I love halo 5. I think it’s the best halo we have gotten since 3. The campaign (in terms of gameplay) was really well done and I found myself actively exploring everywhere for the skulls, intels and the hidden weapon stashes. The multiplayer is back to the good old balanced start formula and forge looks to be the best in the series.
But the most disappointing aspect of halo 5 to me, was without a doubt the story. Now that I look back though, the story was falsely advertised to us so many times it’s not funny. I’m going to be going down a list of all the things in terms of story that were either falsely advertised or not in the game. I’m not trying to be hateful and/or spiteful. I’m just trying to constructively show what was not in the game in terms of story and is a huge disappointment.
1) Master chief never kills or goes anywhere near a single civilian: Remember in the tv ads how the narrator said “we created the master chief. So we are responsible when he kills civilians.” And it shows him running around in a city full of destruction with citizens screaming and people dying? Well that never happenes in game. Chief never even goes near a -Yoink!- marine in this game. Let alone a civilian. Not even rumors get spread around about it amongst the UNSC. Nothing happens for anyone to suggest he kills civilians.
now that I think about it though, I do remember seeing the same ad on YouTube yesterday except they replaced “we are responsible when he kills civilians” to “we are responsible when he goes awol.” I think 343 released this and changed the ad.
2) Master chief doesn’t Die: Remeber how for the last month until the game released, we saw an ad saying the master chief is dead and we got a website where everyone can post “R.I.P master chief?” Well, that also never happens bringing up the question of why this was brought up in the last month of halo 5’s release. (They can’t have cut this out last minute because the game had already gone gold)
the closest we get to this is cortanna attempting to take chief away with her and force him to sleep for 1,000 years until she has finished her plan but chief escapes in the end anyway.3) There is no real conflict or battle between Osiris and Blue team, Let alone Locke or chief shooting each other: Aside from that one cutscene where Locke and chief punch each other a few times there isn’t really any battle or conflict between chief and Locke. Hell after that cutscene, that plot line takes a back seat to the guardians plot line. Remember the live action ads that showed Locke or chief about to kill the each other in a smoking ruins of a battlefeild next to a crashed UNSC Ship (possibly infinity)? Not only doesn’t that happen but they neve shoot each other once in the whole game.
4) Chief going awol actually isn’t as big of a deal as they made it out to be: During the whole buildup to halo 5, chief was always called a “traitor” or “Rouge” making it out to be he betrays the UNSC in some way. He doesn’t really do anything that big of a deal. All he did was disobey orders to save humanity. Yes, not following orders is a serious offense in real life but they made it out to be he murders civilians (which I also mentioned to not happen). So it seems like the UNSC is overreacting to the extreme when they purposely send someone to attack and capture him.
5) The whole “ONI being shady -Yoinks!-” plot line never happens: Hunt The Truth was supposed to show us how shady, dodgy, and edgy ONI is, while hunt the truth did a good job with that was really good, that plot line is never explored. The only mention we even get of oni is the arbiter saying “ONI has come out from the shadows” to Locke and that’s it. This seems such a waste as hunt the truth was supposed to be lead up to halo 5 and it just makes hunt the truth seem pointless that that plot line is never explored.
6) All the Spartan ops build up and ending is made pointless: So after all the build up of Halsey wanting revenge on the UNSC and the character build up with Jul Madama in Spartan ops, it just gets tossed aside. Jul dies in a cutscene in mission 1 by Locke and Halsey just goes back to infinity and forgets about her revenge. So much for all of that.
All of this false advertising made the halo 5 story look like something it wasn’t. And while I like the idea of cortanna being evil now (yeah, I said it.come at me bro) and the last 3 missions in terms of story where actually getting good, it still could have been way better than it was. And that’s what’s the most disappointing of halo 5 to me.