Luckily I think them having JS as head of creative will keep the games simple and be the primary aspect of the story going forward. I also think he is a big reason the story stops where it does. If I had to guess, Infinite’s storyline was likely way more convoluted prior to them cutting 2/3rds of the game. With him in charge of the next installment (and because Halo 2 was my favorite title), I have a ton of faith that it will be amazing
Also just as a side note to you, @total_war1402@Sodium_Bath ngl, I’ve enjoyed reading your theory’s and info you’ve all brought up here. if you haven’t already seen it, I’d recommend checking out the videos in this playlist-
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhHjTkohIJ3-3M0bxvwWjZhqvP-L5tQuj
I Don’t think it’s all correct but I found it super interesting
What makes you think the created weren’t poorly received? I thought that was pretty universal feedback after Halo 5.
Sure, the UNSC, Banished, and Forerunners can be told apart. But I find that in Infinite, the grey metal look gets pretty tiring, and all three factions have it. The Banished towers etc. are pretty heavily overlapping with the industrial design of the UNSC. With the damage to the Halo, the forerunner stuff doesn’t look all that different from damaged human ships.
The humans/forerunners thing was actually still unclear. 343 literally says “You ARE forerunner” to chief. I think Joe Staten wanted that storyline, and Frank didn’t. I’m with Joe on it.
As for the idea that Halo 4 was “actually really good…” I’m sorry, I mean no offense, but Halo 4 was laughably bad in my opinion. From the very beginning, the game just didn’t flow. Cortana was like… moving around holographic stuff on a control panel? Very weird to include that visual when she’s an AI, she doesn’t actually need her little avatar to touch little buttons. The didact was a pretty silly bad guy, the game ruined the mystery of the forerunners, the Spartan-IVs were all laughably cavalier and unprofessional. I’ll admit though, it isn’t as bad as 5. I replay Halo Reach and 3 once a month or so still, and play 1+2 at least once a year. Halo 4 I generally don’t play, but I can still make it through if I try. Halo 5? I honestly can’t get more than 30 seconds into gameplay before turning it off, it’s so cringey and aesthetically dissonant with the rest of the franchise.
The negative feedback I recall was specifically directed at “why is Cortana suddenly bad,” and “the Warden Eternal is a horrible boss to fight again and again,” not against the Created as a faction themselves.
I guess that’s a perception thing of your own. The Banished are a predominantly Brute faction, who are cruder than the Covenant before. They favour naked metal, reds, and blades, and have refitted Covenant tech they’ve taken to match their style. It does make sense from a story perspective.
The Forerunner stuff looks very classic Forerunner, taken right out of Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 3, but with significantly more detail added.
I didn’t find it unclear at all, as you didn’t complete the line. It’s “Your are Forerunner; inheritors of all that they left behind.” Humanity was confirmed Forerunner’s inheritors through 343 Guilty Spark’s proclamations and through the Terminals (Mendicant Bias), this was a Bungie change when they did seem to be building to humanity actually being Forerunners in the past two games. I would have preferred that, and it’s one of the many plot changes of Halo 3 that I was not keen on. Halo 3’s Campaign, story-wise, is one of the weakest in the series, to be honest.
Frank O’Connor isn’t relevant here, he was a community manager (or similar role) in Bungie at the time and did not have decision making authority.
No offense taken . You’re more than welcome to your opinion, and I’m sure you’re just as surprised that I’ve said Halo 3 is weak (and it is for so very many reasons).
As I’ve also said in another post, I don’t think there’s a bad Halo Campaign in the franchise, each and everyone is really good, fun to play, and has an enjoyable story, but of course some are better than others.
For Halo 4, it felt good to play. It’s the first game in the franchise to actually add Sprint as a base feature, something people wanted for Halo 2 and onward. John is an actual character as opposed to an “avatar” for the player and the character moments between him and Cortana are extremely strong. I’m never a fan of the long-dead-benevolant-creator-race-not-actually-being-long-dead-and-they-turn-out-to-be-great-big-jerks, which the Ur-Didact is, though that aside, he was a good antagonist and character. I believe him being defeated (and then killed in a comic) was a mistake and he would have made a solid main antagonist throughout the modern trilogy.
For me, my list of best to lesser Campaigns based on both Story and Gameplay are:
Halo 2: Anniversary
Halo 4
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
Halo Infinite
Halo 3: ODST
Halo: Reach
Halo 5: Guardians
Halo 3
Halo 4: Spartan Ops
I’ve left out the Halo Wars titles, though both are excellent, and the top-down shooters, of which I’ve only played Halo: Spartan Strike (and I did not enjoy it).
Huh, I thought Frank wrote the terminals in HAlo 3, which leaned towards Humans and Forerunners being separate. The 343 line seemed pretty clear to me, inheritors of all that they left behind simply meant that it was because Humans and Forerunners were the same species that the humans would inherit all of the infrastructure left behind by the forerunners. In the terminals though, I believe the Librarian refers to humans as a separate species.
I’m not disagreeing that the banished aesthetic makes sense from a story perspective, I’m simply saying that visually, the art style worked best when it included the covenant, as human, covenant, and dormant forerunner stuff were so distinct. In Infinite it just doesn’t feel like the art styles of the three factions are very distinct.
You’re certainly right about sprint, in my opinion. Sprint and clamber are so key to me, but then again, so are assassinations. Very sad those were cut for infinite. I love the combat flow in Reach with sprinting and assassinating.
I think Halo 2 has grown on me recently, I still personally get a bit bored playing as the Arbiter, because I lean so heavily towards human weapons, but the plot was pretty wild. If Halo 3 stumbles a bit in the writing (Keyes’ ‘To War’ line comes to mind,) it makes up for it with absolutely brilliant cutscenes.
Mostly with Halo 4, I just don’t find Chief to be a very compelling character. He was intentionally one-dimensional in the original games. I have a hard time getting onboard with the general aesthetic of the game. It also just felt poorly written to me, and cheesy. “Chief, wake up, I need you,” just didn’t hit it for me. Then the covenant kind of just appear again and it just minimizes the impact of Halo 3. I’ve never been so sure what people saw in it. I noticed you mentioned mostly gameplay reasons, and the relationship between chief and cortana. What else did you dig about Halo 4? Campaign-wise, what made it better than Reach or Halo 3 to you?
Really like your responses, very well said and thought out :).
I want to say he did as well, but he did not have decision making authority, nor did he get to write the story. Either he had to write the terminals to relay the story from the writing team or he had to submit his terminals for approval, and then make changes/adjustments to what the writing team wanted.
It did mean a different species here. Note the use of “they” and not “you.” Spark is very clearly referencing two parties here, and the Terminals re-enforce this.
I see what you mean, fair enough. It doesn’t bother me personally but I get where you’re coming from.
I very much miss assassinations as well.
Very cool. I’m curious, what was your first Halo game, and what platform did you play it on? For me, it was the Halo: Combat Evolved PC demo in 2003.
For Thel Vadam, once you’re on levels where there are human weapons, I often switch since you spend a lot of time fighting Flood in said levels, and UNSC weapons tend to be more effective there. Having said that, the Covenant Carbine is a fantastic weapon in the game and on High Charity as John-117, it’s my go-to.
Interesting note about Halo 2 and it’s plot: it’s unfinished. Bungie messed up hugely in developing Halo 2, and had to scrap years of work and start from scratch. They essentially developed the game in about a year.
The game had a false advertising Campaign about the war for Earth, which ended up getting pushed to Halo 3, and the last few levels planned for the game were completely cut, giving us the cliffhanger ending that was heavily criticized. Many people were also very unhappy about playing as Thel, and wanted to only play as John, whom you spend less than half the game playing as and who’s story is overall not that important to the game (cut out John’s missions and the impact is minimal on the core narrative). Bungie declared the game was “Thel’s story” years later.
Ironically, many of the criticisms leveled at Halo 2 are the same that fans today hate on Halo 5: Guardians for.
It stumbles heavily in the writing. Thel was an extremely compelling character in Halo 2, but Bungie listened to the angry fans of Halo 2 and put John front and centre for the whole game, relegating the Arbiter to a bumbling sidekick role. The entire Covenant Schism plotline that was the focus of the last game and the best story the franchise has seen to date was shoved aside.
Miranda and Truth are different characters completely with vastly different personalities, John and Thel’s quick alliance with the Gravemind was horribly handled, the first half of the game was supposed to be the end of Halo 2 and actually serves no real narrative purpose in the game (cut out those levels and start the game on the Ark and there’s not major impact to the key narrative of the game!). I can go on, but if you’re interested, you can find very well written articles via a Google Search that go into lengthy detail about why Halo 3 is an insanely weak story.
Oh, let’s not forget the shoehorned in deaths of Johnson and Miranda.
For cutscenes, I have to disagree. Halo 3 was heavily criticized for it’s visuals, called an “original Xbox game with HDR lighting everywhere.” While that criticism was a little too harsh, the game did not look good for a 2007 next-gen title, and has not aged well graphically at all. John looked good, but everyone else looks really bad. In the intro, that close up of Johnson’s face, I actually cringed when I first played that game at that scene.
Fair enough, though I disagree with his character. Under 343 Industries, he actually has one and is far more human. For the aesthetic, I do not like his redesigned armour either, but I don’t mind the changes to the “Storm” Covenant as they were mostly irregulars and colonists, not proper ex-Covenant military. They’re gear was not top-of-the-line like the actual Covenant had. Atriox was recruiting and contracting most of the real ex-Covenant military, thus the reason they retained the classic aesthetic (and why they look better/cooler).
Fair enough, though that line is a clear play on nostalgia since it has been 5 years since we’ve seen the characters (2007-2012).
Not at all, that’s actually another Story weakness of Halo 3. You don’t destroy the entire Covenant in that game. This was a galaxy spanning empire that was thousands of years old, and Truth only took about a dozen ships to the Ark with him, and even says in-game that many were left behind.
There are splinter factions left all across the milky way, and with their empire collapsed and their leadership gone, ambitious individuals, are in a power struggle to control what resources and such remain. In Halo 4, this is what we see: Jul M’Dama’s Covenant (originally called the “Storm Covenant” at launch, but that got changed). They are a different Covenant than what we saw in the original trilogy.
Overall, I find it simply felt fantastic to play. In addition to Sprinting by default, I felt Armour Abilities were implemented better than ever before. One of my big frustrations about the Bungie games was movement. Sprinting addressed part of this, but Thrust, introduced in Halo 4, was huge. I can actually dodge now! And bait the AI in more interesting ways. It was great. The amount of times Halo: Reach has frustrated me do to the lack of any kind of dodge mechanic… 343 Industries is leaps and bounds ahead of Bungie in terms of character movement.
For Halo 3, I was underwhelmed by that Campaign as I’m sure you’re gathering. It’s not bad, but it’s nothing to write home about either. The story and characters are not good, the gameplay is nothing special and doesn’t change things up/improve things over Halo 2, it’s stiff and clunky with situational-use Equipment.
Halo: Reach, story wise, retconned 9 years of established canon needlessly, so that was a very sore point. Noble Team was uninteresting with characters that were archtypes as opposed to actual characters. The game also felt stiff and clunky, though at least it had Sprint in some fashion and Armour Abilities were so much better and useful than Equipment. The enemy AI was great though, the best of the classic games, and was mostly fun to fight (with some frustration due to the game’s clunky feel).
Interestingly, on my list, I used to have Halo: Reach and Halo 4 more or less reversed in my order of preference. With “The Master Chief Collection” though and the shift to 60 FPS, the feel and clunkiness of the games became so very apparent it was a night and day change.
Again, having said all that, I don’t hate Halo 3 or Halo: Reach at all, I do love all the Halo games. Halo 4 does feel better than those two though gameplay-wise, and brings about some much needed innovation that Bungie didn’t do or didn’t do well. The narrative was very consistent, developed John and Cortana in a light that has not been done before, and had some very nice emotional cords to it.
Hopefully all the above makes sense to you, even if you disagree.
First game for me was the xbox CE demo (silent cartographer) in a gamestop in the mall with my cousin, sometime around release. I was only 6 lol. Then I would always play it at that cousin’s house every chance i got.
I do actually love the carbine and all, and playing as Arby has grown on me, but I think I have a deep hate for the covenant ingrained in me that always pushes me towards the human weapons and vehicles.
I’m curious to know more about what the original plan was for Halo 2. I wonder what those last levels would have been. I feel like a remake of the series could condense all three games into one, and make it more seamless. Would the game have ended with the portal opening? That could have been awesome, would actually be a pretty good cliffhanger.
I was so starstruck by Halo 3 when it came out (I was not quite 13, and absolutely obsessed,) so I don’t think I judged the chief/arbiter relationship quite as hard. You know how if you love something as a kid you have a soft spot for it?
I kinda like the juxtaposition between 2 and 3, where you play as them separately in Halo 2, then arby becomes your co-op buddy in Halo 3… that said, I see what you mean about the schism being sidelined, I wish Rtas and Thel were bigger characters in 3. I think it would also work better if they were able to someday reintegrate the cut stuff from 3, particularly the “Guardian Forest” mission (if you haven’t, check it out on halopedia!) TL:DR - it included activating a massive sentinel from the ark and it helping the elites take out the brute fleet (made a lot of sense, since brutes are dumb, but 3:1 odds with equal ships and against prophets as well as brutes seems pretty insurmountable to me.) At the end of that cutscene I think the elite’s fleet was supposed to be decimated with only Rtas and the Shadow of Intent surviving.
I’m not sure how to phrase it, but when I said the cutscenes were good I meant moreso that they were all beautiful images and well framed (and great music,) rather than that the graphics were that good. You could make a beautiful poster from a lot of moments in that game. Would love to see it brought up to modern graphical standards while remaining that image composition.
As for Halo 4, while I’d agree that 343 did well with Chief’s character in Infinite (really well, in fact,) he just felt too forced and cliche for me in 4 and 5. I did like the covenant in 4, and there were admittedly lots of good aspects to it.
You’re right about the war not ending with Halo 3 (certainly not in 343’s lore,) but it still feels like there was a lot of significance in the covenant being broken, without the hierarchs, Earth was no longer under immediate threat.
I’m totally agreed on sprinting! Not quite as sure I liked thrust. As a mechanic, I do think dodging makes lots of sense, but the “jump jet” style to it and the later development of movement mechanics in Halo 5 felt a bit too action/fantasy to me rather than military science fiction. I think that subtler and with different sounds (more percussive and transient,) it would maybe work better for me. I also liked the implementation in Infinite better (because as a limited thing it was less constant.)
Generally I think the one thing I still like about the old movement mechanics is the emphasis on tactics over running and jumping skills. I think that both are great, and I do prefer Infinite’s movement over all, but slower movement for me harkened back to the first books, which emphasized the Spartan’s tactical skills. I think Infinite struck a decent balance where both are valuable (and players can choose to be more jumpy and bashy or more stealthy or more long distance.)
Very interesting, as they are just a completely fictitious faction, after all. Then again I have a deep hate of Night Elves from Warcraft and the Barbarian class from Diablo, so I do know what you mean.
Just before the launch of Halo Infinite, Staten did an interview (with IGN maybe…) where he finally gave a bit more light on this. It’s been about a year since I watched that interview, but I believe he said something along the lines of there were two additional levels that were cut from game’s end, where John and Thel would have fought their way through a part of Africa to the portal, which would have opened at the end. The game being Thel’s story, he would have learned a life lesson regarding blind duty and leadership. Something like that, you’d need to find the interview and watch it to confirm if I’m remembering correctly.
Basically it was the first 4 levels of Halo 3 in condensed form and more focused on Thel than John.
Ah. I was already in my later 20’s and rather let down by the game. Again it wasn’t a bad game, but it was a huge downgrade from the previous 2 titles in terms of story telling and Campaign gameplay. The Multiplayer was the best the franchise had seen to that point though.
Yes! Nostalgia is a huge, huge thing and you’ll find that more and more the older you get.
Ah, I didn’t know about this one. That would have been cool! I would love to see the full and proper “Cortana” level restored as well. While people like to dump on 343 Industries, the truth is, key Bungie Halo titles had development challenges as well, and I find nostalgia and rose coloured glasses as opposed to actual objective reasoning are why Bungie gets a pass for making the same mistakes 343 Industries does.
I suspect shot composition is the term you’re looking for. And yes, the game featured very well composed shots for it’s cutscenes; very cinematic.
He’s excellent in Halo Infinite, agreed.
Fair enough. Keep in mind though, in Halo 3, Bungie made canon John’s defining characteristic. He’s done all he’s done and survived all he has not because of his training and skill, which simply doesn’t account for him continually defying the odds. He’s successfully done all of this because of, wait for it: luck. That’s about as cliche as it gets to me.
At least in Halo 4, you learn he’s actually done everything he’s done, and even simply exists, because of the Librarian’s plan. And while said plan is also cliche and cheesy, it’s better than “luck” being such a truly defining character trait.
Correct, and that didn’t change until Cortana and the Created. In fact, humanity not only enjoyed a brief respite but also greatly advanced their tech to become a power as opposed to an underdog.
Very cool. I didn’t play Halo 5: Guardians until 2020, as I didn’t own an Xbox One until late 2019. I wasn’t too keen on the Ground Pound, but having Sprint and Thrust standard I felt was fantastic.
An interesting observation and well said. I always find it tricky going from DOOM Eternal to any Halo shooter, for example, because the mentality of the gameplay is so vastly different. In the former, you want to be in your enemies face. In the later, that’s typically death.
Especially hearing what you said about the original vision for Halo 2, I would love to see 343 revisit that era someday soon. With some careful planning and integration with canon, they could make a new story with some interesting new characters and new plot threads starting somewhere in the late war (the 2540s are very canon-bare,) then thread those into remakes of the games. I would love to see a game that includes the good parts of Reach while also being more respectful of Eric Nylund’s canon, or to see Halo: CE but with newer movement mechanics (and maybe some short open world bits?)
I think that by choosing to remake that era of the story, they could really fix up a lot of old cringey things and themes and draw together a more cohesive narrative. There could be some moments with Thel in Halo CE, etc.
I would also someday love to see an open world (mass effect style-ish) 3rd person RPG set in Halo. Of course with Infinite one of my issues was that it was a stretch for someone like Chief to just be on his own and somehow there are zero officers on the ring and he’s just doing whatever he thinks is next. So the only plot i’ve come up with that could work well would be a game with a tutorial/prologue section where you play as an ODST recruit in a gritty, massive key battle from the human-covenant war (Harvest? Arcadia?) and you then get recruited as an ONI operative (hence the freedom of the open world,) and have some mission to take out a prophet or Xytan 'Jar Wattinree or something. You could upgrade armor sets etc. and go from marine BDUs to ODST armor to SPI or something. Then late in the game you get pulled into the S-III or S-IV program and become a spartan (the augmentations would be part of your character progression choices,) and you get mjolnir for the first time. Would be a great opportunity to integrate lots of great old canon, and to show off the world, while still making new stories and characters.
For Halo Infinite and it’s open world though, keep in mind Laskey is the ranking office and he’s MIA, and every other officer appears to be dead. When you begin playing, John is operating under the assumption that only he and the pilot are the only UNSC survivors left.
While that changes, of course, everyone left seems to be basic grunts, so in short he generally is in command.
Keep in mind in the games, John has always done his own thing while being respectful to the chain of command. While this is more evident in 343 Industries games, it happened in Bungie’s games as well. i.e. when he was going after the Index and planned to fire Alpha Halo to stop the Flood. No orders came to him for that, and he and Cortana ultimately did their own thing after that proved to be a bad plan.
if you haven’t already seen it, I’d recommend checking out the videos in this playlist-
. You’re more than welcome to your opinion, and I’m sure you’re just as surprised that I’ve said Halo 3 is weak (and it is for so very many reasons).