Hey all, I wrote this post a while ago and posted it on the Halo Universe forums. Lately I’ve seen a lot of people hacking on Guardians with no real reason, and I wanted to repost this to hopefully give an answer to anyone who wants to know. If you already saw this the first time sorry in advance.
Throughout history, many stories have been told through the Hero’s Journey, a structure that shows us the tale of someone who becomes something greater than they thought they could be. Examples including: Iron Man, Lord of the Rings, Spiderman, etc. These stories show the deep inner-journey of transformation a hero goes through (Joseph Campbell). There are 12 stages of the Hero’s Journey: The Ordinary World, Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Meeting the Mentor, Crossing the Threshold, Tests Allies Enemies, Approach to the Inmost Cave, The Ordeal, Reward, The Road Back, The Resurrection, Return with the Elixir. Every single one of these steps are necessary in building a story about a character we can empathize with and want to root for. I bring this up because I believe this is why Halo 5’s campaign was lackluster, to say the least.
It didn’t follow this. The structure of playing two characters was too much for 343i to handle and they weren’t able to fit this narrative in. Now in contrast, Halo 2 had two characters that each follow the Hero’s Journey. That’s why it’s so good. Especially in the Arbiter’s story. Going back to Halo 5, we don’t see that. Locke just shows up gun-ho ready to take down Chief. We don’t see his motivations, his trials and tribulations. All we see is a robot that can’t think for himself. And Chief, while only having little screen time, actually sorta follows this. His Ordinary World is being with Blue Team on a mission, his Call to Adventure is seeing the vision of Cortana, his Refusal of the Call is him not believing what he saw and wanting to protect Blue Team, Meeting the Mentor isn’t really shown but he does converse with Blue Team and they tell him they trust him, which is enough for Chief to Cross the Threshold. His Tests Allies and Enemies are shown with Fireteam Osiris pursuing him, his unraveling of Cortana’s mysterious message, and the bigger plan she has. His Approach to the Inmost Cave is arriving on Genesis and realizing that there’s a chance Cortana isn’t the same person she was. The Ordeal is when Chief finds out his biggest fears are true and Cortana is crazy hell-bent on the having the Mantle of Responsibility, and also realizing that she is no longer his friend. And really Chief story ends there. After being rescued by Osiris and reunited with Halsey and Thel’, there really isn’t a reward or payoff, which is probably why the ending left a sour taste.
I’m talking about this so people can realize how not following a structure to a story can ruin it, and more specifically why Halo 5 was such a flop. 343i tried to do their own thing with Halo so much that they abandoned what OG Bungie used to make their games so great, The Hero’s Journey. The beauty of The Hero’s Journey is that you can make anyone a hero through it. 343i, I trust that Halo Infinite will be great and that you’ve learned from your mistakes, and realizing that Halo is a story about heroes who become something greater.If you got this far, thank you for taking the time to read. I have a big passion for Halo and storytelling so talking about the two was really fun. Please leave your thoughts below and I’ll respond, probably.