I mean…the whole ‘he was super lucky’ idea kind of made it easy to believe he really could not be killed. He and all other 2’s were even designed with the idea that they would live on well after most normal civilians had died. Obviously they don’t know if this actually worked or not because Spartan 2’s have only existed since 2517 and the current year is 2560, so about 43 years, only about half the life estimation of a person that lives today in 2022. They would need at least a group of 2’s to outlive normal expectations to prove if it worked.
Of which the only living 2’s still around are: Maria-062, John-117, Fred-104, Kelly-087, Linda-058, Alice-130, Douglas-042, Jerome-092, Leon-011, August-099, Robert-025, Naomi-010, Jai-006, Adriana-111, Michael-120, Serin-019, and Musa-096 that I know of. (Of which the last two are washouts from the Spartan 2 program.)
The relevance that has is that the Chief not being let to rest isn’t really a ‘milking’ situation, it’s literally an idea in the lore that Chief will not go down quietly. Just because he’s around 50, doesn’t mean he’s going to hang up his armor and plan for retirement. The thing about Spartans is they would sooner die in battle than ever consider retiring from the battlefield. (there are some exceptions such as Maria and Randall)
And if we consider that Halo 4 is still canon (I know some people refuse to consider it canon just because they don’t care for it and think it ruined the storyline for the Chief), then it seems like Chief will always have a role to play until the day he keels over.
Well let’s compare this to the MCU for a sec because it is a great example of closings arcs properly. In Endgame, most of our favorite faces of the Marvel movies die or retire. Iron man dies. Does that mean there shouldn’t be anymore avengers movies? Nope it doesn’t. Now compare it to this. If 343 gave a -yoink!- about their writing staff, they could pull an MCU and retire loved and all time characters and still keep the audience interested. Iron Man was the very first MCU movie. Halo CE was the first Master Chief game. All ya gotta do with the two is replace iron man with Chief and MCU with Halo. They are very similar in that aspect. So yes, there still can be a Halo without Master Chief everywhere all at once. Halo 3: ODST and Halo Reach are perfect examples of that. There was no mention or reference to Chief in anyway at all. And both games slapped well. Halo Reach is literally one of the most beloved Halo games of all time. So yes @ReturninWarrior, there can be Halo without Chief. And he can die or retire. That’s how people work.
I believe that majority of the original Halo fanbase don’t want Chief to die for two whole reasons. 1: he was their nostalgic Childhood hero 2: They love him
I love Chief. I love him enough to let him rest. Because he needs to. But 343 shouldn’t just up and replace him like in Halo 5. That was a mistake. But in the right direction. They realized that Chief was getting old. He wasn’t gonna be around forever. He’s 50-60 years old now. In real time he’s 20. He one of the Lange at standing video game character to ever exist.
This can happen. It probably will. And if it doesn’t then I’m gonna pretend everything after Halo 3 was non canon.
No, Halo Infinites main selling point is how well it does the Master Chiefs story. Why would you want that to end? Having the Chief come back from losing Cortana and have a second chance is a cool take on what Halo 4 set up.
Jerome has nothing going for him that the Chief doesn’t already have. Okay, you could put the emphasis on his Team instead of an AI like Cortana. But then you could just use Blue Team. There’s nothing that distinguishes him from the Chief. You bring up Mando but he does have a genuine character arc, trying to live by a code and protect Grogu. Jerome doesn’t.
Master Chief is so important for sells that its why 343i have stuck with him over all these years. This is company is insanely ambitious, yet they still never went for another protagonist.
Do I think a story that isn’t based around John-117 would be better? Yes. Do I think it would do remotely as well as Chief in terms of interest/sales? No.
Regardless, They could do both. DLC as another Spartan why not?
This right here is my mindset on things “bringing him in as a badass NPC, the new Johnson.” or even make him a mission giver like in destiny. Then join you for the big story missions…
Buy and large, most fans were alright with how they had her parting scene and her death.
But with the method in which they brought back Cortana, it is just confusing.
A better alternative would be that John still had her chip stuck in his helmet, and a fragment left behind by her rampancy had surfaced within it.
Instead we get a vision that she is back and everyone just drops what they are doing and follows him blindly, even though just moments before they crashed onto their heads.
If you don’t read the books, you have literally no idea who anyone is except for Edward Buck.
Most players don’t read the books, resulting in most of them not having any real context to the events and cast involved.
I read the books, and honestly? I am disappointed with how Brian Reed portrayed the characters. Locke is clearly different from his portrayal in the Nightfall movie.
Holly Tanaka is a cardboard box in armor.
Olympia Vale remains about the same.
And Buck seems hindered somehow, as if he was directed to be more solemn and less witty.
Frederic is alright with how he is portrayed.
Linda and Kelly have been swapped for some reason.
John is portrayed as naive until the last chapter we play as him.
Thorne was originally planned to be a part of Fireteam Osiris.
However, the actor that plays him was busy with another project at the time so he was unavalable.
So they replaced Thorne with Buck.
I like Edward Buck, he is hilarious, witty, and Nathan YOINKING Fillion !
You can’t go wrong with Nathan Fillion!
My issue is that he is just randomly there. Whereas I can actually see why everyone else would be on the team.
Locke is the ONI Operative tasked with hunting down High-Value Assets and team leader.
Vale is the Sangheilian specialist. Given that their missions are to track down Dr. Halsey and go to Sanghelios to track Blue Team, it is best to have a specialist in alien culture, language, and kicking butt.
Tanaka is a tech specialist that can help with engineering issues that the team might have.
Thorne has a lot of experience clashing with Jul 'Mdama, is trusted by Dr. Halsey, and has arguably the most experience at fighting Prometheans besides the Master Chief.
Buck is great, but what does he bring to the team other than an extra rifle?
On this we agree.
Stories in videogames should be self-contained narratives.
The books were just extra fluff if you had a question that needed to be solved. You heard Reach mentioned in the game and if you were curious about it, you could read The Fall of Reach. Johnson survived? You can find out how in First Strike.
But Halo 4 and Halo 5 both required you to spend a lotta cash to understand the new stuff that they threw in.
Some stories are designed to evolve.
Ironically, Halo isn’t one of them.
Videogames tend to only change in spin-offs or when they enter a new trilogy. Halo did this up until Halo 5. Halo 4 was a direct pickup of Halo 3, but Halo 5 skips ahead and asks us to read 6 books, a comic book, a movie, and a 3 hour long podcast log to get the full narrative (although Brian Reed’s rewrite late in development made most of this a moot point)
I’m not much of a Harry Potter fan, I just used it as an example.
Master Chief needs to be playable in every Halo campaign until the ends of time.Jerome sucks. Atriox deserves his own game however, and Sargent Johnson needs to return. Jorge and Carter too.
Jorge and Carter could only return in a prequel to Halo Reach.
Johnson could only return if they made a game about him or made a movie from Halo : Contact Harvest.
Jerome is actually awesome.
Atriox DOES deserve his own game.
Side stories are what we definitely need.
One thing I am hoping for is mini-campaign DLCs in Halo Infinite between the story parts of Master Chief’s story. Some good examples could be -
Blue Team arriving to Zeta Halo, having to learn to trust The Weapon A.I. as they rescue Dr. Halsey and John, who were both captured thanks to some Forerunner tech The Banished used.
Spartan Laurette Agryna finding the UNSC Infinity wreckage, discovering whether or not Roland A.I. is a traitor or loyal, and tracking down the key members of the crew (Captain Lasky, Commander Palmer, Dr. Glassman, etc.).
A story centered around Spartan Team Alpha-Nine as they prevent the Banished from restoring and utilizing the Crashed Guardian on Zeta Halo.
A story starring Red Team as the Spirit of Fire arrives on Zeta Halo and meets a similar fate to the UNSC Infinity. Jerome, Alice, Douglas, Leon, August, and Robert each have to save soldiers of the UNSC and report to a beacon with a familiar tune that all the Spartan-IIs know dearly - “Ollie-Ollie-Oxen-Free”.
A story of Jun-A266 and Rosenda-A344 working as Spartan Headhunters to track down an A.I. that betrayed the UNSC and joined The Banished, being the target for the Spartan-III Headhunters.
I didn’t read anything after Glasslands and I perfectly understood who the characters were based off their in game dialogue. Did we play the same game?
Levity. A heart for the team. The most combat experience of anyone on Fireteam Osiris. Leadership advisement.
I just fundamentally disagree with you about that.
The books explain the concept of The Domain and The Logic Plague, which is why Cortana became a villain. Without those concepts, players become confused as to why Cortana is now the bad guy. Only like 10% of the fans read any of the books, so a lot of the narrative that is now required is lost to them since a lot of gamers don’t like reading.
Wouldn’t Spartan Jun then be a better replacement?
And we never saw Buck give Locke any leadership advice if I recall.