There will be covies. Period.

Games Other Halo
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My thesis on enemies as part of gameplay and story in Halo 4.
TL,DL: Why you can expect covenant races in Halo 4.

First of all I want to address the statement from 343; “No purple” -Obviously this refers to the series primary enemy faction: The Covenant. (Read: No “The Covenant” in Halo 4).
This does not mean we wont see any of the individual species that belong to (or have belonged to) said faction.
In other words, it is the faction, and not the perpetrators, that has crumbled and perished. The various kinds of alien races found in the covenant, still flourish on their homeworlds and have their respective motifs / conflicts. -Except for the prophets, who are now in danger of extinction.
There will be alliances, and you can bet your sorry behind that there will be wars.
-And thats just story-wise…

The second (and probably the biggest) reason why 343 industries cant take away these various types of enemies, is because of Gameplay.
In 2012, all eyes will turn to 343 industries, who have taken the huge responsibility of forwarding the legacy of halo. They will seek the approval of the community, and they better not screw it up. So although they will make changes and add features, the product they deliver must be a reflection of the previous installments.
If you take away the chicken in a chicken-salad, it is not a chicken-salad anymore!

Halo has been a groundbreaking series since day one. It is the flagship of the Xbox consoles and it has made videogame-history by defining and reinventing the first person shooter genre for a decade.
You just don´t screw with that.

The gameplay of the campaign part of the Halo series, has always had a unique feel to it. In other, simpler shooters, you see one type of enemy, and two-three types of weapons, but halo puts all that to shame.
The Halo series offers several different types of antagonists, and a multitude of very different tools you can use to defeat them, in a semi-open-world environment. This creates what game-developers refer to as a “sandbox”, allowing the player to choose different paths, strategies and techniques. The Halo gameplay-formula also generates what we call “replay-value” because you can play the game multiple times and still experience something new.
Essentially this formula is a giant “rock-paper-scissors” scheme. (plasma pistol beats shield, shield protects from bullets, bullets kill grunt, etc…) And you can take away certain parts of the scheme, like removing some enemy types, or replacing a weapon or two; BUT you cant just scrap the entire system. Removing the entire covenant = Scrapping the whole system.
Thats like playing a game of “rock-rock-rock” because “paper” is dead and “scissors” is retreating…

This leads me to what is probably going to be your best argument: What about the "ancient evil" and the rumored human vs. human tribal wars on the rumored shield world sigma 07? Cant they just replace the old enemies with humans and that one new enemy?
-Well, first of all, regarding humans, either UNSC, Rebel, or ONI, I strongly doubt that. This because the halo series has kept away from violence against humans entirely, as a moral standpoint and in order to get a certain age-rating by PEGI.
Then comes the question about the now confirmed new “ancient evil” enemy. What is it, what does it want, how will it appear? (Spoilers) There is in fact one such “ancient evil” known in the halo universe, the precursors, more precisely the precursor “the timeless one” whom is thought to be the only one left.
Precursors are supposedly 15 meters tall and bear weapons forged from neurologically networked metal and their technology is more advanced than that of the forerunners. Even if it turns out that there are loads of them instead of just one, its going to be really difficult to make them function practically in-game.
(/spoilers)

But lets be pessimistic, lets say there are tons of them and they are in Halo 4, and that there are human enemies.
You are now fighting a nice mix of bewildered / insane marines, Flood, Robots, and thousands of giant, immortal, evil and impossibly advanced, time-traveling space-lobsters.
Fun, perhaps, but its not going to be Halo. And Halo is what it is.

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i understand. liked the precursor example.
space lobsters. LOL.

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> space-lobsters

Rofl. Space lobsters. Brilliant!!

Anyways, how about Precursor constructs? I’d like to see how Forerunner Sentinels interact with Precursor constructs, if there are any.

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Yet, you still don’t know that.

(Yes, I read it all.)

Also, what Halo is is entirely subjective.

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IMO I think that we will fight either covy or the flood because if what some people say the mysterious planet is onyx and there are more spartans the people who didnt read the books would be like wtf why are there more than one spartan, having the forunners would kinda make sense but from what i heard they killed themselves to stop the flood so ya that wouldn’t really work. Then if they did use the precursors everyone that didn’t read the books would be really lost and IMO the majority of halo players did not read the books.

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I dont think that the Covenant would be the “Chicken” in a chicken salad. There more like the Dressing. The chicken i think would be the core gameplay that makes Halo, Halo

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> IMO I think that we will fight either covy or the flood because if what some people say the mysterious planet is onyx and there are more spartans the people who didnt read the books would be like Yoink! why are there more than one spartan, having the forunners would kinda make sense but from what i heard they killed themselves to stop the flood so ya that wouldn’t really work. Then if they did use the precursors everyone that didn’t read the books would be really lost and IMO the majority of halo players did not read the books.

Can you tell me a quick sum up of the percursors plz?

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I certainly hope we see some member species of the Covenant, even if the Covenant itself is gone. After all, most of the races probably still have a sizable population on their own worlds. It would be interesting to see places like Sanghelios, to see what Elites are like on their own planet.

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> > IMO I think that we will fight either covy or the flood because if what some people say the mysterious planet is onyx and there are more spartans the people who didnt read the books would be like Yoink! why are there more than one spartan, having the forunners would kinda make sense but from what i heard they killed themselves to stop the flood so ya that wouldn’t really work. Then if they did use the precursors everyone that didn’t read the books would be really lost and IMO the majority of halo players did not read the books.
>
> Can you tell me a quick sum up of the percursors plz?

http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Precursor

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> IMO I think that we will fight either covy or the flood because if what some people say the mysterious planet is onyx and there are more spartans the people who didnt read the books would be like Yoink! why are there more than one spartan, having the forunners would kinda make sense but from what i heard they killed themselves to stop the flood so ya that wouldn’t really work. Then if they did use the precursors everyone that didn’t read the books would be really lost and IMO the majority of halo players did not read the books.

There could be a cinematic or maybe even a few levels where you play as the spartans from the books that explain the storyline and why there are more spartans to bring people who haven’t read the books such as myself up to speed.

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I am confident Elites will show up, down the line. Not as foe, but allies. It’s been theorized that the novel, Glasslands, will merge the stories of The Return, and Ghosts of Onyx. With the Elites on the trail of Forerunner artifacts, they will end up encountering the squad of Spartans; and together they will somehow end up in, probably, Halo 5.

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I would love to fight 'em all - Humans, Flood, Covenant, Sentinels, Forerunners, Precursors, Gravemind(s). But I agree with you - the Covenant is an integral part of Halo and really can’t be taken away. You know what would be fun? If we fought more San Shyuum.

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Theoretically covenant troops could have landed on the unknown planet during the Human Covenant war. What’s on the planet could’ve prevented them from leaving. The covenant could’ve sent more troops to save them but none ever returned. They gave up on communicating with them so none of the troops there know the war is over. That could be a reason why we encounter covenant troops in Halo 4.

Personally I want to see members of the covenant in Halo 4, but not as the main bad guys.

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> I dont think that the Covenant would be the “Chicken” in a chicken salad. There more like the Dressing. The chicken i think would be the core gameplay that makes Halo, Halo

What I am saying in my post is that the members of the covenant are the gameplay in the campaign.

It wouldn´t be the same gameplay without the complexity of adversaries and the weapons they bring to the table.

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People are saying that the Covenant aren’t that important to the Halo Gameplay and story, when actually, the Covenant are the driving force behind everything that happens.
For Gameplay, they offer diversity, and variety in enemies and weapons.
For the story, without them, the Pillar of Autumn would have never discovered Halo, or all of that information about the Forerunners held by Cortana, or the Flood. Nothing in the series would have happened without them.

If they’re not in the game, then the game will try to replace them with the same kind of variety in enemies, but overall, it’ll just seem like a whole bunch of Covenant ripoffs.

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if u want to play against covenant all over again, then play Halo 1-3. Nobody holds u to not do it.
But there are people, that can life without covenant in Halo4. And 343 said it, its a NEW TRILOGY. That means new Enemys,weapons, vehicles and Story.
People should accept that.

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I like the covies espesially teh huntas. but how exactly will they incorperate the covenant into halo 4?

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Just b/c the Covenant won’t be in Halo 4 doesn’t mean the entire system will be gone. Who knows we could be seeing Forerunner enemies that behave similar to Grunts, Jackals, Elites, etc. but just look different. I’d love to see the Covenant make small appearances in something like flashback missions from the books, previous games, etc.

Overall, we can’t get hung up on something that we know nothing about (at least until Halofest).

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> Just b/c the Covenant won’t be in Halo 4 doesn’t mean the entire system will be gone. Who knows we could be seeing Forerunner enemies that behave similar to Grunts, Jackals, Elites, etc. but just look different. I’d love to see the Covenant make small appearances in something like flashback missions from the books, previous games, etc.
>
> Overall, we can’t get hung up on something that we know nothing about (at least until Halofest).

Better to have Covenant than blatant wannabe Covies.

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> > Just b/c the Covenant won’t be in Halo 4 doesn’t mean the entire system will be gone. Who knows we could be seeing Forerunner enemies that behave similar to Grunts, Jackals, Elites, etc. but just look different. I’d love to see the Covenant make small appearances in something like flashback missions from the books, previous games, etc.
> >
> > Overall, we can’t get hung up on something that we know nothing about (at least until Halofest).
>
> Better to have Covenant than blatant wannabe Covies.

Yeah. Any new species that replaces the grunts, elites, jackals, etc, will just be ripoffs.

I am almost entirely sure we will see the species in Halo 4, as for them being one Covenant, I doubt it. The system has to remain and I’m sure 343 will fill the gaps. As far as I can see, we will get replacements like Forerunner mechs instead of Hunters, and the like. (Terrible example, yes I know.)