The Issues with Halo 5's CAMPAIGN

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

THIS IS NOT A HATE TOPIC / POST - IT’S PORPOSE IS TO BRING ATTENTION TO WHERE THE CAMPAIGN WENT WRONG & HOW TO PREVENT THAT FROM HAPPNING IN FUTURE HALO GAMES. - All the presented material in this post is mainly brought to life by the youtuber “the act man” (his videos are linked)
~ My reason for writing this is because Halo holds a very special part in my heart and has been a big part of my life. I want to see the Halo games prosper and be viewed as I view them (and still does) as EPIC games with incredible journeys and amazing story telling which just leaves you wanting more. ~

Now this topic serves to bring focus on what the issues are with the Campaign of Halo 5 (note the Campaign, not the rest of the game). If you like Halo 5 story and the way it was executed that’s fine, but the VAST majority thinks it is a direct slap in the face. Perhaps it was not intentional by 343 but it happened, now this here serves to prove a sorta “Overview” of what is wrong / what went wrong.

As mentioned above (in italic) This information / material in these posts are brought to “life” / together by “The act man” and his videos series called "Why is Halo 5’s Campaign SO BAD!?". The series is split into 5 parts each video being roughly 20 minutes long. I will present the links to all five videos below as well as make a quick summarise of the points made through out the videos & make present, the focus of each video more in depth as well (for those who wish to read it or just simply have it on text).

Links to the videos :
Why is Halo 5’s Campaign SO BAD !? (Part 1)
Why is Halo 5’s Campaign SO BAD !? (Part 2)
Why is Halo 5’s Campaign SO BAD !? (Part 3)
Why is Halo 5’s Campaign SO BAD !? (Part 4)
Why is Halo 5’s Campaign SO BAD !? (Part 5)

Quick Summarisation of the points made in the videos (on why Halo 5’s Campaign was so bad) :

• The misleading ad campaign that painted a truly epic picture but failed to be in the actual game
• The apparent connection of the campaign with loads of expanded lore material, which alienated the general audience
• Intro cinematics that ruined the pacing and started things of at the wrong foot
• The action scenes that were wasted potential, which acted as a distraction and added nothing to the actual story
• The pointless characters that was shoehorned in to satisfy game mechanics or act as fan service
• Terrible dialogue that consisted of too much exposition
• Poorly written + devolved characters that behave noting like previously
• The lack of connection with the previous games, while simultaneously dropped everything from Halo 4
• The absence of a true protagonist and antagonist, attempts to tell a more complex story that jumps outside the fiction telling norms but a failure to execute this
properly
• A complete disregard for the fundamental basics of fiction writing : Chekhov’s gun, show don’t tell
• Plot points with little to no explanation
• Failure to make the player care or connect to the setting, story and characters.
• A large chunk of terribly voice acted audio logs
• A missing campaign theatre, time trails, leaderboards and campaign scoring (which we eventually got, so good job on this)
• Enemies and villains that we don’t understand or care about
– Very Big ones below –
• An unclear Tone that players can’t feel or connect with
• Vast amounts of filler and a bunch of ideas don’t work together to form a complete “puzzle”
• The misleading ad campaign that painted a truly epic picture but failed to be in the actual game and no explanation from developers on why it never made i

These above points are basically what Halo 5 failed to do properly or if at all.

Now below will be a more in depth focus on each individual video and what they express / what their focus points are. Of course I cannot include every single thing stated in the video (that would take WAY to long to write) but I will try and do the videos justice BUT honestly go watch the videos, they are bound to do the job 100 times better than I can write :slight_smile:

Along with these videos “the act man” (the creator of the videos) gives his own take at were 343 went wrong with this campaign and how (potentially) they could / or can fix it in future Halo games.

> I will add the more in depth details of each video over the following days, since they take some time to write down and set up

2

Why Halo 5’s Campaign is SO BAD !? (Part 1)
• The marketing and how it completely deceived the entire Halo fanbase
All these trailer that came WAY before Halo 5’s release, generally hyped up the game and they did a really good job at telling us that an truly EPIC story was about to be. The marketing portrayed a story which would have A newer Team of spartans (Team Osiris) hunting a group of rouge Spartan II’s (Blue Team), which have previously only been in the comics and book, but now brought out and reconnected with The master Chief. Chief vs Locke and a epic showdown between perhaps right and wrong / emotion vs duty.
The marketing portrayed a picture of EPIC change within the Halo universe, Chief dealing with his humanity after Cortana’s death in Halo 4 and more. But unfortunately the scenes in the marketing reflected next to nothing of what actually ended up in the game. Instead what actually ended up in the final game was a total mess and did not resemble any of the marketing material at all.
As we know now though, somewhere in Halo 5’s development someone made the call to completely change the concept / build of the original game. This is so unfortunate because what has now been revealed as what should have been the game looks SO MUCH BETTER and actually really interesting (If you want the full story go watch “Late night Halo”s videos about the topic)

  • The Writers & game expect you (the audience) to know all of the expanded loreThis really is one of the big things that alienates a vast MAJORITY of the audience from understanding the game and the “story” it is trying to tell. This expanded lore is not just the Hunt the truth podcast series, no there is WAY more. Here is a list of what you NEED to know in order to understand Halo 5’s story :

Halo Escalation - A comic book series
Halo New blood - A novel
Fall of Reach - Animated series
Master Chief Collection - A game
Hunter / Hunted - A trailer
Halo last light - A novel
Hunt the Truth - Podcast series
Halo nightfall - TV action series
Hunters in the dark - Novel

To rely this heavily on Expanded lore for players to understand your game is absolutely nuts, and to make matters worse you have to PAY for this lore aka you have to pay to fully understand the game you initially wanted to play and have a good time with. The thing is, the expanded lore in itself is not bad, matter of the fact is that it is actually great that Halo (as a universe) can generate this much expanded lore and STILL have plenty that is left untouched just waiting. But it is not
good that all of it is needed to understand a main game.

  • The opening cinematicAs awesome as the cutscene with Fireteam Osiris jumping into the battle is, it makes no sense, here is why. We get the information about there being attack on colonies but no footage is shown of these attacks which would have established the villains, builds the drama, and show what they are capable of / what is at stake. We get told people are dying and there is massive destruction, trying to establish some emotion but we are never shown anything - This is where the “Show don’t tell” point comes in. Then we get information about Dr. Halsey and that she holds information about the attacks, plus she is on the elite planet (which we know nothing about) and she is being held captive by an elite called Jul 'Mdama (Who, unless you’ve played Halo 4, know nothing about).
    Fireteam Osirs get’s the mission briefing even though we don’t know who they are yet and we don’t know why they are on the pelican. Characters now spew useless exposition which has no place in a cutscene such as this one (one that is meant to establish the setting of the entire game). After this Osiris is jumping out of the pelican down into a huge battle between two armies who are not yet established who is, along with that it was supposed to be “behind enemy lines” and yet, huge battle with spartans risiking their lives (vale jumping into the phantom) for no reason, expect to look cool (which yeah it does). However Halo 5’s Campaign fails at it’s very first cutscene. Where the other Halo games used their opening cinematic to establish Characters, setting, motivations, plot and usually left all the action scenes to the actual gameplay (now this is not to say we cant have action cutscenes). In the very first Cutscene in halo 5 nothing of the mentioned above is established.

Why Halo 5’s Campaign is SO BAD !? (Part 2)
• Mission 1 : Osiris
Now we are in a war, between to armies, who we know nothing about and we don’t get any clarification of what is a stake. throughout this level we get exposition which is easy to forget about and then we are get another cutscene, here Osiris finds Dr. Halsey and will attempt to rescue her from the elite we yet know nothing about. During the first part of the cutscene (before the shooting starts) Halsey and Jul ‘Mdama are talking about a bunch of stuff that makes no sense to us (keep in mind we still have no explanation of what is going on and why they are there), their dialogue is about chasing shadows and Halsey not being in the right spot to get any useful information or make any progress in whatever she is searching for.
Instead of the dialogue we got, more attention should have been focused on explaining the situation around us, why is there a war, why is the covenant here and who are they fighting and so on.
Cutscene of the Mission Osiris + More fightscenes that make no effort in establishing anything + bad fight choreography (this is ture throughout the game)
Fights are a good way to make use of intersting choreography to establish a persons abilities and also a good moment to make further advancements in characters. Where this fightscene fails is the emotional connection that would make us care about the characters fighting. Yeah sure Jul ‘Mdama is fighting to defend himself and not to loose the valuable scientist Halsey, and Osiris is fighting simply because they were ordered to do so (in order to get Halsey back). But we don’t have that emotional connection.

In addition, This is supposed to be the Covenant SUPREME commander and yet he only has three guards with him + There is a phantom floating next to them but when the fight breaks out, it’s simply gone. Additionally (again) one of the elites has his gun pointed at locke but dosen’t fire at him also Jul’Mdama is killed off in this scene, the supreme commander of an entire army is killed off within the first 30 minutes of the game. In the end, the reason why all of these cutscenes fall short is because of no connection between the characters and bad fight choreography.
Possible Improvements that could have been made in this cutscene to make not only it but the entire game better / more interesting are :

  1. Have Jul ‘Mdama survive the encounter and become a rival to Osiris
  2. Flesh out the conflict between the Jul’Mdama/Covenant & Osiris/UNSC
  3. Better fight choreography

------- MORE TO COME -----

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I feel that he exaggerates a lot. No halo 5’s story wasn’t that good, but he makes it seem like it shouldn’t even be considered a story. I agree with a lot, but I also disagree with a lot.

4

So basically what you’re doing here is repeating the opinion of some Youtuber? I mean, you could just say it’s your opinion, if that’s what it is. Props for the detailed summary, though. Most people just post links and say “everyone watch this”.

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> 2533274904158628;4:
> So basically what you’re doing here is repeating the opinion of some Youtuber? I mean, you could just say it’s your opinion, if that’s what it is. Props for the detailed summary, though. Most people just post links and say “everyone watch this”.

Yes and No. I am writing down what he said because i generally believe that the points he makes are generally what Is wrong / missing from Halo 5.

Also these points are good to have on text for future reference and for people who like to read them instead of watching several 20 minute long videos.

> 2535455681930574;3:
> I feel that he exaggerates a lot. No halo 5’s story wasn’t that good, but he makes it seem like it shouldn’t even be considered a story. I agree with a lot, but I also disagree with a lot.

The degree of expression / exaggeration may depend on the viewer, but ultimately the foundations of his content are based on actual issues / factual things that are missing / wrong with the campaign. And most, if addressed (even individually) would improve upon the experience / story of Halo 5’s Campaign.

Again a lot is also his personal opinion but as I mentioned in the response to Nate, then “i generally believe that the points he makes are generally what Is wrong / missing from Halo 5.”

6

> 2533274843127097;5:
> Also these points are good to have on text for future reference and for people who like to read them instead of watching several 20 minute long videos.

Yeah, that’s why I’m giving you props…if you’d like me to post a more meaningful contribution to the discussion, then I will say Jul Mdama could have totally been a boss fight

7

> 2533274904158628;6:
> > 2533274843127097;5:
> > Also these points are good to have on text for future reference and for people who like to read them instead of watching several 20 minute long videos.
>
>
> Yeah, that’s why I’m giving you props…if you’d like me to post a more meaningful contribution to the discussion, then I will say Jul Mdama could have totally been a boss fight

I know, no thanks needed, but thanks. As to Jul 'Mdama being a boss fight, Heck yeah would have made the “boss” system a bit more vibrant, like in Halo 2

8

I think an issue for me is that the Team Osiris missions don’t really advance the plot in any way while the Blue Team missions do but there isn’t enough of those missions.

9

> 2533274843127097;1:
> THIS IS NOT A HATE TOPIC / POST - IT’S PORPOSE IS TO BRING ATTENTION TO WHERE THE CAMPAIGN WENT WRONG & HOW TO PREVENT THAT FROM HAPPNING IN FUTURE HALO GAMES. - All the presented material in this post is mainly brought to life by the youtuber “the act man” (his videos are linked)
> ~ My reason for writing this is because Halo holds a very special part in my heart and has been a big part of my life. I want to see the Halo games prosper and be viewed as I view them (and still does) as EPIC games with incredible journeys and amazing story telling which just leaves you wanting more. ~
>
> ------
> Now this topic serves to bring focus on what the issues are with the Campaign of Halo 5 (note the Campaign, not the rest of the game). If you like Halo 5 story and the way it was executed that’s fine, but the VAST majority thinks it is a direct slap in the face. Perhaps it was not intentional by 343 but it happened, now this here serves to prove a sorta “Overview” of what is wrong / what went wrong.
>
> As mentioned above (in italic) This information / material in these posts are brought to “life” / together by “The act man” and his videos series called "Why is Halo 5’s Campaign SO BAD!?". The series is split into 5 parts each video being roughly 20 minutes long. I will present the links to all five videos below as well as make a quick summarise of the points made through out the videos & make present, the focus of each video more in depth as well (for those who wish to read it or just simply have it on text).
>
> Links to the videos :
> Why is Halo 5’s Campaign SO BAD !? (Part 1)
> Why is Halo 5’s Campaign SO BAD !? (Part 2)
> Why is Halo 5’s Campaign SO BAD !? (Part 3)
> Why is Halo 5’s Campaign SO BAD !? (Part 4)
> Why is Halo 5’s Campaign SO BAD !? (Part 5)
>
> Quick Summarisation of the points made in the videos (on why Halo 5’s Campaign was so bad) :
>
> • The misleading ad campaign that painted a truly epic picture but failed to be in the actual game
> • The apparent connection of the campaign with loads of expanded lore material, which alienated the general audience
> • Intro cinematics that ruined the pacing and started things of at the wrong foot
> • The action scenes that were wasted potential, which acted as a distraction and added nothing to the actual story
> • The pointless characters that was shoehorned in to satisfy game mechanics or act as fan service
> • Terrible dialogue that consisted of too much exposition
> • Poorly written + devolved characters that behave noting like previously
> • The lack of connection with the previous games, while simultaneously dropped everything from Halo 4
> • The absence of a true protagonist and antagonist, attempts to tell a more complex story that jumps outside the fiction telling norms but a failure to execute this
> properly
> • A complete disregard for the fundamental basics of fiction writing : Chekhov’s gun, show don’t tell
> • Plot points with little to no explanation
> • Failure to make the player care or connect to the setting, story and characters.
> • A large chunk of terribly voice acted audio logs
> • A missing campaign theatre, time trails, leaderboards and campaign scoring (which we eventually got, so good job on this)
> • Enemies and villains that we don’t understand or care about
> – Very Big ones below –
> • An unclear Tone that players can’t feel or connect with
> • Vast amounts of filler and a bunch of ideas don’t work together to form a complete “puzzle”
> • The misleading ad campaign that painted a truly epic picture but failed to be in the actual game and no explanation from developers on why it never made i
>
> These above points are basically what Halo 5 failed to do properly or if at all.
>
> Now below will be a more in depth focus on each individual video and what they express / what their focus points are. Of course I cannot include every single thing stated in the video (that would take WAY to long to write) but I will try and do the videos justice BUT honestly go watch the videos, they are bound to do the job 100 times better than I can write :slight_smile:
> Along with these videos “the act man” (the creator of the videos) gives his own take at were 343 went wrong with this campaign and how (potentially) they could / or can fix it in future Halo games.
>
>
>
>
> > I will add the more in depth details of each video over the following days, since they take some time to write down and set up

Act Man is a legend!!! His points are all rational and mature, his editing skills are insane, his ideas are first rate and he is just bloody funny!!!

10

> TRITONK175 Wrote:
> Act Man is a legend!!! His points are all rational and mature, his editing skills are insane, his ideas are first rate and he is just bloody funny!!!

Hey man Im glad you like his videos and agree with the points he is making. But next time could you not quote the entire post I posted ? (It fills A LOT of the page)