I really can’t understand it. They make a huge deal about bringing Cortana back as the villain; but decide to marginalise the Chief? Why? Surely you would bring her back with the intention of focusing on the personal drama of her betraying Chief and how Chief deals with that.
I genuinely can’t understand 343i reasoning for this. A lot of people liked the stuff they did with Chief and Cortana in Halo 4. It’s obviously very important, if not central to the Reclaimer Saga. To go off on a tangent for over 75 percent of the game with a new character just feels like a counter intuitive move.
343I would defend themselves in saying that Chief was the focal point of the campaign. The UNSC, ONI and Osiris were invested on getting him back after going AWOL. Practically all of Locke’s missions relate to the Chief.
I wouldn’t have minded a greater emphasis on Osiris if it had properly explored Chief from an outsider’s perspective, if it had been announced prior to the game’s release and if Blue Team and Osiris were both well developed and received a decent portion of gameplay, but none of that happened in Halo 5. It’s such as missed opportunity to explore Chief’s character from a new angle.
At the end of the day, neither Blue Team nor Osiris are fully fleshed-out or have a cohesive story arc. And Blue Team were pretty much just shafted to three mediocre levels with minimal character development and introduction. No casual will find them as endearing as book-readers thanks to Halo 5’s writing.
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> > Because 343I wants to push Locke as the new MC id assume.
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> Then why bring Cortana back as the main villain? Doesn’t that massively suggest that the Reclaimer Saga is about those Chief and Cortana?
That’s what I can’t get my head around. Halo 4 built-up the relationship between Chief and Cortana in a satisfying way that built-up until she ended up sacrificing herself to save Chief and Earth. Despite this giving her character closure, they bring her back as the villain and restrict Chief and Cortana’s interactions to just two levels? It makes no sense at all.
The game would have been better if the Didact had been behind the activation of the Guardians.
See I always thought she would
come back because of the Librarian telling John that Cortana was part of the plan for John, the Reclaimer, to assume the Mantle.
So I think they did Halo 4 in full knowledge that Cortana would be the villain down the road. Hence the attempt to massively build sympathy for her and establish how close Chief is to her.
But that just brings me back to the problem. It’s obviously meant to put Chief and Cortana at the heart of the narrative but Locke doesn’t add anything to that story.
The Necron Didact could return in Halo 6 and sieze control of the Guardians. You know, make them glow orange.
My opinion is that they made (and reinforced) the Chief and Cortana’s relationship in 4 specifically to be a backdrop to Halo 5. 343 had the idea of Cortana going rogue or having a rampant shard of her original personality take over (depending on the theory you believe) as one of the main plot points for Halo 5.Remember, if this is a saga, then Halo 5 is only part of the whole story. And in order to tell a thorough and intriguing story across numerous games requires the exploration of other characters in the story and other viewpoints of what’s going on.
Just look at the first 3 Halo games. CE had us solely as the Chief with Cortana. Halo 2 had us as the Chief and the Arbiter…and playing as the Arbiter opened us to the fact that all was not right with the Covenant and was integral to informing us of how the Covenant split came about (since the story couldn’t be fully fleshed out as us only playing as the Chief in Halo 2). Then you had a return to the Chief in Halo 3 and a conclusion to that story line. I bet the same would hold here for Halo 4, 5, and 6.
We already know the Chief and Cortana’s devotion to each other through all the Halo games, and the Chief’s blindness to any potential wrongdoing of Cortana would consequently narrow 343’s ability to tell the story of AI’s going rogue. With the introduction of Locke, they were able to show us another side of the story (literally putting us in someone elses shoes)…and also showed us the negative impact of the Chief’s blind devotion to Cortana (such as disobeying orders, putting numerous Spartans at risk, the activating of Genesis/Forerunner consoles without any hesitation, etc) through this perspective. It probably also helped add a bit of tension revealing through Locke’s missions that something was askew with Cortana.
Yeah I didn’t get the impression that Locke helped tell that story.
Firstly, Chiefs actions only ever put himself in danger and even that’s debatable since Cortana didn’t want to kill Chief. He’s never misled or tricked into doing anything that -Yoink!- Cortana. This is why the Warden simply doesn’t get Cortana taking any sort of risk to her plans by trying to reach out to Chief. They could have told that story but basically they avoid it. Cortana gets to where she is without Chiefs help.
Also, whilst there’s a lot of subtlety, conflict and emotion involved in making Cortana the villain. For Locke? She’s just a crazy AI and that really shows in te quite forced and shallow final mission dialogue where they make her mock the Spartan 4 and Osiris. Which really lowered the tone and became a self parody.
Also, Cortana isn’t present in Lockes missions and only speaks to Osiris in the final mission.
I just don’t see the justification. You make the comparison to the arbiter. But the arbiter had his own, very interesting, story and plot. Locke and Osiris really don’t.
edit: Plus, Blue Team could have provided that insight as criticism of the Chiefs blindness to the reality of te situation. But their perspective just gets completely glossed over; even though they’re much more directly involved I what’s going on
Just one more thing. Halo is ultimately a shooter and these campaigns are getting a lot shorter. There’s severe limitations on the amount of time to develop characters. So the expectation of a big Mass Effect cast of characters is really unrealistic.
This is a filler campaign. Hold out the Didact so that he can make a triumphant return in Halo 6, therefore creating a need for a new villain, i.e. the Cortana storyline. Develop Locke’s character as plot development for his role when we play as Chief in the next game.
No I think they planned Cortana becoming the villain. The Didact was the filler villain. His plan was to fire a death laser at earth, hers is to conquer and remake the galaxy. It’s too big a plot point to have been shoe horned in.
Perhaps with the passing of the torch maybe it’s a test to see how well the audience receives less time with Master chief and a new protagonist in this place . Or perhaps it’s just that he got locked up.
Oh no. It’s going to be what they did with the Queen of Blades in SC2. Chief stops Cortana but then some new or returning threat means they have to use the Domain and the Forerunner tech to save the galaxy. It’s going to be a redemption arc and for Chief it’s a question of can he trust this AI that nearly destroyed the galaxy.
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> Perhaps with the passing of the torch maybe it’s a test to see how well the audience receives less time with Master chief and a new protagonist in this place . Or perhaps it’s just that he got locked up.
Because 343 is on some bs I say we just boycott the games until they give us what we want. Sucks now we have to wait three more years until they release another halo game yet we have to entertain ourselves with the bs known as halo 5
It’s pretty clear that a bunch of the campaign was cut at the last minute for whatever reason. That’s why the story is incoherent and Chief is barely in it.
I actually liked it a lot, and feel it an almost perfect middle story. Still, until I have finished the reclaimed saga I can’t say bw it helps the story. Maybe it’s to make more sense upon playing halo 6?
