I know a lot of you are saying that they should not bring the Covenant back, and that you want a new enemy, but I disagree with this. Halo has always been about fighting the Covenant and the humans’ struggle to win the war. Having some strange “new enemy” will be different enough already, but if we don’t see the UNSC or Covenant at all, this will not even feel like a Halo game.
Imagine a Halo game without such trademark things like the Ghost, or the Banshee, or any of the Covenant weapons. Wouldn’t multiplayer suck without the plasma pistol, or the energy sword? Fighting the Covenant is part of what makes Halo what it is, and changing that will only screw up the feel of the game. Bungie had it down perfectly with the Covenant as an enemy, as each race played a different role and allowed variety in combat and required you to constantly change tactics (you know that “oh Yoink!” feeling when you run across a Hunter pair or Zealot).
With Halo 4 I want a game that “feels Halo”, not some new sci-fi shooter with nothing in common with the other games other than the fact that you play as Master Chief. I’m not sure what this “new enemy” is yet, but adding new races and enemies to Halo just seems wrong.
If Halo 4 is to have that classic Halo feel that all the players seem to want now, it must include the Covenant somehow. They don’t need to play a big role at all. They should play the same role as the Flood in other Halo games, or even the Sentinels.
> It’s a new trilogy. Have different enemies in it. It gets boring fighting the same thing over, and over again.
>
> The only enemies, or possible allies that should make a comeback are Sentinels becasue the Forerunners created them, and the Flood.
Well I hate to break it to you but any new enemies aren’t going to be much different than the Covenant other than how they look. How exactly has fighting the Covenant become “boring”? I never said they had to be the main enemy, just sort of a side enemy like the Sentinels from CE. I’m telling you, if they remove everything except for Master Chief from the previous trilogy, this game will NOT feel like Halo. TBH, I find the Forerunners boring. The Covenant and their technology fascinate me and I would love to see it make a comeback in Halo 4.
Forerunners and their creations look boring as hell. Can you imagine an entire Halo game looking like -Yoink!- Forge World? Including the enemies and guns? Ugh, that would be awful. It would be like the Library stretched out for 10 hours. At least the Covenant stuff is nice to look at.
I don’t want the Covenant in H4. Not yet.
It really is too soon, and too illogical to have them back as our enemies again.
Besides…whats left of Humanity against the new threat AND the ex-Covie races? No way…
Bring them back later on. Elites could be our allies, or enemies. Prophets could join our enemy and give them details and info on us to get their revenge. As for the other races: Jackals probably don’t want to go back to doing stuff for any covenant, and Brutes are too busy killing each other.
First off, every Covenant weapon is based off Forerunner technology, so your point that the Covenant need to be there for their weapons is pointless. Second, you know the Covenant is pretty much no more, but this is a word that anyone could have landed on BEFORE Chief, so there is no telling who is there, there could be Covenant already there that have no idea the war is over. We know the UNSC will show up eventually. Seriously though, the Covenant story has been told, you can’t just keep re-doing the same thing over and over, it’s time to take a step forward and expand, in now way am I saying take out all the species that made up the Covenant, I’m just saying the Covenant is over with, it’s time to move on.
If 343 can’t make a Halo game without the covenant the franchise doesn’t have a future. Simple as that. Without the ability to make different creative decisions the product will not be able to evolve beyond it’s original form. Innovation will be left to a few compromised decisions and the best we can hope for is nostalgic fan service marred by bastardized gameplay which tries to inject something new but without the steps necessary to make it good. IE. More of Reach’s terrible same.
It can’t be “too soon” for the Covenant to re-appear. We have no idea when Chief comes out of cryo, it could be 5 years after H3 or 500. Geez, you people are acting like I said they should completely get rid of the new enemy altogether. I’m not saying that the Covenant should be the main enemy, i just want to see them make a comeback. They could even be your ally for all I care, it could just be the Elites.
To the guy who said the Covenant weapons are based on Forerunner ones, I meant more in form than function when I said I wanted Covie guns back. Sure, there might be Forerunner weapons with a similar function, but all the Forerunner weapons we have seen so far are gray and blocky, like different versions of the Sentinel laser. Plus, what about vehicles? Do we even know the “ancient enemy” is the Forerunners? Maybe 343 will pull some crap and bring a whole new species into Halo. I get that they need to be creative and make their own ideas but making Halo a shadow of its former self is not the right way to do that.
Ruining the formula that has worked for years is not being creative, there are plenty of ways they can handle H4 without eradicating the stuff from the original trilogy. I’m all for a new enemy, but I want to see the Covenant again as well.
I think there will be UNSC and Covenant both stranded on the planet just like the Chief will and they’ll still be fighting with each other because the war isn’t over. Then they’ll either get news that the war is over and unite to defeat the new enemy.
You guys are being a little close minded here, thinking that the entire game will take place on the mysterious planet. Maybe there are 2 campaigns a la Halo 2, with one following the conflict between the Elites which is first mentioned in Glasslands and another one following MC.
Maybe the new enemy won’t even be the Forerunners, who knows. All I know is that in my opinion if the Covenant and UNSC are not in H4 then it will not be a Halo game. I mean you guys say Reach sucked but at least that had the “core factions” of Halo.
How could you possibly know what the Forerunner weapons and vehicles will look like? I don’t know about anyone else, but I think they will look a lot better and interesting than that of the Covenant. We’ve been fighting them for 5-6+ games now, it’s time for a change.
I think there’s room to have a new enemy and the return of the Covenant.
Glasslands left a lot of questions unanswered. We know than Arbiter and a healthy chunk of the Sangheili are on our side, but we also know that there are Sangheili ready to kill us for double crossing them. Add to that the San’Shyuum, Kigyar, Unggoy, Lekgolo, Jiralhanae etc. That we know very little about and anything could be about to happen.
San’Shyuum will have new prophets who will no doubt be wanting to rebuild the Covenant. It will be underpowered and under-resourced compared to what we’re used to, but that’s probably a good thing and could make the game even more interesting.
We know that many former Covenant members still have a religious reverence for the Forerunners. I’d like to think that the Forerunners will return, see what the San’Shyuum have created in their absence and try and destroy whatever form the Covenant has taken on by the time Halo 4 begins. I expect the Forerunners will have an on/off relationship with the UNSC throughout the reclaimer trilogy switching between allies and enemies.
As for the Flood, I think they should stay away for a while, perhaps be mentioned as a threat but not seen. Then in a later game the Covenant can crash in on Forerunners trying to develop a cure for the Flood and end up releasing it.
> How could you possibly know what the Forerunner weapons and vehicles will look like? I don’t know about anyone else, but I think they will look a lot better and interesting than that of the Covenant. We’ve been fighting them for 5-6+ games now, it’s time for a change.
Forerunner weapons have been seen in Halo Origins and I think in the Anniversary Terminals (I may be getting the two confused) as well as the Sentinels and their weapons throughout the Halo games.
Their vehicles have been described in the Forerunner books, and though there’s no imagery they seem to have a similar aesthetic to their architecture. Grey/blue lots of straight lines and sharp angles - striking in design, but not as varied as the Covenant.
> > How could you possibly know what the Forerunner weapons and vehicles will look like? I don’t know about anyone else, but I think they will look a lot better and interesting than that of the Covenant. We’ve been fighting them for 5-6+ games now, it’s time for a change.
>
> Forerunner weapons have been seen in Halo Origins and I think in the Anniversary Terminals (I may be getting the two confused) as well as the Sentinels and their weapons throughout the Halo games.
>
> Their vehicles have been described in the Forerunner books, and though there’s no imagery they seem to have a similar aesthetic to their architecture. Grey/blue lots of straight lines and sharp angles - striking in design, but not as varied as the Covenant.
Sorry, but you can’t even begin to compare reading a description and seeing and using them in a game.
> It can’t be “too soon” for the Covenant to re-appear. We have no idea when Chief comes out of cryo, it could be 5 years after H3 or 500.
It’s too soon in real, not in the game, life.
We’ve fought the Covenant in 7 games now. 7!
And the last one in the chronological order had us make peace with the Elites. Now, we as more hardcore fans might understand the story etc better, but to your regular Joe (AKA: mainstream gamer, AKA: majority of the players) having to suddenly fight Covenant again, after making peace with them in H3 is confusing.
That’s not even talking about the series needing a new enemy to stay interesting. Halo can easily be Halo without any of its iconic elements. ODST was a great Halo, and it didn’t even feature Elites. ODST, Reach and Wars all didn’t feature Halos. All didn’t feature the Chief. Not every Halo featured Cortana, or the AR, or BR etc etc.
The Covenant (even if it’s no longer the Covenant) =/= Halo. Halo is the sum of its parts, and those parts can vary.
> > > How could you possibly know what the Forerunner weapons and vehicles will look like? I don’t know about anyone else, but I think they will look a lot better and interesting than that of the Covenant. We’ve been fighting them for 5-6+ games now, it’s time for a change.
> >
> > Forerunner weapons have been seen in Halo Origins and I think in the Anniversary Terminals (I may be getting the two confused) as well as the Sentinels and their weapons throughout the Halo games.
> >
> > Their vehicles have been described in the Forerunner books, and though there’s no imagery they seem to have a similar aesthetic to their architecture. Grey/blue lots of straight lines and sharp angles - striking in design, but not as varied as the Covenant.
>
> Sorry, but you can’t even begin to compare reading a description and seeing and using them in a game.
Look I understand what the OP is saying, I’m just adding that the war is over. You talk about the Covenant’s weapon, but we’ve taken Covie technology and incorporated into the UNSC, we’ve seen Forerunner weapons in Origins from 100,000 years ago. We have no idea what the future holds for them, and what they may have NOW. As for Forerunners being enemies, we have no idea, I’m more inclined to believe it’s the Precursors. I never said the whole game would take place on Sigma 7, we still have 6 other Halo rings we haven’t explored. I don’t think Halo 4 is going to cut the species that made up the Covenant out of the game completely, that would just be ignorant, but as for the COVENANT as a whole, unless we encounter factions that don’t know the war is over, or the Elites who still believe in the “Great Journey”.