I wonder who is going to write Halo Infinite, Halo 5 and halo 4 spartan ops had terrible writings.
Thank god they got rid of Brian reed and at least josh Holmes is gone.
Microsoft and 343 need to find a good writer for Halo Infinite. The character that had good writings from Halo 5 is grunts.
I hope they don’t pick a bad writer like brian reed again.
I’d love it if they could get Joseph Staten as the writer. (Doesn’t he work directly for Microsoft now? So, that wouldn’t actually be outside the realm of possibility.) But, if not him I’d be pleased with the Halo 4 writers, as I loved Halo 4’s story.
Pretty sure this thread will get locked, but FYI there are two people confirmed for writing/narrative duties in some capacity, they are Paul Crocker and Dan Chosich. Crocker worked on the first two Batman Arkham games and Chosich has been at 343i since 2011.
Guys, cautious with what you wish for. Halo 4 FELT good because of the cinematography, but the story and especially the characters weren’t that good at all. I mean, Halo 4 gave us Palmer, Del Rio and the “let’s snob the Chief” Spartan IV introduction! 
Generally it lacked any good militaristic or religious theme and/symbolism, instead we got space-magic with the librarian, the worst interpretation of the Didact after Halo Escalation, a love story with a hologram who technically speaking is a clone of our main character’s mother figure (Evangelion much?) and talking about our favourite blue chick: Cortana hard-light clones able to stop a creature with mind bending abilities.
YES! What a great story indeed.
Nothing in four was as bad as the “Lock v Chief” hand to hand fight - nothing will ever top that - and the main story-line in H4 wasn’t too shabby. Even I can admit that! However, the voice-acting of Jen Taylor really really sold it for me, even though the “you’re the machine between us two” sub story was so horribly on the nose! Why not spelling it out with capital letters while you’re at it?
A good story in this franchise should be simpler and a lot more subtle imho. The depth can easily come trough various themes, retro-scenes and symbolism. Such a way to tell the story in a Halo main title also makes more sense with this kind of arcade gameplay. Just my two cents!
For the rest, I doubt Staten will make a comeback. He re-joined the MS family a bit too late and already has a ton of projects on the table sadly. Not to mention, I
wouldn’t want to be in the new writing team’s shoes anyway. I really feel bad for them! How to Yoink are you going to solve that mess that was Halo 5 in first place?! The introductory cut-scene seen at the E3 was really well made though, that’s a good start for sure!
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> Guys, cautious with what you wish for. Halo 4 FELT good because of the cinematography, but the story and especially the characters weren’t that good at all. I mean, Halo 4 gave us Palmer, Del Rio and the “let’s snob the Chief” Spartan IV introduction! Generally it lacked any good militaristic or religious theme and/symbolism, instead we got space-magic with the librarian, the worst interpretation of the Didact after Halo Escalation, a love story with a hologram who technically speaking is a clone of our main character’s mother figure (Evangelion much?)
I have to disagree with some of this. The “worst interpretation after Escalation”? Thats the only real interpretation we have of him. Yes, there are Halo 3 terminals, but that became a separate character. You don’t think his whole “fallen angel” schtick was symbolic enough? Besides, Halo has it’s own mythology to draw from now. I just wish they did it better. The one thing i don’t like is this whole Mantle of Responsibility thing. This could have been solved if they just kept humans and Forerunners as the same species. Humans were reclaiming their heritage, not succeeding the Forerunners as ‘caretakers of the galaxy’. Any who, some people will argue that Chief and Cortana’s dynamic wasn’t a love story, although they were fat too intimate for my taste.
> and talking about our favourite blue chick: Cortana hard-light clones able to stop a creature with mind bending abilities.
What mind-bending abilities? If you’re talking about the Didact, he was manipulating the technology in Chief’s suit, not controlling his mind. Also she’s an AI. Also, she has split herself into fragments before. Its not impossible for her to do it again.
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> I’d love it if they could get Joseph Staten as the writer. (Doesn’t he work directly for Microsoft now? So, that wouldn’t actually be outside the realm of possibility.) But, if not him I’d be pleased with the Halo 4 writers, as I loved Halo 4’s story.
idk, hes the director of crackdown 3, so I don’t think he will
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> > Guys, cautious with what you wish for. Halo 4 FELT good because of the cinematography, but the story and especially the characters weren’t that good at all. I mean, Halo 4 gave us Palmer, Del Rio and the “let’s snob the Chief” Spartan IV introduction! Generally it lacked any good militaristic or religious theme and/symbolism, instead we got space-magic with the librarian, the worst interpretation of the Didact after Halo Escalation, a love story with a hologram who technically speaking is a clone of our main character’s mother figure (Evangelion much?)
>
> I have to disagree with some of this. The “worst interpretation after Escalation”? Thats the only real interpretation we have of him. Yes, there are Halo 3 terminals, but that became a separate character. You don’t think his whole “fallen angel” schtick was symbolic enough? Besides, Halo has it’s own mythology to draw from now. I just wish they did it better. The one thing i don’t like is this whole Mantle of Responsibility thing. This could have been solved if they just kept humans and Forerunners as the same species. Humans were reclaiming their heritage, not succeeding the Forerunners as ‘caretakers of the galaxy’. Any who, some people will argue that Chief and Cortana’s dynamic wasn’t a love story, although they were fat too intimate for my taste.
You might be forgetting the Greg Bear trilogy, which was the foundation of the Didact’s character. I would agree that H4 did not do justice to his character given how much of it was explored in that trilogy. Not to speak for ADE MacBamboo01, but I think they were including the Didact in the Forerunner trilogy when ranking which interpretations were worse.
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> …there are two people confirmed for writing/narrative duties in some capacity, they are Paul Crocker and Dan Chosich. Crocker worked on the first two Batman Arkham games and Chosich has been at 343i since 2011.
This is correct, Paul and Dan joined the 343 narrative team to work on Infinite along with the rest of 343’s writing team
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> You might be forgetting the Greg Bear trilogy, which was the foundation of the Didact’s character. I would agree that H4 did not do justice to his character given how much of it was explored in that trilogy. Not to speak for ADE MacBamboo01, but I think they were including the Didact in the Forerunner trilogy when ranking which interpretations were worse.
Lol yes i did forget about that and i even read those books. But the Didact in Halo 4 and in Silentium are very close in terms of character.
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> Guys, cautious with what you wish for. Halo 4 FELT good because of the cinematography, but the story and especially the characters weren’t that good at all. I mean, Halo 4 gave us Palmer, Del Rio and the “let’s snob the Chief” Spartan IV introduction! Generally it lacked any good militaristic or religious theme and/symbolism, instead we got space-magic with the librarian, the worst interpretation of the Didact after Halo Escalation, a love story with a hologram who technically speaking is a clone of our main character’s mother figure (Evangelion much?) and talking about our favourite blue chick: Cortana hard-light clones able to stop a creature with mind bending abilities.
>
> **YES! What a great story indeed.**Nothing in four was as bad as the “Lock v Chief” hand to hand fight - nothing will ever top that - and the main story-line in H4 wasn’t too shabby. Even I can admit that! However, the voice-acting of Jen Taylor really really sold it for me, even though the “you’re the machine between us two” sub story was so horribly on the nose! Why not spelling it out with capital letters while you’re at it?
I hear people say this, and I do, somewhat agree; the larger narrative in Halo 4 was lacking.
But I think when people (at least when I) talk about how I liked the story, it is, actually, because the story felt better than it has in other games. And even though you’re absolutely right - the micro-narrative (the relationship between Chief and Cortana, and the “you’re the machine” stuff) was definitely more than on the nose at some points - to me, it felt unlike any of the other Halo games (except maybe Reach) in that it was trying to say something at all, and that it actually had stakes.
Over the game (and especially if you’ve played the previous games), Cortana is an important character, and the march towards her inevitable death is a breath of fresh air in terms of narrative stakes that just weren’t there in any other Halo game for me. In Halo CE, what reason do I have to care about the world? Chief will succeed in some capacity, and that’s clear from the outset. They kill Captain Keys as a source of minor horror, but even then, there’s no reason to care.
Halo 3 tried by killing Johnson - and I think that was good - but even then, Johnson was just a recurring character, who made snarky / jokey comments throughout Halo 2, and some of Halo 3.
The threat to Cortana was a lot more meaningful (for me), and the way her gradual march towards it was written made her and Chief much better characters imo (ignoring Halo 5, at least).
And, instead of Halo 4’s most memorable line being something reasonably inconsequential like “I know what the ladies like” or “Betch’a can’t stick it” from Halo 2 / marketing material, for me it was either the Didact’s beautifully written prose, Lasky’s question to Chief at the end, or Cortana’s speech at the beginning of Shutdown. Even though it was definitely on the nose, it’s so much better than a game like CoD: Advanced Warfare managed with a similar question. It’s not Shakespeare, but it was a story that was worth paying attention to, beyond listening to catchy one-liners, and so it holds a place in my heart, at least.
And merge that with how well it was directed, and the cinematography, and the music (which I thought was fantastic at setting the tone for most every scene Halo 4), and I think it makes sense why (at least some people) hold it in such high regard.