference and not lore.
I was referring to Kat & Carter’s blue in Reach. Or is blue an okay color to wear? I genuinely don’t know. I know it used to be. So did red. But I don’t think much about the Red Coats was tactical, what with the tricorn hats & muskets. lol.
Anyway, as far as Vale goes, I just call her Spartan Metroid and leave it at that. I’m kinda hoping, considering much of the feedback lately (negative about Halo 5 and positive about Halo 2 Anniversary & Halo Wars 2), that we’ll be seeing a more traditional artstyle in the next game. Perhaps she’s red because she’s simply a linguist. She specializes in Sangheili. That’s it. And we already know the UNSC has translators. Cortana could easily do that. So the reason she’s bright red is that if there’s a Jackal Sniper around, she’ll be a giant target and not the other three who aren’t running around with nothing but a Plasma Pistol and an SMG.
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> > 2533274925473364;3:
> > A red coloured Spartan running around in the story mode of Halo 5 makes no sense. Halo: Reach it was player preference and not lore.
>
> I was referring to Kat & Carter’s blue in Reach. Or is blue an okay color to wear? I genuinely don’t know. I know it used to be. So did red. But I don’t think much about the Red Coats was tactical, what with the tricorn hats & muskets. lol.
>
> Anyway, as far as Vale goes, I just call her Spartan Metroid and leave it at that. I’m kinda hoping, considering much of the feedback lately (negative about Halo 5 and positive about Halo 2 Anniversary & Halo Wars 2), that we’ll be seeing a more traditional artstyle in the next game. Perhaps she’s red because she’s simply a linguist. She specializes in Sangheili. That’s it. And we already know the UNSC has translators. Cortana could easily do that. So the reason she’s bright red is that if there’s a Jackal Sniper around, she’ll be a giant target and not the other three who aren’t running around with nothing but a Plasma Pistol and an SMG.
Military is all about ‘uniformity’. All soldiers are supposed to look uniform and high rank or more valuable personnel are supposed to be indistinguishable from the other soldiers on the battlefield so the enemy do not know who to take out to hurt your capability more.
The UNSC is supposed to be a futuristic US military. Atleast that is the impression I got from Halo lore and the earlier games. Red dress attire is not a tactical colour. Red lensed torches are.
Blue multicam can also be considered tactical. If on a ship on the ocean…And that is ‘multicam’.
Having your linguist stand out to the enemy is a tactically wrong decsion. That person gets taken out and you lose a linguist. Valuable asset gone.
Between the ungainly and cumbersome twin-tubed monstrosity that is the M41 and the overengineered monster that is the M808, honestly, realism is one of the last things I’m looking for in a Halo game.
The main reason for Halo 5’s campaign armors being so colorful is for character differentiation. Halo 5’s armor already tends to blend together and look really samey. If we had two fireteams with over-designed armor sets where most of the detail is washed out by other tiny details in the same exact colorscheme, more casual players would likely be even more easily confused by the campaign than they previously would have been by the ludicrous and horribly executed story.
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> Between the ungainly and cumbersome twin-tubed monstrosity that is the M41 and the overengineered monster that is the M808, honestly, realism is one of the last things I’m looking for in a Halo game.
>
> The main reason for Halo 5’s campaign armors being so colorful is for character differentiation. Halo 5’s armor already tends to blend together and look really samey. If we had two fireteams with over-designed armor sets where most of the detail is washed out by other tiny details in the same exact colorscheme, more casual players would likely be even more easily confused by the campaign than they previously would have been by the ludicrous and horribly executed story.
The story was definitely horrible. That’s for sure. I just think if they are going to have marines and ODSTs be uniform in colour and tactical it makes sense for the Spartans to also follow the policy.
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> > 2535437652903765;6:
> > Between the ungainly and cumbersome twin-tubed monstrosity that is the M41 and the overengineered monster that is the M808, honestly, realism is one of the last things I’m looking for in a Halo game.
> >
> > The main reason for Halo 5’s campaign armors being so colorful is for character differentiation. Halo 5’s armor already tends to blend together and look really samey. If we had two fireteams with over-designed armor sets where most of the detail is washed out by other tiny details in the same exact colorscheme, more casual players would likely be even more easily confused by the campaign than they previously would have been by the ludicrous and horribly executed story.
>
> The story was definitely horrible. That’s for sure. I just think if they are going to have marines and ODSTs be uniform in colour and tactical it makes sense for the Spartans to also follow the policy.
It definitely makes sense from an in-universe perspective.
It’s just that differentiating Spartans using armor color is one of the easiest ways to go about it, which is especially important given that Spartans are more prominently featured throughout the Halo franchise than normal infantry.
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> > 2533274925473364;7:
> > > 2535437652903765;6:
> > > Between the ungainly and cumbersome twin-tubed monstrosity that is the M41 and the overengineered monster that is the M808, honestly, realism is one of the last things I’m looking for in a Halo game.
> > >
> > > The main reason for Halo 5’s campaign armors being so colorful is for character differentiation. Halo 5’s armor already tends to blend together and look really samey. If we had two fireteams with over-designed armor sets where most of the detail is washed out by other tiny details in the same exact colorscheme, more casual players would likely be even more easily confused by the campaign than they previously would have been by the ludicrous and horribly executed story.
> >
> > The story was definitely horrible. That’s for sure. I just think if they are going to have marines and ODSTs be uniform in colour and tactical it makes sense for the Spartans to also follow the policy.
>
> It definitely makes sense from an in-universe perspective.
> It’s just that differentiating Spartans using armor color is one of the easiest ways to go about it, which is especially important given that Spartans are more prominently featured throughout the Halo franchise than normal infantry.
Well we know Linda uses the sniper. That helped 
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> > 2533274925473364;1:
> > Is this a superhero kiddy universe now…
>
> https://youtu.be/Y5ve5MDfBRs?t=171.
>
> I will give you the bit about the Warden. Didn’t care for him. But in all seriousness, I don’t think there’s anything subtle about a 7 foot, 1,000lbs Spartan, so the color isn’t going to make much of a difference. Lore wise, they were all in the same armor and color early on. In one of the early books (Fall of Reach?) it mentions how Captain Keyes can only tell which Spartan is which by their mannerisms. So as you can imagine in the games, it’s really just there to differentiate between the characters. Armor variants and colors. It would get a bit confusing if everyone had the same Mark V or VI in Sage green. And I don’t mean multiplayer, we can suspend out disbelief there. I mean in games like Reach & Halo 4 & 5 where there are multiple Spartans running around campaign.
>
> … although now that I think about it, Halo Wars (both games) did a good job of it with all the Spartans looking the same. So I don’t know.
The last bolded bit, relying on bright colours to differentiate characters shows weak writing and storytelling. As you said, Halo Wars does it great.
OP is right, regardless of weight of spartans having bright colours does not help at all. It does not matter how “not subtle” you are, you still want to make yourself less of a target.
IMO, my personal way of doing it would have been have osiris all have the same greyish/black colour that Locke/Buck have, keep the different armour but have slightly different undersuit colours-that dont stand out but enough to differentiate in gameplay (like Lockes blue). Same with blue team, sage green and black undersuits, not need for colours though as their armour is very different to each other. Same with osiris, but the undersuit colour is to echo Lockes.
Hope that makes sense, as when I think about it in my head, it makes the team appear far more cohesive and believable.
Simple, the game is a joke. Not sure what you meant by “a superhero kiddy universe”
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> Simple, the game is a joke. Not sure what you meant by “a superhero kiddy universe”
Okay. I agree with it is a joke.
This was an interesting thread to read through.
