Do you think Spartan Ops would function better if instead of 5 separate firefight type missions, we had 1 single flowing mission in one location?
One thing that bugged me about Spartan Ops was returning to locations that I had already fought in previously.
Not because it was a cheap and lazy move by 343, apart from Halo 4, every halo game has had at least 2 missions set in the same location.
I was because it didn’t make sense to the story.
The first chapter of the first episode takes place in the Quarry. But then in episode 3, it just so happens that Parg Vol has decided to set up his little UNSC collection there.
I mean, did we not leave any troops in the area to guard the location when Crimson left the first time? And if we didn’t, presumably because the location is of no benefit to the UNSC, why did we both obtaining it in the first place?
It was also present, at least during the first half of season 1, that there was really only 1 chapter that related to the cinematic. For instance finding the artefact at the Cauldron in episode 1 or searching for Thorne on the Quarry in episode 5.
This sort of thing happens several times over the season.
The exception to the rule is when you clear out an area in one chapter, only to get reinforcements in the following chapter, like Shootout In Valhalla.
Or such as the case of episode 10 where you move through the locations and then back to the original location, which I though worked very well as the missions had a flow to them, the same with episode 7 on Infinity.
So this got me thinking, what if each episode was set in a single location and the 5 chapters melded in to 1.
For instance, the only really meaningful event from episode 1 was Crimson obtaining the artefact at the Cauldron. What if the entire episode was set on the Cauldron level, beginning somewhere outside the facility, working you way in and finally to the artefact at the end. The mission would be about the length of The Storm from Halo 3.
The Refuge and it’s jungle structure had quite the 343 Guilty Spark feel to it, especially on your first visit. 343 could have used the missing Gargarin team as a launching point for a mission searching the corridors of the structure for the missing science team, much like the mission form Halo CE.
I know that Spartan Ops are supposed to be an evolution of Firefight, but they fell more like half hearted campaign missions that didn’t have enough content to warrant a full mission.
I think that if 343 did a season 2 with Halo 5, it would benefit from being a 10 part unfolding side campaign, rather than Firefight with story slapped on it, especially if they brought Firefight back for 5.