Why not being able to play as Elites makes sense!

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

[{[ LONG HISTORY LESSON WARNING]}]

Hey there fellow Spartans. After wandering through the forums for a while, I noticed a lot of people want to be able to play as Sanghelli. Well, believe me, I want to play as an Elite as well, but I’d like to briefly explain why not being able to play as an Elite in H4 and H5 makes sense.

Okay, so as we know, while Master Chief was turned into a Spartan-sicle at the end H3 aboard the Forward Unto Dawn, Jul M’dama started a splinter faction of Covenant Loyalists after the Human-Covenant war ended in H3. M’dama and his followers soon became known as the Covenant Remnant, with M’dama naming himself “The Didact’s Hand”. Disgruntled with the Arbiter’s leadership of the newly-founded Swords of Sanghelios and their alliance with humanity, the Covenant Remnant sought to bring the Arbiter down and restablish the Covenent Empire and wipe out humanity. Upon finding the Forunner shield world Requiem, the Remnant sent a single-word message to the planet for several years: “Didact”.

Now we come to the end of Chief’s nap in H4, where the remaining half of the Forward Unto Dawn is drifting towards Requiem and is beset upon by M’dama’s forces. When Chief is attacked by an Elite, he shows confusion, saying “I thought we had a truce with the Covenant.” To which Cortana replies, “A lot can happen in four years.”

Upon destroying one of M’dama’s cruisers, the planet scans and discovers the presence of a Reclaimer, the Master Chief. The planet opens up and draws in all the ships nearby.

Fast-forward to when Chief awakens the Didact from his nap. Before the Didact can have his morning joe, he brings all the Prometheans under his command, and the Remnant pledge service to the Didact. After nearly Force-choking the Chief, they all quickly skedaddled out of there because the Didact wanted to move his space-ball Cryptum to the surface.

Fast forward AGAIN to the Didact and the Remnant slipspace-jump to the Halo ring to pick up the Composer the Didact ordered a few millennia ago. After this point, the Remnant go do their own thing, while Chief proceeds to defeat the Didact.

Moving on to the H4 gametype Spartan Ops. Six months after H4’s campaign, we see the Remnant are doing their thing. They served as great target practice for you and your fellow Spartans while you grinded through your Conmendations. At the close of Spartan Ops, we see Dr. Halsey assisting Jul M’dama with them in possession of half of the Janus Key, and device which combined with its other half, created a map of where the Forerunners hid their cookies and super weapons and other important things. After journeying to the Absolue Record, the comic series really didn’t explain much at all.

Now, we come to the present. Halo 5. In the first mission, Fireteam Osiris kills Jul M’dama and rescues Dr. Halsey. After this, Osiris teams up with the Arbiter’s Swords of Sanghelios and they eliminate some of the remaining Remnant groups at Sunion.

So, really, when you look at it all, it makes SENSE that you can’t play as Elites in H4 or H5. They have been in the middle of a civil war for the past 4+ years. And now, they have to repair the damage done by the war and the awakening of the Guardians, AND have to prepare for Cortana’s diabolical galactic takeover scheme. And Warzone and Area are just simulations aboard the Infinity. So, all the events of the past Halo games, the Sanghelli are just busy people.

Cut them a break. I mean, I’m petty sure we’d all rather play as Grunts!

Well, dusts off hands there’s the end of my long rant. Let me know if this all makes sense down below, and have a great day, Spartans!

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Mind explaining how Elites are optional in Halo Online then? Considering they are also part of the training program with the Spartans.

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I’m mixed either way. It won’t kill me that they aren’t in Halo 5, but as a guy that wants to make machinimas, I wish all the species were playable :slight_smile:

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> 2533274829951285;2:
> Mind explaining how Elites are optional in Halo Online then? Considering they are also part of the training program with the Spartans.

Sorry, I just had to flush my argument down the drain.

If I’m not mistaken… Isn’t Halo Online the game that is exclusive to Russia that uses H3’s game engine?

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No, the reason you can’t play as elites is because 343 is focusing on Spartans… Or they’re too lazy to make the necessary differences between the two to work in gameplay.

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> 2533274830926790;5:
> No, the reason you can’t play as elites is because 343 is focusing on Spartans… Or they’re too lazy to make the necessary differences between the two to work in gameplay.

Whereas that may be the real (and possibly true) reason, I’m just explaining how it makes sense from a canonical standpoint.

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It’s not just “because story reasons” we can’t play as elites. But because anybody playing as elites would be at a serious disadvantage. Due to basically giant hitboxes. They’d have to sort of counter balance it by spawning them in with better weapons. Like say a storm rifle and plasma pistol. Or might even have to compensate by spawning with a carbine and plasma pistol. I say test it in a beta before anything else. Another way they could balance it is by making the melee hit for elites do more damage. Close to a one shot melee attack. Which would also be lore friendly. But again. Hitbox size matters. If they were to be put in the game, it would have to be as an Elite Only mode. And I think 343 may have done this already with the colour scheme of the Swords of Sanghelios. SoS elites are Red and the New Covenant are still mostly Blue. And it would be easy to incorporate it into the story as, “each multiplayer match with the SoS vs the Covenant is a fight for territory control,” instead of the basic. “It’s a simulation,” argument.

Basically we can’t have Spartan vs Elite action in Competitive multiplayer. Social yes, if they did release playable elites, and they wanted it to be vs spartans it would have to be a strictly social invasion gametype. But they can do Competitive, Ranked playable elites if they do what I stated above. And it will be lore friendly. So EVERYONE wins.

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> 2533274874722389;7:
> It’s not just “because story reasons” we can’t play as elites. But because anybody playing as elites would be at a serious disadvantage. Due to basically giant hitboxes. They’d have to sort of counter balance it by spawning them in with better weapons. Like say a storm rifle and plasma pistol. Or might even have to compensate by spawning with a carbine and plasma pistol. I say test it in a beta before anything else. Another way they could balance it is by making the melee hit for elites do more damage. Close to a one shot melee attack. Which would also be lore friendly. But again. Hitbox size matters. If they were to be put in the game, it would have to be as an Elite Only mode. And I think 343 may have done this already with the colour scheme of the Swords of Sanghelios. SoS elites are Red and the New Covenant are still mostly Blue. And it would be easy to incorporate it into the story as, “each multiplayer match with the SoS vs the Covenant is a fight for territory control,” instead of the basic. “It’s a simulation,” argument.
>
> Basically we can’t have Spartan vs Elite action in Competitive multiplayer. Social yes, if they did release playable elites, and they wanted it to be vs spartans it would have to be a strictly social invasion gametype. But they can do Competitive, Ranked playable elites if they do what I stated above. And it will be lore friendly. So EVERYONE wins.

Did you say invasion? Best time I have ever had playing Halo.

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There’s a pretty big Elites thread kicking around already.