Halo 3 introduced terminals into the franchise, expanding the lore and enriching the Universe. ODST brought in audio logs, another way of telling stories outside of the main plot. Halo: CEA, Halo 4, and Halo 2 Anniversary brought terminals back, but made them visual instead of text. Halo 5 gave audio logs a return as well. With Halo Infinite, I’m sure 343 will want to tell stories outside of the main plot within the game. With the game likely being set on Zeta Halo, there’s a ton of story and lore that could be expanded upon, as well as brought to light for those who haven’t read the Forerunner Saga. Of these methods of telling extra stories in the game, which approach do you hope 343 takes?
I love the tidbits of lore they give. Why not a mixture of both?
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> I love the tidbits of lore they give. Why not a mixture of both?
Terminals give a historical story while audio logs give a more recent side story of what is happening around the player
I prefer the visual terminals that expanded on the background of the story. ODST did audio logs perfectly and added background to the story at hand, but H5 had so many audio logs and all of them were side stories that didn’t do a whole lot to explain or give background to the main story. So I guess I wouldn’t mind audio logs if they served to expand on the relevant plot points, but I feel that visual terminals do a better job of accomplishing the same goal.
Terminals give a more nostalgic feel. Requiring users to stop and read the information provided on the Terminals. With most newer games being more and more about audio logs. Players often don’t listen to the audio logs due to being engaged in combat or being distracted. Terminals can of course be skipped.
Of course the best plan of action would be to have a mixture of both. Audio when there are scenes of awe that you want to reinforce with a voice over and terminals to provide deep information about what’s going on.
Would be cool if they did both but I’d prefer terminals
A mixture would be better, audiologs are more consumable and can carry more story-relevant information, but a lot less production value goes behind terminals so those should be reserved for more deep lore entries.
I would like a mixture of all three. Text terminals, visual terminals, and audio logs. If I had to choose just one, I’d probably go with visual terminals, they have the potential to be the most informative.
As long as they have some actual substance to them I’m fine with either. Quality over quantity, they should be more like Halo Anniversary and less like Halo 5.
Terminals, because audio logs just are of worse quality and also terminals fit more in with the lord of halo rings whereas audio logs feel expository forced in lore, terminals are actually part of the environment. If there were audio terminals that would be cool so we get the atmosphere of a lot but the perfection of a terminal.
Both
I agree with many that say both would be a good solution. However, I think there needs to be far fewer audio logs than the amount in Halo 5. Collecting those got a bit tiresome after awhile.
My ideal would be a codex accessible from the pause menu which was built up slowly over the course of the game as you find terminals (text and video) and audio logs. You could go to the codex whenever you wanted from the pause menu or the main menu of the game and rewatch, relisten, or reread entries. Something similar to the Uncharted series (smaller scale) or Mass Effect (larger scale) if you are familiar with the way those games handled it. As an added bonus, it would be nice to be able to examine 3D models of the findable campaign skulls if those also return.
I really liked the audio logs from ODST. I liked being able visually see what was going on (which sounds odd considering its called an audio log).
I’d rather have the visual logs, or the short films. Whichever you call it, as long as it doesn’t open an app while your playing the game like Halo CEA did.
I say both. Collectibles/discoverable items are entirely optional and just add more to do in the campaign.
I prefer well-developed terminals, that tell you a good story, something important and interesting
I think it would make players revisit the campaign more if it had a good mixture of everything. Terminals, audio logs and skulls.
I’m happy with both because of the many reasons people have stated already.
The only thing I hope is that I don’t have to go out to Halo channel to watch it! (have 343 abandoned Halo channel???)
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They can include both. I mean, why stop there? Terminals, audio logs, video logs.
however, the problem with audio logs and other features like those is that some games just make them too complicated or make it so the player is going to have no idea what the person is talking about. Lemme list a couple of examples:
Good audio log use: Dead Space. All the audio logs in that game were pretty easy to understand, and each audio log would actually correlate to where you found it. A medical personnel audio log found in the med bay. The botanist audio log found in the green house. etc The voice acting and subjects of each audio log was well done and it wasn’t filled with a HUGE amount of info that might make the player stop caring about what the character is saying and just avoid listening to audio logs altogether.
Bad audio log use: Dishonored. In Dishonored, I would pick up audio and text logs just for collections sake. As far as actually listening to or reading the entire things, nah. I would just cut them short. Some audio logs were so long and monotonous that my brain would just stop paying attention because it would go on and on and on. Same with the text logs. You could literally write a book with how much text logs there are in that game, and I think few people want to spend that much time reading about whale oil and fictional devices. If they did, they’d be reading a book, not playing a video game.
TL;DR. Any form of side story snippets in the form of audio logs, USB drives, desolate radio tapes found in an office, and all that other stuff is perfectly fine if it doesn’t over do it. I can’t speak for everyone, but when I play a Halo campaign, my first priority is fun. Listening to hours upon hours of audio files and reading through giant walls of text is not fun, imo.