I played through Halo 5 again recently on legendary, and after beating it, it felt like one of the best and most epic campaigns. Apart from the misleading trailers and advertisements and the fact that you don’t play as master chief for 80% of the game, why was the story of Halo 5 bad?
It wasn’t, people overreacted and hate the game because it’s not a rehash of Halo 3 and because the echo chamber is essentially “343 bad, Bungie good”. But in all honesty it’s mostly people that were waiting for a misstep in the franchise and 343 making the games too lore centric
The trailers weren’t misleading, just they went a little too hard on the in universe lore, the ads were all from the perspective of ONI who were trying to paint chief in a negative light so that they could justify killing him to the public.
That’s a very interesting perspective. If the marketing was in fact from ONI perspective, I wish that would have been more obvious to the audience. Then maybe it wouldn’t have received such negativity.
Aside from “Hunt the Truth” giving folks getting the wrong idea of what H5’s campaign will be focused around, the main issue is how many plot threads the game tries to juggle at the same time. There’s the Locke/Chief hunt in the first half, the battle for Sunaion and the destruction of the Storm Covenant, and Cortana and the Created starting their intergalactic police state. That’s way too much stuff to cover in one 6-8 hour long campaign. While disappointing, I do think the campaign’s story took a bit too much flak back when the game launched. I’d much rather have a over-ambitious story that falls flat on it’s face, rather than a safe by-the-numbers serviceable one.
The problem that H5 campaign had was the fact that you got hit with so much happening all at once that it was hard to keep up with. The repetitive “boss fights” with Warden. The fact that you had to read the Halo books releasing along side the game to really understand what was going on around you. The story just needed to chuck on the breaks and have a bit more depth to it rather than it being all in your face the entire time just throwing things at you.
A game should be relatively understood or followed along enough for a new player or casual Halo player to understand and comprehend what’s happening. The game didn’t deliver on that, and unfortunately I don’t really have any cool moments from the campaign that I sit back and quote with mates, not like I do with all the other Halo titles.
It could be that I’m nitpicking, it’s been a very VERY long time since I played the H5 campaign, perhaps it deserves a revisit.
Admittedly I played on Legendary first time and the grind for me was so painful I just didn’t enjoy it or focus on the story at all.
After seeing this thread it has inspired me to replay to the game on normal to see how I feel about it.
story fell flat.so little background info,and parts were like what hell is going on or theres no way osiris should of caught up to blue team
The major contributing factor to the ill will regarding Halo 5 was that people felt misled from the marketing material, and what was actually delivered in-game. Halo 5 had a year and a half of marketing in the form of trailers; books; audio series; a live-action series; and even tie-in promotional cutscenes from another game (Halo 2:A prologue and epilogue). All of this hyped up and lead to lofty expectations about what the story would be, and then the game released to a nearly whiplash-inducing story, on top of a greatly diminished execution of what was advertised (the whole Chief vs Locke conflict).
As already touched upon, Halo 5 introduces a lot of plot threads that can be confusing, or at the least a challenge to keep up with. People have put the blame on outside media as the culprit, but that’s not really the issue, as very little is actually needed from EU sources. Halo 5 just tried to cram too much into one package, as well as largely ignoring what was being developed from the past 3 years.
With that being said, I do believe Halo 5 has received a bit too much flak, and I think Haruspis succinctly phrases it in one of his articles, “As such, not many people are inclined to engage with Halo 5 in entirely good faith, because the game’s story itself is (also understandably) seen as one that doesn’t really engage the player in good faith either.”
The majority of people dismiss Halo 5’s campaign wholesale because of their disappointment, even the things that may not be so bad.
> 2533274960271326;1:
> I played through Halo 5 again recently on legendary, and after beating it, it felt like one of the best and most epic campaigns. Apart from the misleading trailers and advertisements and the fact that you don’t play as master chief for 80% of the game, why was the story of Halo 5 bad?
…I mean, you answered your own question. The trailers and ads leading up to the game promised something else entirely, and you spend most of the time playing a knock off ODST squad. If team Osiris had been a spinoff Halo game, similar to Halo Reach, it wouldn’t have pissed people off as much. But part of playing Halo is playing as the Master Chief, to be the Demon and no one experienced that in Halo 5. He’s basically a helpless victim which runs counter to the previous 4 games of, you know, saving the galaxy.
Halo 2 is notable because even though you play as the Arbiter, he had actually had an engaging story. He wasn’t a Spartan he was an Elite, and because of that it allowed them to flesh out the story to a greater extent than just having a second Spartan team.
Osiris, when played alongside Blue team, doesn’t have any differences except voice acting. You could literally change the lines slightly, eliminate half the voice actors, and the main gameplay wouldn’t change at all. But the Arbiter? With default camo and usually a plasma sword? It’s a strong counter style and it allowed the games to create a detail rich story without having to drastically change anything.
> 2533274960271326;1:
> I played through Halo 5 again recently on legendary, and after beating it, it felt like one of the best and most epic campaigns. Apart from the misleading trailers and advertisements and the fact that you don’t play as master chief for 80% of the game, why was the story of Halo 5 bad?
Watch The Act Man’s videos on the story.
> 2533274851065491;8:
> The major contributing factor to the ill will regarding Halo 5 was that people felt misled from the marketing material, and what was actually delivered in-game. Halo 5 had a year and a half of marketing in the form of trailers; books; audio series; a live-action series; and even tie-in promotional cutscenes from another game (Halo 2:A prologue and epilogue). All of this hyped up and lead to lofty expectations about what the story would be, and then the game released to a nearly whiplash-inducing story, on top of a greatly diminished execution of what was advertised (the whole Chief vs Locke conflict).
>
> As already touched upon, Halo 5 introduces a lot of plot threads that can be confusing, or at the least a challenge to keep up with. People have put the blame on outside media as the culprit, but that’s not really the issue, as very little is actually needed from EU sources. Halo 5 just tried to cram too much into one package, as well as largely ignoring what was being developed from the past 3 years.
>
> With that being said, I do believe Halo 5 has received a bit too much flak, and I think Haruspis succinctly phrases it in one of his articles, *“As such, not many people are inclined to engage with Halo 5 in entirely good faith, because the game’s story itself is (also understandably) seen as one that doesn’t really engage the player in good faith either.”*The majority of people dismiss Halo 5’s campaign wholesale because of their disappointment, even the things that may not be so bad.
agreed, i think that was the mainly reason that made halo 5 campaign bad, the “fake” marketing and trailers
It felt rushed to me and there could’ve been more to it. I will admit I had a harder time beating on Solo Legendary with the AIs then I did with Halo 2’s Solo Legendary which honestly is a Pro for me not a Con
As with all things it always boils down to personal taste.
For me, my three biggest issues with H5 compared to previous halos was an inability to show not tell, a lack of connection with previous material both advertised and established in the previous title, and poor pacing of a plot with its reveals and character development.
For examples things that showed one or more of these issues include: Cortana being revealed to be alive so early in the game and via a bit of dialogue and not being shown in some dramatic reveal maybe after testing the trust of blue team a bit; The antagonist of the covenant being built in spec ops and the books being offered immediately and the Locke/Chief story taking a side step for Cortanas rushed return; The pacifist missions where you have to follow a set path just to listen to expositional dialogue; above all, the awkward dialogue telling us how great every new character was instead of showing it and then random misleading scenes like Bucks confrontation with Locke that never gets explored further.
As someone who is into halo both for the plot and the immersive explorative experience, the change of direction to focus on admittedly fantastic visuals and narrative lore building just didn’t vibe with me to be honest.
Cortana OOC behavior, she’s not intimidating as an antagonist. Osiris and Blue team only there for co-op than by themselves are a subpar buddy system. It ranks below Mass Effect 2 simplistic squad commands. Halsey’s intro is not relevant at all to the 5s story.
No real beef between Locke and John which displays their hate for each other, and the fight sucks balls.
This music is forgettable. If there a poll for which game music you forget, 5 is #1.
It sometimes confusing as I see it, but the multiplayer is good
Had the game been an actual mystery for the first 3/4 like it should have been, the narrative could have been much better.
However, Halo fans can’t deal with a lack of Chief so they wedged the Blue Team level in early, and that contained all the justification he needed to not be seen as in the wrong.
If they simply had us play as Locke for the first part of the game instead of bouncing us back and forth, I feel like it would easier for them to introduce and develop Osiris more naturally as well as deliver on the AWOL/Mystery promise of the game. The Cortana reveal should have been at the 3/4 mark of the story.
Obviously there are other issues with the games narrative, but I think that is really the largest change that should have been made. However, I feel like a lot of people would have made it three levels in, not played as Chief, and then dropped the game.
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> > 2533274960271326;1:
> > I played through Halo 5 again recently on legendary, and after beating it, it felt like one of the best and most epic campaigns. Apart from the misleading trailers and advertisements and the fact that you don’t play as master chief for 80% of the game, why was the story of Halo 5 bad?
>
> Watch The Act Man’s videos on the story.
King
Because it doesn’t tell a story. It has a beginning, vague setup without anything that could be considered development, and an abrupt end without any kind of conclusion. Being “epic” doesn’t change that fact. If it did, any generic straight-to-DVD action movie your uncle grabbed from the Walmart bargain bin would get a pass.
> 2535445608274502;5:
> The problem that H5 campaign had was the fact that you got hit with so much happening all at once that it was hard to keep up with. The repetitive “boss fights” with Warden. The fact that you had to read the Halo books releasing along side the game to really understand what was going on around you. The story just needed to chuck on the breaks and have a bit more depth to it rather than it being all in your face the entire time just throwing things at you.
>
> A game should be relatively understood or followed along enough for a new player or casual Halo player to understand and comprehend what’s happening. The game didn’t deliver on that, and unfortunately I don’t really have any cool moments from the campaign that I sit back and quote with mates, not like I do with all the other Halo titles.
>
> It could be that I’m nitpicking, it’s been a very VERY long time since I played the H5 campaign, perhaps it deserves a revisit.
HA! We quote it but it’s only to make fun of it. The amount of times you hear Locke yell “I’m grounded, need an assist. My armors jammed up” is even worse than fighting the Warden 20 times.
Also, what’s with the Chief arbitrarily seeing Cortana and a guardian during the Blue Team mission. Like all of a sudden Chief is in the Matrix!