the story of Reach (the game)

Community Halo Universe
1

Hello everyone,

I am making this thread while thinking about the story of Reach (the game, not the well written novel). I am a student in 3d animation and video game conception and I red the book before playing the game.

I am having a hard time right now to figure out why bungie narrated the story in a soo cheap way. I’m not saying they should have followed the whole book, but hey, when you have a nice story, why change it that way? I’m going to explain the major problems the story has, both in the writting and the presentation, as well as character devlopement.

Character:

Noble six:
When you want to explain your story, the message goes through the characters. It’s funny because they have maybe 15 line in the whole -Yoink- campaign, and they all seem like some failed one liners. Your character, noble 6, seems aware of all what’s going on, fine, but what about the new audience? I would find the plot even more confusing that it is if I wasn’t aware of the halo story. Here how this goes: Do this, press button, one-liner, 10 seconds cut-scene. For every mission. With barely some explanation between them.

Your team:

I was planning doind a paragraph for each character, but it seems that I could just resume all of it with only one. At the start of the game, you are clearly said you are not wanted in the team, well okay. Right at the start, you know they all represent a bunch of -Yoink- bags with enough cliché to fill a covenant flag-ship with their one liners. Jorge, the big sentimental guy, Jun, the sniper who doesn’t shut up, Carter, the guy with a broom stick stuck in his -Yoink-, emile, a guy so dangerous he only uses a -Yoink- shotgun to fire sniper range targets and Kate, the tough annoying -Yoink-. It wouldn’t be soo bad if you had to work and have to know them, but it seems their only goal is who’s gonna die next. What a lame squad. I prefer the company of marines.

The story:

Bungie said they wanted to depict the fall of reach within the eyes of a team of spartans. having red the book I told myself, well, they annouced some starship battles, and the covenant fleet is here, this has to be cool. NO. The covenant fleet? They showed us 10 ships warping form a -Yoink- camera, that’s all. Space battle? Yeah, attack a small cruiser guarded by a dozen of banshees and a couple of fighters. They don’t show us an invasion, they just say it. Even the epic battle with 50 warthogs and dozen of scorpion doesn’t take place. You just leave the battlefield to destroy three AA guns. I 'd like to remeber you that you are playing as a -Yoink- spartan, and you are sent to do the side missions and look at the battle from afar. Yeah, epic story telling trough the eyes of a squad of spartans; no need to show them what they are up agaisn’t.

While playing, I was always waiting for the game to start, “Oh maybe there, the covenant fleet approches!!!” Nope, we don’t show you great scale battles, no stakes are at risk since you know youre screwed from the start and you know cortana made it to the pillar of autumn, no major space battle between the Covies and UNSC, no whatsoever. You wander in a planet you already know is screwed and your missions objectives are utterly pointless.

Reach, at the beginning you know the end, and at the end you know it’s not worth told

2

I don’t understand what was hard to understand about the story of Halo Reach. Considering we have a 7 hour campaign on about 3 hours of that time to grow attached to the characters, I think Bungie did a good job.

Reach itself is amazing, full of a rich variety of cultures both futuristic yet reflective of modern, familiar cultures. We have strong hints of the history of Reach just through the environment.

Now, as for the large battles: As a single infantrymen, it’s hard to see the large picture. So even if you are taking part in a large-scale battle, you aren’t going to see the whole of that, you only see a limited picture. In addtion, most of the game takes place pre-full invasion.

Prior to the early morning of August 30, 2552, most of the UNSC and Reach were in the dark about the covenant invasion forces on Reach.

3

Halo Reach is an abomination that should’ve never existed unless it was faithful to the book. Which it was not. It’s a disgrace. A gigantic contradicting pile of horse -Yoink-.

Bungie gave everybody who truly loved and cared about the bigger picture in Halo the middle finger with Reach. Because they were lazy -Yoinks!- who couldn’t man up and have the balls to make a Halo game that is different, more story oriented and a true tragedy as it should’ve been.

Instead they went for the same lame standard faceless main character because they can’t be bothered to flesh out an actual character in the game. Run and Gun gameplay that doesn’t let up. Because if you changed that, it would alienate 90% of the average Joe Halo fans. And WE ALL KNOW YOU HAVE TO APPEAL TO THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR, or else you lose sales. And when you lose sales you lose money.

And it’s all about the money.

Sure a true masterpiece of interactive entertainment that followed one of the most heart and gut wrenching novels I have ever read would have been amazing. But that’s not as good as money. Lots of money.

So can I blame them from a business perspective? No.

But for everything else?
Hell yes.

To re iterate my statement. Halo Reach is a lazy, poorly planned abomination of an adaptation of “The Fall of Reach” full of plot holes, gaping errors in many areas including continuity.

I haven’t been able to enjoy anything about Halo since Bungie spilt my milk , pissed in it and then like a bully made me drink it off the dirty floor.

/rant.

I dont’ care if you disagree. Halo Reach may be Canon , now and forever. But that doesn’t mean I have to accept it or want to.

4

Had Bungie based the game off the book word for word the game wouldn’t have even lasted two hours. Out of 300+ pages only 60 actually covered the battle and it’s all mostly from space. Bungie was not lazy. If Bungie was lazy they would have just said “Retcon” and left it at that. Instead they chose to hire Eric Nylund to write Dr. Halsey’s Journal which connects the game and the book. Why hire the Book’s author to connect his book with the game if you’re lazy?

For the umpteenth time, here is my timeline which demonstrates how Halo Reach and The Fall of Reach connect…

Black = The Timeline
Orange = Halo Reach levels
Red = Halsey Personal Journal
Blue = Speculation based on available data

July 17th-18th:

  • Battle of Sigma Octanus IV
  • UNSC Iroquois compromised by Covenant Telemetry Probe

July 19th-23rd:

  • Sometime between these dates the UNSC Iroquois returns to Reach, unknowingly giving the Covenant the Planet’s location.

July 19th

  • Admiral Parangosky sends message to Admiral Stanforth about initiating Operation: RED FLAG.

July 24th:

  • Reach loses contact with outer colonies
  • Covenant forces encountered in Visegrád
  • Winter Contingency declared

(Reach - Winter Contingency)

(July 24th, 2552

“Meanwhile, receiving scattered data from the usual suspects concerning atmospheric anomalies along with radar and slipspace monitoring glitches. Compared these events to those recorded near Sigma Octanus. No match. Still, a series of coincidences usually aren’t coincidence.”)

July 26th:

  • A single Covenant Corvette assaults SWORD Base and is destroyed by MAC Round.
  • Dr. Halsey debriefs Noble Team on the events that occurred at Visegrad.

(Reach - Sword Base)

(“Even more intriguing are the others on this NOBLE Team. They are considerably younger than Jorge. The way these others move… they’re obviously augmented. Are they all Spartan-IIs? Or as I suspect from their inelegant personas, are they substandard versions of the Spartan-II? Perhaps from a parallel program (JAVELIN), or some next gen venture piggypacking on the last three decades of my work.”)

July 27th-August 10th:

  • No enemy activity detected
  • Captain Jacob Keyes chosen for RED FLAG
  • UNSC Pillar of Autumn chosen for RED FLAG

August 1st:

  • Admiral Stanforth returns to Epsilon Eridani with half his battle group and responds to Admiral Parangosky’s proposal. Reach may be used as sacrifice to Covenant only if Covenant have already discovered the Planet, which they had.

August 3rd:

  • Dr. Halsey splits Cortana into two fragments

(August 3rd, 2552

“I’ll copy most of her IEP translation routines to an independent module. Meanwhile, the incarnate Cortana will continue with John and Blue Team. Both operations are critical to the war effort. If Laszlo made a breakthrough, that data would aid Blue Team in enemy space. The severed data-mining portion of Cortana can then be reunited and she can update herself before Blue Team departs.”)

August 11th:

  • Covenant forces reappear in greater numbers
  • Recon teams deployed

(Reach - Nightfall)

August 12th:

  • Spartan IIs return to Reach
  • UNSC Army engages Covenant forces in Viery Territory

(Reach - Tip of the Spear)

August 14th:

  • UNSC Air Force destroys Covenant Supercarrier Long Night of Solace
  • Covenant reinforcements arrive

(Reach - Long Night of Solace)

5

August 23rd:

  • UNSC forces. including Noble Team, engage Covenant in New Alexandria

(Reach - Exodus / New Alexandria)

August 24th:

  • Dr. Halsey momentarily examines holographic image of a mysterious crystal found on Sigma Octanus.

(“Similarities to hypothesized navigational code in enemy transmissions are inconclusive. Possible IEP deconvolution? Is there a connection to these more 'standard stylized glyphs?”)

August 25th:

  • Cortana chooses John-117 as her Spartan for RED FLAG
  • Dr. Halsey requests Noble Team to meet her at SWORD Base

(Noble Team was ordered to Sword Base for a “Torch and burn op”, however Dr. Halsey informs them that that mission was just a “pretext” to bring them to her.)

August 26th:

  • Noble Team extracted from New Alexandria

August 27th:

  • Spartan IIs informed of RED FLAG
  • Cortana continues to learn and decipher the alien proto-culture language, code forms and technologies

(The Master Chief makes note that the training facility seemed “eerily silent” which of course could be because no one was there to train as they were busy engaging the enemy for real elsewhere on the Planet. He also makes note that security was much more tight with “three times the number of MPs patrolling”. This heightened security could be because the enemy is on Reach but not yet near those facilities.

“Cortana (parts of her anyway) continues to learn and decipher the alien protoculture language, code forms, and hopefully technologies. She’ll continue to update her separated portion until the very last possible moment.”)

August 29th:

  • Master Chief trains with his Cortana fragment
  • Dr. Halsey returns to SWORD Base
  • Noble Team returns to SWORD Base
  • Cortana chooses Noble Six as her escort

(Reach - The Package)

(Evidence suggests Halsey was able to return to SWORD Base on the 29th because she had a Military escort. Troopers were alive and “Committed to the position”, which was the entrance to Halsey’s lab. There were also “Others” who handled the demolition which means there was some other team working in unison with Noble. ODSTS? Other Spartans? This is unknown at this point but we do know they complete their mission as well as secure Halsey’s Journal. Halsey also says she “requires no escort” possibly because she already knew someone else was there to assist her. Jun is ordered to go with her anyways.)

August 30th:

  • The Pillar of Autumn receives word Reach is under attack (0400 hours)
  • Fermion station detects Covenant fleet inbound for Eridani system. (0447 Hours)
  • PoA lands and secures Cortana fragment from Noble Team
  • The Fleet of Particular Justice assaults Reach
  • Pillar of Autumn engages Covenant fleet.
  • Spartans deployed to Reach

(Reach - The Pillar of Autumn / Lone Wolf)

(August 30th, 2552

“The Covenant on Reach. NOT a scout party; they are here en masse. I’ve seen the reports of how ‘contained’ the situation is - military shorthand for ‘it’-Yoink!- the fan’.”)

(Cortana uses the knowledge gained from the Forerunner artifact under Sword Base to determine what the patterns on the Crystal mean. They are coordinates which lead them to Alpha Halo.)

September 19th:

  • The Pillar of Autumn arrives at Halo
6

> Halo Reach is an abomination that should’ve never existed unless it was faithful to the book. Which it was not. It’s a disgrace. A gigantic contradicting pile of horse Yoink!.

A lot of the book wouldn’t really be playable. Now if it was First Strike, that would be different.

> Bungie gave everybody who truly loved and cared about the bigger picture in Halo the middle finger with Reach.

Don’t try and speak for me please.

> Because they were lazy -Yoinks!- who couldn’t man up and have the balls to make a Halo game that is different, more story oriented and a true tragedy as it should’ve been.

Lots of opinions and hyperbole. I thought Reach had a pretty good story.

> Instead they went for the same lame standard faceless main character because they can’t be bothered to flesh out an actual character in the game.

A videogame isn’t like a book. A few hours isn’t really enough to characterize a character in a game. Can you really name a shooter with truly memorable and fully fleshed out characters?

> Run and Gun gameplay that doesn’t let up. Because if you changed that, it would alienate 90% of the average Joe Halo fans. And WE ALL KNOW YOU HAVE TO APPEAL TO THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR, or else you lose sales. And when you lose sales you lose money.

Halo is a shooter…that’s the point. I really think you have priorities mixed up here dude.

> Everything else.

Yeah, I’d be repeating myself a lot by responding to everything else. You seem unnaturally upset and take this way too seriously.

> I dont’ care if you disagree. Halo Reach may be Canon , now and forever. But that doesn’t mean I have to accept it or want to.

Well if you are discussing the story, you do have to accept it. Plugging your ears and saying “LALALALALALALA!” doesn’t make facts go away. If Reach makes you unable to appreciate anything Halo anymore, that’s pretty damn sad. I didn’t like the Star Wars prequels, yet I can still watch the old movies and read the books and comics just fine.

What’s your excuse?

7

> What’s your excuse?

It’s his opinion.

Nothing really else matters.

8

The book story is bad, the game story is bad.

Here is the only canonically acceptable account of the battle at reach: www.bungie.net/images/games/halo/about/xbox_manual.pdf

9

Sweet timeline Nihilus Shadow. I realy liked the reach campaign. The only thing that was missing for me was an apperance by Echo 419

10

> It’s his opinion.
>
>
> Nothing really else matters.

Except it’s a wrong opinion. I may not like Glasslands, yet I accept it as canon. You simply cannot say “I don’t accept it as canon”.

11

> The book story is bad, the game story is bad.
>
> Here is the only canonically acceptable account of the battle at reach: www.bungie.net/images/games/halo/about/xbox_manual.pdf

But that’s a simplified back-story. For example, “This was humankind’s first encounter with a group of aliens they eventually came to know as the Covenant, a collective of alien races united in their fanatical religious devotion.” Except that not all of the Covenant are religious, fanatically. Take the Jackals at the very least - essentially mercenaries. Or the Engineers, essentially bio-machines with little loyalty to speak of (though, the ones in the Forerunner slipspace singularity at Trevelyan who wouldn’t leave their post do demonstrate some loyalty). Even the Brutes are far less fanatical than the Elites or Prohpets. I don’t hear many people decrying the expansion of the lore in these regards.

Be honest - canon fanboys are just mad because their pet books didn’t get made into games. Of course, they’d be just as mad if they WERE, too, because SOMETHING would have to be cut or tweaked to make it a reasonably fun gaming experience for the other 99% of Bungie’s customers.

Bungie is a video game development COMPANY. Of course money is a part of the equation, else they wouldn’t be able to make anything at all for very long.

12

> Halo Reach is an abomination that should’ve never existed unless it was faithful to the book. Which it was not. It’s a disgrace. A gigantic contradicting pile of horse Yoink!.
>
> Bungie gave everybody who truly loved and cared about the bigger picture in Halo the middle finger with Reach. Because they were lazy -Yoinks!- who couldn’t man up and have the balls to make a Halo game that is different, more story oriented and a true tragedy as it should’ve been.
>
> Instead they went for the same lame standard faceless main character because they can’t be bothered to flesh out an actual character in the game. Run and Gun gameplay that doesn’t let up. Because if you changed that, it would alienate 90% of the average Joe Halo fans. And WE ALL KNOW YOU HAVE TO APPEAL TO THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR, or else you lose sales. And when you lose sales you lose money.
>
> And it’s all about the money.
>
> Sure a true masterpiece of interactive entertainment that followed one of the most heart and gut wrenching novels I have ever read would have been amazing. But that’s not as good as money. Lots of money.
>
> So can I blame them from a business perspective? No.
>
> But for everything else?
> Hell yes.
>
>
> To re iterate my statement. Halo Reach is a lazy, poorly planned abomination of an adaptation of “The Fall of Reach” full of plot holes, gaping errors in many areas including continuity.
>
> I haven’t been able to enjoy anything about Halo since Bungie spilt my milk , pissed in it and then like a bully made me drink it off the dirty floor.
>
>
>
> /rant.
>
> I dont’ care if you disagree. Halo Reach may be Canon , now and forever. But that doesn’t mean I have to accept it or want to.

Just one thing, it retconned things and every time that happens in any series then there will be plot holes and gaping errors.

13

To be honest I liked the story of Reach. Remember the game wasn’t about NOBLE team it was about Reach and it’s fall.

I felt Bungie did a great job with the SPARTANS. To me a Spartan isn’t supposed to be social or friendly (with the exception of Kurt) as Karen Travis describes them more as awkward.

I looked at the deeper meaning of some actions and saw alot of depth. I could go into detail but, i’m a bit tired so maybe later.

I did however see a post on the Bungie Universe forums that explained this rather well.
(deceptioncobra might know what i’m talking about.)

14

Halo reach was nothing like the books because the books were not playable. How could you make a shooter out of of it? There was very little shooting. They flew banshee’s while dodging enemy fire, killed 2 jackal’s in the beginning, fought some hunters for a few seconds before running away, and stole wraith tanks to wreak havoc for a minute. There wasnt much more combat other than that… Ill agree only on reach failed to give the epic moments it seemed to be leading up to. The giant battle shouldve been giant and almost all vehicle based, and there should have been some kind of massive space battle involving MAC platforms, at least in cinematic since i doubt you could actively do that in the game.

15

> Halo reach was nothing like the books because the books were not playable. How could you make a shooter out of of it? There was very little shooting. They flew banshee’s while dodging enemy fire, killed 2 jackal’s in the beginning, fought some hunters for a few seconds before running away, and stole wraith tanks to wreak havoc for a minute. There wasnt much more combat other than that… Ill agree only on reach failed to give the epic moments it seemed to be leading up to. The giant battle shouldve been giant and almost all vehicle based, and there should have been some kind of massive space battle involving MAC platforms, at least in cinematic since i doubt you could actively do that in the game.

I’m sure if Bungie could they would’ve done that, but I’m pretty sure all that exceeds the Xbox 360’s capabilities but I digress. I’m sure a cinematic would’ve been fine but many people skip those. I feel a large battle that Halo gamers dream of will not be possible till next gen.

16

> Be honest - canon fanboys are just mad because their pet books didn’t get made into games.

Yet i get flak for being “rude”.

I think i am upset about the crap with Halsey knowing something was important about the sigma crystal and them planning that trip which destroys everything about them winning the war by mere chance. Don’t even get me started about a brick flying and being unscathed when it should be bare bones.

17

Halo: The Fall of Reach was outdated long before Reach was even announced. The fact is that Halo: Reach is superior canon. The games have always been the highest level of canon (even Halo Wars), and new content (in most cases, such as this one) is of superior canonicity to old content. Case in point, anywhere in which a discrepancy between the game and the book may exist, what is portrayed in Halo: Reach is what’s canon. END. OF. STORY.

People seem to be incredibly narrow-minded and ignorant when it comes to Halo: Reach. I’m not sure who suddenly got the absurd idea that the books are of higher canon than the games, but they were dead wrong, as like I said, the games are and always have been above everything else in terms of canon, aside from gameplay balancing. Additionally, Halo: Reach was never intended to be a re-telling of TFoR. It tells an entirely different story that simply happens to be centered around the same event. It is also worth noting that TFoR has far more canonical discrepancies than does Halo: Reach. It did not at the time of the book’s release, simply because at that point in time there wasn’t any precedent canon material to compare it with. But years later, even before the announcement of Reach, TFoR no longer fit in with Halo canon. We know that Elites have been encountered by humans (in large amounts, in fact) well before the Fall of Reach in 2552. Roughly the same applies for Hunters. Do you really think that for around 26 years the UNSC has been getting their -Yoinks!- handed to them by Grunts and Jackals?? By that logic, if the UNSC were to then be suddenly faced with new, superior foes like Elites or Hunters, the UNSC would have no chance at defeating the Covenant whatsoever. Also, how could Reach have fallen in only one day? Reach is the center of Human military power, and regardless of the size of the fleet that attacked Reach, if the Covenant couldn’t take Harvest, a tiny outer colony at the fringes of Human space, after five -Yoink- years, how in the hell could Reach, which has MAC Platforms, immense amounts of resources, multiple fleets containing some of the best ships and personnel in the UNSC protecting it, and at the time almost all of the surviving Class I SPARTAN-IIs, fall in ONE. -Yoinking!-. DAY. That just wouldn’t happen. Plus, we also know that a lot more than just 33 Class I SPARTAN-IIs survived the augmentation procedures. While Reach still has many small errors, they are far more easily explained away than many of TFoR’s issues. Don’t get me wrong, TFoR is one of the best books I’ve ever read, but it simply no longer fits with the rest of Halo canon.

Finally, in terms of the issues with the scale of the battles portrayed in the game, this is something that I simply just don’t get. First off, NOBLE Team is obviously a highly specialized unit, one that clearly shouldn’t be participating directly in large battles, where they really wouldn’t make much of a difference, and their skills would be largely wasted in such a situation. Secondly, Prior to Exodus, the Covenant hadn’t even began their invasion, they were just preparing for it by stealthily setting up fortifications on a sparsely populated area of the planet’s surface, the Viery Territory, using advanced cloaking tech to conceal the relatively small Fleet of Valiant Prudence. Lastly, I personally found the battles later on in the game to be quite large in scale.

In summary, Halo: Reach provided a much needed retcon of Halo: The Fall of Reach, and was if anything a saving grace for Halo canon, and most definitely NOT a middle finger to long-time fans of the franchise.

18

> In summary, Halo: Reach provided a much needed retcon of Halo: The Fall of Reach, and was if anything a saving grace for Halo canon, and most definitely NOT a middle finger to long-time fans of the franchise.

The Fall of Reach was outdated but Halo Reach is not a retcon. They released a reprinting of the novel which removes most of the errors such as Elites only being speculation, Hunters first being encountered at Sigma Octanus and Humans not having Artificial Gravity. They did the same thing for the reprint of First Strike where they remove the part where they had never heard of a Brute until then.

19

> > In summary, Halo: Reach provided a much needed retcon of Halo: The Fall of Reach, and was if anything a saving grace for Halo canon, and most definitely NOT a middle finger to long-time fans of the franchise.
>
> The Fall of Reach was outdated but Halo Reach is not a retcon. They released a reprinting of the novel which removes most of the errors such as Elites only being speculation, Hunters first being encountered at Sigma Octanus and Humans not having Artificial Gravity. They did the same thing for the reprint of First Strike where they remove the part where they had never heard of a Brute until then.

They still left some errors, and also created a bunch of new ones, making the re-release possibly worse than the original version IMO.

20

Unlike Halo 3, Reach doesn’t continuously shove Anti-Air Wraiths or Scarabs in your face in every -Yoink- mission to make it seem more cinematic or impressive. Just take a look in the background, and you will see how large scale the battle for Reach’s survival actually is.

For example, on Tip of the Spear while destroying the AA guns, you can see a battle raging over not just one, but three other Spires. Now you get the feeling that even though you may succeed with YOUR mission, it’ll mean diddly squat if those Army soldiers can’t get it done themselves.

Another example is during New Alexandria. Off in the distance, you can barely make out the shape of a Covenant Cruiser just hanging above ominously. Suddenly, your entire screen shakes uncontrollable. What’s that? A second Cruiser soars right above you, shaking you so hard that you think you might end up crashing your Falcon into the Club. Then, the second cruiser joins the first, you see a bright red light, and then it happens.

You witness the glassing first hand. How many people were on that side of Alexandria? How many were evacuated? How many were trapped and simply could not escape the Covenant’s energy projector? You don’t know, but at this time, you are certain that you need to hurry with your mission and get out of the doomed city with your team before you suffer the same fate as New Alexandria.