On top of that 4 and 5 and to an extent Infinite involves The Mantle of Responsibility, but it never says what that is in the games themselves or why it’s important. You can kinda infer to some extent what it is through what little dialogue mentioning it there is, but if it’s so important to The Didact and eventually Cortana then why not just say what it is?
In CE when you reached the control room on Halo they weren’t like “Something bad’s gonna happen” and be all vague about it, they instead led up to it. Guilty Spark says it will cleanse The Flood- slightly misleading, but accurate. Then Cortana reveals the truth in plain English- “Halo’s gonna kill everybody so The Flood can’t eat everybody”
Meanwhile The Mantle has history in The Precursors and like they wanted the Forerunners to have it but the Forerunners ruin everything so they gave it to Humanity and the Forerunners ruined that and also ruined the Precursors cuz they ruin everything and took the mantle themselves and then eventually ruined humanity a second time for good measure before ruining the galaxy by not paying proper attention to the Flood and letting Didact and Mendicant talk with the ancient crab monster too much so they had to use the Halos to ruin the galaxy while returning The Mantle to Humanity which made The Didact upset and blahBlahBLAH
RamboBambiBamboBingoBongoBoiyo forgets NONE of that which should be retconned once Studio 117 is molded from the ashes of 343 Industries!
(for context, I plan to peacefully take over 343 Industries someday, and then reform the company to actually some level of reasonable competence; and then retcon the Reclaimer Saga to REWRITE the stories in better fashion so that Halo 4, Halo Spartan Ops, and Halo 5 can lead into Halo Wars 2 and Halo Infinite.)
X3 Full disclosure, I’m not gonna read all your literature so suddenly, but I looked through 4 and it does actually seem mostly improved all around. I dunno about making the Forerunners not aliens tho, but mostly because I believe that 's a bit too big of a retcon to change. I don’t exactly like them not being human myself, but I don’t wanna change it back at the cost of potentially making some of the architecture and lore in Infinite inaccurate or need changing later on either. Plus it would necessitate just wiping a bunch of books off the canon forever- maybe not a huge loss, but not an insignificant change either.
To be fair, it was 343’s Retcon that made Humans and Forerunners separate species.
To quote 343 Guilty Spark from Halo CE
" More or less. Technically, this installation’s pulse has a maximum effective radius of twenty-five thousand light years. But, once the others follow suit, this galaxy will be quite devoid of life, or at least any life with sufficient biomass to sustain the Flood. But you already knew that… I mean, how couldn’t you? We have followed outbreak containment procedure to the letter. You were with me each step of the way, as we managed this crisis. Why would you hesitate to do what you have already done? Last time, you asked me, if it were my choice, would I do it? Having had considerable time to ponder your query, my answer has not changed."
Or his dialogue from Halo 3.
“You are the child of my makers, inheritors to all they left behind. You ARE Forerunner! But this ring is mine!”
Or even Truth’s dialogue from Halo 3 (the higherarchs KNEW about their gods being mortal and thus called for our genocide to keep their thrones and peons)
“You forefathers wisely set aside their compassion, steeled themselves for what needed to be done.”
Frank O’Connor was one of the few Bungie bois that didn’t want Humans to be Forerunners and they were in the minority of story design in Bungie.
But then Bungie left to make Destiny.
And so, working with Greg Bear to make a trilogy of books, Humans and Forerunners were retconned into being separate species.
The Retcon was so sudden that they needed a cutscene in Halo 4 to solidify it by having it COME FROM THE MOUTH OF THE LIBRARIAN TO EXPLAIN THE EIGHT CHANGES that were made to the universe backstory elements.
I do get that, I just prefer the idea of them being a seperate species solely because I dislike that old “royal blood right of kings” type storytelling where the character or their species/clan/people etc are inherently special and have always been extra special. Kinda like Skywalkers in Star Wars.
The fact that the Forerunners are A- not human and B- capable of ruining anything sets up The Endless quite nicely, and if done well The Endless will be a really cool reminder of The Forerunner’s hubris- which is the one thing that’s been pretty consistent with 343’s lore. The entire galaxy paying for the hubris of The Forerunners.
that’s just me tho, and honestly even with The Forerunners being a seperate species the series is still super Humanity centric anyway- which is part of why I liked The Endless, since the sketchiness of The Forerunners ended up dooming those they named their inheritors against a threat even turning on a Halo and hard resetting the galaxy can’t possibly fix.
I honestly prefer the dark tragedy that was the original story.
Humanity was the peak civilization.
Until the Flood came around.
A Cosmic Horror Entity that we could not wrap our heads around and find a solution towards . . . other than factory resetting the galaxy.
And so we did.
And then we were to rebuild anew from the stone age.
Only our artifacts were scattered around and those that were the alien races that we had saved, their descendants mistook our ancient technology for divine relics.
And when those in power of The Covenant found out that their gods were mere mortals, mortals that they had surpassed; they declared genocide to keep their thrones.
And if that wasn’t enough, when The Flood was released; a ghost from our past was back to haunt us.
A tragedy that is the fact that we are 12x weaker than our “Forerunner” predecessors and were now facing extinction on three fronts. Genocide from those whom were also saved by the firing of the Halos. The refiring of the Halo array. And The Flood that threatens to consume all.
And yet . . . . against all odds . . . . . . . . we prevailed.
I prefer that narrative over the one we have now.
“Humans, your species was put into the will to receive ALL the gifts of another Alien race. HOWEVER, all the other aliens in the galaxy are trying to contest your inheritence. Go seek out a galactic lawyer and plenty of guns to fight off The Covenant, The Storm Covenant, The Prometheans, The Created, The Banished, and The Endless.”
True, but without the Forerunners being their own thing, the Endless suddenly make less sense. I suppose there is the possibility that they can be fit into a Humanity-is-Forerunner story with some tweaking, or conversely there’s a chance The Endless could suck and we won’t want them anyway, but regardless given that more lore is being made little by little it would be difficult consolitading the new lore without basically doing like LucasFilms/Disney or Godzilla or The Halloween Franchise and nixing the whole timeline save for the first entries. Or just remake literally every post Bungie game.
I’m just saying, it’s a ripple effect and should you peacefully procure 343 to make Studio 117 to remake these games you will likely have your work cut out one way or the other. Not that it’s impossible, but it does seem like an awful lot of work fixing the past and it sounds like it would take tons of development.
Again I just think a Zero Mission/AM2R approach would be better- take literally the same plot but fix the pacing, tweak the levels to modern standards, and add more as needed to flesh out things to help the game feel bigger and more complete.
But of course this is all strictly my opinion and at the end of the day it’s still some heckin’ good work you’ve done overall. Better than 343 at least, the best part of 4 was honestly the sincerety of Cortana’s rampancy and seeing as it was based on the director’s mother going through what I think was dementia it definitely felt the most emotional. You can tell that meant a lot to them and it’s good that stayed in your edit. But there’s also more surrounding that which helps bolster the parts that felt more lacking or felt off.
I am a man of Spite.
I am a man of motivation.
I am a man who seeks to restore balance.
And I am a man who seeks to leave behind a legacy of perfection.
With my possession of all Halo knowledge . . . the task can likely be done by none other.
I’d like to come off as modest, as Pride is something I do not hold in high regard; but I hardly know of any others who can meticulously build narrative bridges where they need to be built.
I am an architect.
And I am a perfectionist.
May Hephaestus, Prometheus, and The Legion of Authors be proud.
Perfection is a myth, though it can sometimes be a good if flawed motivator. But still admirabl;e. Even so I feel this must be asked so I’ll just come right out with it-
What if you spend so much time focusing on fixing every dumb thing 343 ever wrote (which is A LOT) that you barely if ever get to make anything new?
It’s be Infinite all over again, only instead of lacking content due to bad leadership and technical debt it will be because the old content is being meticulously rewritten and revised. Even if you have a separate team given specific instructions and their own budget to carry these plans out, that’s still resources and staff diverted from new stuff.
Once more, I am totally in favor of your quest. 'Tis most noble. But such ambition can be treacherous, please take heed in your quest as you move forward towards your goal.
False.
Perfection is attainable.
All it takes is the correct motivation and the correct composition of elements.
For example - Final Fantasy VII’s theme song is Perfection.
“If your job is something you enjoy doing, you will never work a day in your life.”
When I am in a good mood, I create to enjoy myself.
When I am frustrated, I create to distract myself.
All of it I enjoy.
Not quite.
Reusing Halo Infinite’s engine and assets would allow us to simply recreate Halo 4 and Halo 5.
Halo Infinite would simply become a second MCC if you will.
An MCC collection of Halo 3 Anniversary, Halo 3 ODST Anniversary, Halo 4 Rewritten, Halo 5 Restored, Halo Spartan Ops Redefined, and Halo Infinite.
Resource development time is saved significantly due to the assets needed already being ~80% there to begin with.
Logistics and resourcefulness.
Saber Interactive and Certain Affinity would be essential for development as usual.
And staffing wouldn’t be an issue, as the rule of “Don’t hire Halo fans” will be undone for Studio 117.
Hire people who have a deep respect of Halo itself and you would find yourself with a good production team that is dedicated to the craft, rather than members that rotate out on the regular.
Your favor gives me further motivation to add to the fire of Prometheus that burns within my soul!
Ya I had read all that in the past. BUT your list left out the main 2 AI that had them opt to go another direction. How in gods name does one forget either tycho or durandal?
Real cool imo.
To be frank the elevator pitches for arcs at 343i are sublime.
Its the execution that is flawed.
For example it was pretty easy to take the threads of logic plague plus didact in the domain with logic plague and the speech at the epilogue of halo 4 and have the forerunners return be the prometheans takin over the universe and cortana being manipulated by the didact in the domain both being easy to puppet due to the gravemind having planned for it and put the peices in place.
But they srewed the oppertunity big time. Thats just classic BR, not a good narrative designer at all imo.
As for your whole perfection is attainable/ halo3 4,5 in infinite claims. Those my furry friend are just categorically false. As optimistic as the idea is. It is not nearly as steaight forward as you are leading people to believe.
Honestly a very poor use of finances from the perspective of 343i.
Also my dudes. Forerunners and humanity can still be the same species just off shoots.
One the group who opposed the precursors and the other those who did not.
The human title of forerunner to the species to me isnt the actual species name.
In the trilogy i always took that as being translated to modern human speech not the species literally refering to themselves as forerunners.
So the ancient humans can 3asily be just a sect of forerunner who did not see artificial gene splicing as an acceptable behavior, while forerunners embraced it.
So 343GS/Cakas’ halo3 line can still be made truth.
On that topic id love to get a retcon that truth had to fight with a gene song on 00 cause damn the “explanation” in divine wind fpr his eraticism isnt good enough haha.
Wait tho, aren’t Tycho and Durandal strictly from Marathon? Cuz Bungie owns Marathon and 343i can’t really reference it at all, at most they can just keep the references already present but even then that’s about it. At most they can take inspiration from Marathon (which I totally encourage) but not directly reference it.