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Halo 4 Story Spoilers and Speculations

JB1981

Member
What story elements presented in this game - not elsewhere - even lets you know that there is more than one Didact? Where are people getting this from ?
 

GrizzNKev

Banned
Yeah I'm pretty sure you could show Cortana to any person out there and they would wonder why it's a naked blue chick. That's not just a few people being prudes.

A lot of the reason has to do with the transparency, though--the Halo 1 and Halo 2 incarnations, besides not being as busty, are a lot more transparent and formless.




No, but my bet from what we know from the previous two Bear books is that we awakened the Ur-Didact who goes off the deep end in Silentium, while the Bornstellar-Didact who's replaced him by the Librarian's side is the one who fires the rings.

Her appearance also leaned more toward middle-aged, which doesn't quite hold the sexual appeal.

She looks 25 in Halo 4.

What story elements presented in this game - not elsewhere - even lets you know that there is more than one Didact? Where are people getting this from ?

None. The games will likely never acknowledge this, Though you could potentially figure that the one from the Halo 3 terminals couldn't possibly be the one you meet in Halo 4 since they clearly faced different fates. Or it was retconned.
 

JB1981

Member
I don't know how anyone can look at this and not see a character design made deliberately more sexual (as in erotic):

I appreciated it. She's fucking hot. Halo universe could use a little sexuality. What's wrong with playing with a banging hot AI? It's not like her and chief started fucking
 
Not yet, but it's the Bornstellar Didact who's described as having "betrayed them all", which doesn't seem to fit the Halo 3's Didact, who eventually carried out the Librarian's plan (assuming we're not about to get hit with a twist within a twist within a twist, or introduced to a few more Didacts for the hell of it).
The whole Flood-infested system thing doesn't even come into play until Silentium. As far as readers who aren't aware of the third book's description know, the original Didact died in Cryptum.

Well that doesn't really make sense, as it's a more than valid assumption to say that the H3 Didact died when firing the halos, and if 2 are dead we awoke a 3rd in Halo 4 (please no).

---

Perhaps:

120px-Didact_unbound.png

Bornstellar-Didact


120px-Didact.png

Ur-Didact
 

Buddermilk

Neo Member
What story elements presented in this game - not elsewhere - even lets you know that there is more than one Didact? Where are people getting this from ?
I'm up-to-date with the books and I was unaware there were 2 Didacts. I thought Faber killed The Didact, and he came back inside Bornstellar and influenced his evolution, and acted like a Gaes or whatever.

I wouldn't be suprised if the terminals weren't acknowledged as canon anymore, and Silentium clarifies the final actions of The Didact.
 
“Before this is all over… promise me you’ll figure out which one of us is the machine.” - Cortana

“You say that like soldiers and humanity are two different things. Soldiers aren’t machines. We’re just people.” - Lasky

“She said that to me once. About being a machine.” - Master Chief

Cortana expresses numerous emotions. Several unexpected episodes of outbursts.
And multiple signs of depression.

Dealing with her Rampancy, assisting/saving John, and fighting the Didact.

Letting Chief go after everything they've dealt with in the past and all the dramatic bs after nearly 5 years without rescue will eventually mind fuck John.

Debating and brainstorming of how to express such reactions while being the strong and silent type hero under Spartan Armor who's iconic to the franchise, can be a difficult task to choose wisely to execute.

Having the chief denying the inevitable, lowering his head and looking away, lifting his arm out towards her, and reflecting himself upon Cortana's and Laskey's statement on being human or machine. Also, showing literally any reactions towards everyones attention on him being back aboard the infinitys spartan training/diagnostics deck and Legendary ending.

I'm very curious of 343's handling on the Chief's development on being more Human than a Machine/Soldier after experiencing all what Halo 4 placed the players/audience with...
 

SHAZOOM

Member
I FIND IT REALLY WEIRD how people are saying that the game should have spent more time in cutscenes, or how they didn't understand things, or how you have to read the novels to "get it." Of the Reclaimer Saga, I've read one novel--the first Greg Bear one. I did not get all the terminals, nor did I watch any of them. I had no problems understanding anything. Forerunner planet picks up Chief, Chief is tricked into releasing the Didact, the Librarian saves Chief by making him immune (And who cares HOW it works? It's advanced science by one of the most brilliant minds in the universe--why not just accept that she can do crazy things rather than have a disappointing bullshit explanation?) to the thing that imprisons people in computers and drives them crazy (making them Prometheans), Cortana goes crazy, they stop the bad guy, Chief is alone, the end.

Was any of that really so challenging to understand? The game explained a lot of things with great economy. The main thing is that the game didn't really explain what The Mantle was, which it should have done, since that is the motivation behind The Didact's every action. He's all "AH YOU HAVE NOT ATTAINED THE MANTLE YET" and you're all "the what now?" and he's all "I WILL DESTROY YOUUUUU!" and that's about it.

I feel like the game was missing an entire act somewhere between when they scared the Didact off and the Goliath chapter. It's like "woo, we scared him off, time to go home, I guess!" It really needed something substantial in there. Having the Captain of the Infinity be such an asshole seemed to be utterly pointless, as it offered no tangible dramatic tension.

They did a lot of things right, and it was WAY better than FUD's script, but much like FUD, I feel that I personally could have made some much-needed edits to the script.

That said, I'm not really sure where they are going to go from here. The story wrapped itself up in a little bow. Cortana's gone, Chief's back home, the Didact is presumably dead.

...and yeah, you could say "Well, Cortana isn't really gone--she's just entering rampancy," which would be fun, because rampant AIs are AMAZING (see Durandal, SHODAN). You could also say "we didn't really see Didact die."

But... to me, it would be like if, back in the 1980s, George Lucas had made a sequel to Empire, where it turned out that Darth Vader hadn't really died and the Emperor totally survived being thrown into a hole.

Halo 4 didn't introduce enough elements to make me go "okay, there is still room to grow here," which means that... if they do something, I'm going to end up feeling as though it was just shoehorned in to have another Halo. I don't feel like they've prepared adequately for another game.

The introduction of the Spartan IVs seemed pointless. I got no sense of whatsherface being a Spartan, other than the fact that she's tall and in special armor. That 'missing act' I mentioned could have benefited from Chief working alongside her and the Spartan IVs, reminding everyone why the IIs are the best.

The intro Halsey Video didn't really seem to connect to anything. They were all "oh, you're trying to replace him, aren't you?" but that plot thread never really happened in the game, and it doesn't seem like much to go on for a future Halo game.

One story bit that confused me was how he was like "hi guys, this is Master Chief, I'm riding an alien vessel and I know you're not expecting me, but..." and yet everyone seemed like they were ready and waiting for him, totally knew he was coming, etc. It would seem to me like the people at Installation 03 wouldn't know to expect Chief, since my understanding is that Infinity didn't leave until after Didact, and we didn't spend much time at Installation 3 (NOT GETTING BOOTS ON GROUND ON INSTALLATION 3 MADE ME SAD), so they must have gone directly to Earth... so, yeah, how did these people know who he was or what he was doing?

This is all mostly nitpick stuff, but for a story so well told, it's frustrating to see little bits and pieces that don't quite work. If the story was less, I would actually be less inclined to poke at some of the things that bother me.

That said, they did quite a few things EXTREMELY well, particularly in establishing Cortana and Chief's relationship.



Yes. This is explicitly stated in the cutscene where Chief is talking to The Librarian. The Composer turns things into digital information, but they go crazy when they do. Prometheans are humans given a new form after having been composed.

God, thank you so much for this post. I have a feeling there's a bit of Extended Universe Syndrome where folks are expecting minutia to be explained in detail to "get" every little fact straight.

Just... don't do that please. Its what turned the Star Wars Prequels into crap (midochlorians or whatever the fuck it is) and just a big circlejerk for "true fans" to mention obscure novel from the Jedi Academy series or some other nonsense.

Honestly, Halo 4 has been the only Halo that had me interested to see what happens next in the story. Halo 1 was a good starting point that devolves into a zombie movie, 2 was interesting for letting us see things from the Arbiter's perspective but fucks up the feeling of accomplishment (plus having Audrey 2 show up as the BIGBAD) and Halo 3 was just a retread of Halo 1.

There's a lot of lore to Halo, and what was dissappointing about playing through the Bungie campaigns was the story was very focused on stopping the flood/humanities eradication, yet they had almost zero time to establish any thing likable about humanity other than "OOORRAAAH! UNSC!"

Hell, most of Earth gets glassed and it just gets a quick mention by Admiral Hood like someone dinged his windshield. It just felt like Bungie was in too much of a rush to get to the epic sauce to actually make anybody interesting (other than the Arbiter in Halo 2).

I have to give Microsoft/343i credit for actually giving me a reason to care about any of the human characters. Forward Unto Dawn live action series, letting MC get concerned about losing Cortana, even the scientist that was researching the Composer gets a little sympathetic "I've spent years of my life, and we're just going to destroy this?!" moment.

Sorry for ranting, its just I always felt that Bungie was always keeping the cool contents (lore/characterization) all in the books, while leaving nothing but action/exposition in the games.
 

Flipyap

Member
Just... don't do that please. Its what turned the Star Wars Prequels into crap (midochlorians or whatever the fuck it is) and just a big circlejerk for "true fans" to mention obscure novel from the Jedi Academy series or some other nonsense
So you're saying that one vague-ass line is somehow responsible for the poor quality of a trilogy that's otherwise terrible in just about every way? Oh. Okay.
 

Izayoi

Banned
I have been made dumber after reading this post. An extremely tiny but irritating amount of people have looked at Halo 4 and made some crass remarks about Cortana and how 343 handled her appearance. This is so incredibly stupid. It's people actively displaying their own sleazy mindset about something that hasn't been sexualized at all.
I see many have answered in my place, but really? I don't even think she's attractive, quite the contrary. "Sleazy mindset"? Really?
 

SHAZOOM

Member
So you're saying that one vague-ass line is somehow responsible for the poor quality of a trilogy that's otherwise terrible in just about every way? Oh. Okay.

Yeh, it actually is. Someone, a fan or diehard truest wanted a solid reason for it, and Lucas in poor judgment gave it to them. It was a extra blow to not just the movie but the entire concept of the Force and changed it from skill/enlightenment into a blood count number.

Anyway, someone mentioned the Didact's appearance changes so drastically in the Terminal vids. A easy explanation instead of 'oh he's a clone/reincarnated upgrade' is that he's been experimenting on himself to try to become resistant to the flood strain. He'll his dialogue even tells you all this when he appears with the fangs, just no bodies paying attention to what's being said.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
This is going to get spammed across three different threads because we'd got too many damn ones, but anyhow...


Co-op Campaign Night 11/27/12

What is it?
A co-op playthrough of Halo 4's campaign mission hosted by Forward Unto Dawn, with the goal of discussing and discovering more about the game's fiction. Also defending humanity from alien threats through use of exotic weaponry. That too.

If you're an achievement completionist, we're playing on Legendary--so if you want to work on co-op and/or Legendary achievements and can stomach some serious Halo talk, so much the better.

We're inviting people from HaloGAF and HBO too--any Halo player out there who likes Halo's fiction and wants to talk about it is welcome.

When is it?
Tuesday (11/27), 8PM EST (UTC-5). We're not sure this will be the case every week, but we'll see how it shakes out.

This week we're on to the fourth mission, "Infinity". Chief walks around jungles! Gets judged by his height! Marines are found and killed rather quickly! Del Rio snaps at people! All this and more!

How do I get a piece of the action?
Message Postmortem (GT: FinalPOSTMORTEM), and be online by 8pm (a few minutes before would be best, so we can jump into sorting into four-person teams and get into the mission quickly). We're not sure exactly how many people we're going to have, so the sooner we get everyone together, the faster we can be.

Any questions, let us know here or via XBL message (My GT is Pixelfox.)
 

SHAZOOM

Member
Speaking of which, did they ever explain why Cortana's appearance changed so much between 3 and 4?

Honestly, because Bungie is terrible with human faces/anatomy. Cortana in the Bungie trilogy suffers from block face, just like both Keyes and Admiral Hood. Plus she now has a more normal anatomical features that aren't super skinny stripper porn star. She's still relatively attractive, but not modeled after some lame fanboy wetdream of "mah waifu".

All the talk about 'they made her more sexy herp derp' just seems like folks with a narrow view on what nude female body should look like or someone with a prude complex.

In storyline, my guess is she gave herself a make over while also reworking MC's hud/systems. 4 years is a long time to be rocking the same look.
 
Honestly, because Bungie is terrible with human faces/anatomy. Cortana in the Bungie trilogy suffers from block face, just like both Keyes and Admiral Hood. Plus she now has a more normal anatomical features that aren't super skinny stripper porn star. She's still relatively attractive, but not modeled after some lame fanboy wetdream of "mah waifu".
Personally, I feel she's a lot more sexy in Halo 4 then any of the previous games. But like you said, better face and body works here.
 

SHAZOOM

Member
Personally, I feel she's a lot more sexy in Halo 4 then any of the previous games. But like you said, better face and body works here.

She's definitely more appealing to me personally, but that's because she looked awful to me in the Bungie games.

Deciding to use scanned in actual people helps, and there's a significant amount of good voice acting happening in the game from everyone.

She also shows some vulnerability in a "chief, i'm going to crazy myself to death" manner. The arc for MC and her is more in line with what someone who is losing someone they care about to dementia/alzheimers and there's also hints of survivor's guilt on MC's part. He's the only person alive from the original Halo trilogy. Like I said before, I really love the way they handled the cutscenes and letting there be nuanced character moments for everybody in the human side.

On the Terminal content regarding the Didact/Librarian, I'm fine with them leaving it in the terminals versus elaborating in game cutscenes. It keeps the flow of the story in the here and now. My only issue is the fact you have to REALLY look for these versus say having it unlock after the first playthrough.
 
I can't believe I'm participating in this debate but, when it comes to Cortana in Halo 4, its more than being "more sexed up". She's more human in general. Her face actually looks human now. Her eyes show emotion. She's more than just the voice in your head now. She's an entity, with her own flaws and emotions and she's dealing with huge questions about life, death and the universe. That's why people "feel" more for her in Halo 4. Not just because her hips are more defined.
 

Flipyap

Member
Yeh, it actually is. Someone, a fan or diehard truest wanted a solid reason for it, and Lucas in poor judgment gave it to them. It was a extra blow to not just the movie but the entire concept of the Force and changed it from skill/enlightenment into a blood count number.
Wow. Not only did the midichlorian nonsense not change anything about the concept of the Force (it's not even an explanation, it's just a different way of saying "I sense that this kid will be the bestest space wizard"), but those movies aren't pandering to anyone except toy manufacturers and Lucas's own ego/wallet. Definitely not to any hardcore fans. Get real.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
No need to blame Bungie. The technology has just advanced in 10 years, allowing for a more realistic look.

Their facial animation was still far behind the curve. Not really a knock against them, obviously you can't do everything perfectly, but graphics are only part of the reason.

They did make tremendous strides forward in Reach, and Microsoft definitely improved upon that (I could watch Lasky make sad puppy faces all damn day.)
 

Tzeentch

Member
-- Finally watched all the terminal videos for Halo 4.

-- WHAT. THE. HELL.

-- Why was that story masterfully told, great music, great voice acting, emotionally moving. Wow it had it all. Why the hell was this hidden behind terminals?! A HUGE number of questions people had about the story were answered there.

-- Wow. I'm just.... wow. Boggled at the design decision here. Wish I could see the minutes of the meeting where they decided this.

It wasn't clear in the videos what physical differences the early humans had with the modern versions, or what they were doing with the Admiral of Fleets and his dudes. I assume indexing them or storing them away for crimes against the Forerunners? The Didact didn't digitize those dudes.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
-- Finally watched all the terminal videos for Halo 4.

-- WHAT. THE. HELL.

-- Why was that story masterfully told, great music, great voice acting, emotionally moving. Wow it had it all. Why the hell was this hidden behind terminals?! A HUGE number of questions people had about the story were answered there.

-- Wow. I'm just.... wow. Boggled at the design decision here. Wish I could see the minutes of the meeting where they decided this.

It wasn't clear in the videos what physical differences the early humans had with the modern versions, or what they were doing with the Admiral of Fleets and his dudes. I assume indexing them or storing them away for crimes against the Forerunners? The Didact didn't digitize those dudes.

I'm guessing the terminals weren't going to be ready to ship at the same time the game was certified, or there wasn't the space, or some other logistics reason. But, as you said, it really was a poor choice.
 

SHAZOOM

Member
Never played Reach?

Sadly, I think by that point it was too little too late. Same sort of pacing issues with the amount of the game I played story wise *gameplay was fine* where something important happens.... but I had a hard time even caring.
 

wwm0nkey

Member
I'm guessing the terminals weren't going to be ready to ship at the same time the game was certified, or there wasn't the space, or some other logistics reason. But, as you said, it really was a poor choice.

Well its also hidden behind like a million menus in Halo Waypoint too, if these were just part of the game it would have probably made it more enjoyable (plot wise) for A LOT of people.
 

SHAZOOM

Member
No need to blame Bungie. The technology has just advanced in 10 years, allowing for a more realistic look.

Actually, you kind of can. There were tons of games coming out in 2001 on PS2, Xbox and Gamecube with human character models that at least were better at emoting. Onimusha, Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill 2, Rogue Squadron II, and any myriad of NBA/NFL/NHL games basically say "hey, heads that aren't blocky".

Bungie made a great fast paced tactical shooter, but I can't ever give them a pass for the blocky faces on any human face preReach.
 
Well its also hidden behind like a million menus in Halo Waypoint too, if these were just part of the game it would have probably made it more enjoyable (plot wise) for A LOT of people.

I think because they had to be played from waypoint a lot of people forgot about them.
 
-- Finally watched all the terminal videos for Halo 4.

-- WHAT. THE. HELL.

-- Why was that story masterfully told, great music, great voice acting, emotionally moving. Wow it had it all. Why the hell was this hidden behind terminals?! A HUGE number of questions people had about the story were answered there.

-- Wow. I'm just.... wow. Boggled at the design decision here. Wish I could see the minutes of the meeting where they decided this.

It wasn't clear in the videos what physical differences the early humans had with the modern versions, or what they were doing with the Admiral of Fleets and his dudes. I assume indexing them or storing them away for crimes against the Forerunners? The Didact didn't digitize those dudes.

THIS!

Even though I'm way early, the story scenes from Spartan Ops are doing it for me too. If Halo 4's story seemed ... light, then this could explain it. All added up, it's a lot of story content, spread out in a way that only rewards die hards ...
 
I played through the first chapter of Spartan Ops by jumping straight in to matchmaking, and I had no idea there were actual cutscenes. Made me think that the story promised for SpOps was just Palmer barking at you over the com. So I was pleasantly surprised when I went back and actually watched the cutscenes while clearing chapters 2 and 3.

I've never liked Master Chief as a character. Or the fact that this entire huge universe has been created, with all of this convoluted backstory, all to focus on what this one robot guy does. So I actually really liked the story in Reach. Then Halo 4 took a huge step back for me. Not only was Master Chief this one special destined guy, chosen specifically by Halsey and Cortana to save humanity, now he's also this one special destined guy, chosen specifically by the librarian, even though she's a goddamn computer copy of an alien or something.

So it's great that Spartan Ops actually has a bunch of characters with differing personalities! And dramatic conflicts besides gotta shoot/blow up some dinosaurs/zombies/computers!
 

Nirvana

Member
I'm a bit disappointed in the fact that Master Chief is just a culmination in an evolutionary plan set in place by the Librarian. It kind of takes away from his accomplishments, because essentially the only reason he is as talented as he is, is because of some predestined, preordained nonsense that drives him without his knowledge.

It makes me feel that Master Chief hasn't earned anything, like all of the work he put in (we put it) to fight the Covenant, the Flood, the Brutes and now the Prometheans and the Didact meant nothing.

I don't believe in Destiny, I don't believe in God and his devine plan, it's just another way to strip back humanities successes and this is how I feel about Master Chief's existence now.

I hope they contextualise and specify it more in the next two games and allow some room for Chief to have his own successes that aren't based on pseudo-scientific, deterministic, deus ex machina plot devices.

I really enjoyed the storyline overall, this just really bugged me and I feel a little less impressed by the Chief's (and my) accomplishments now.

Also, as an aside; was the implication at the end of the Campaign that Chief was getting upgraded to Mark VII armour or was it supposed to indigate that he was retiring after losing Cortana? It felt like the latter to me, but I just wasn't sure.
 

GrizzNKev

Banned
I'm a bit disappointed in the fact that Master Chief is just a culmination in an evolutionary plan set in place by the Librarian. It kind of takes away from his accomplishments, because essentially the only reason he is as talented as he is, is because of some predestined, preordained nonsense that drives him without his knowledge.

It makes me feel that Master Chief hasn't earned anything, like all of the work he put in (we put it) to fight the Covenant, the Flood, the Brutes and now the Prometheans and the Didact meant nothing.

I don't believe in Destiny, I don't believe in God and his devine plan, it's just another way to strip back humanities successes and this is how I feel about Master Chief's existence now.

I hope they contextualise and specify it more in the next two games and allow some room for Chief to have his own successes that aren't based on pseudo-scientific, deterministic, deus ex machina plot devices.

I really enjoyed the storyline overall, this just really bugged me and I feel a little less impressed by the Chief's (and my) accomplishments now.

Also, as an aside; was the implication at the end of the Campaign that Chief was getting upgraded to Mark VII armour or was it supposed to indigate that he was retiring after losing Cortana? It felt like the latter to me, but I just wasn't sure.

Maybe he could defy the Librarian's plan?
 

exYle

Member
Also, as an aside; was the implication at the end of the Campaign that Chief was getting upgraded to Mark VII armour or was it supposed to indigate that he was retiring after losing Cortana? It felt like the latter to me, but I just wasn't sure.

I'm pretty sure it's supposed to go with the whole "man vs. machine" thing that's present throughout the story. For the first time in the series, we see Master Chief take off his armour and we even see a glimpse at his eyes in the Legendary ending.
 

Jedeye Sniv

Banned
I played through the first chapter of Spartan Ops by jumping straight in to matchmaking, and I had no idea there were actual cutscenes. Made me think that the story promised for SpOps was just Palmer barking at you over the com. So I was pleasantly surprised when I went back and actually watched the cutscenes while clearing chapters 2 and 3.

I've never liked Master Chief as a character. Or the fact that this entire huge universe has been created, with all of this convoluted backstory, all to focus on what this one robot guy does. So I actually really liked the story in Reach. Then Halo 4 took a huge step back for me. Not only was Master Chief this one special destined guy, chosen specifically by Halsey and Cortana to save humanity, now he's also this one special destined guy, chosen specifically by the librarian, even though she's a goddamn computer copy of an alien or something.

So it's great that Spartan Ops actually has a bunch of characters with differing personalities! And dramatic conflicts besides gotta shoot/blow up some dinosaurs/zombies/computers!

Oh yeah, who's your favourite member of Crimson then?

IMO SpOps is a missed opportunity to do some Left 4 Dead/Reach storytelling with a defined cast of 4 Spartans that you play as in the missions. It would be great.
 
Oh yeah, who's your favourite member of Crimson then?

IMO SpOps is a missed opportunity to do some Left 4 Dead/Reach storytelling with a defined cast of 4 Spartans that you play as in the missions. It would be great.

Yeah one problem with SpOps is that the cutscenes are good, but actually are only tangentially connected to the gameplay. Also, SpOps is horrible when played alone. Your idea is pretty good, and it could actually solve both problems. Instead of having defined characters on Fireteam Majestic and anonymous characters on Crimson, they could have combined the two. Maybe everyone on their own console is playing as their anonymous multiplayer spartan, but everyone else playing sees them as one of the defined cast. Plus, then even if you're not playing in matchmaking you could have AI partners. Because playing a level alone when it's designed for 4-player coop is just dumb.
 
I've just seen all the terminal videos. Wow, didn't have a clue what was going on before that. There is enough lore to do a Mass Effect style Forerunner era game/ games. I have to say, if it weren't for an online forum I wouldn't never have found out about them, which is a shame because they're amazing.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Well its also hidden behind like a million menus in Halo Waypoint too, if these were just part of the game it would have probably made it more enjoyable (plot wise) for A LOT of people.

Well, yeah, the other side where a lot of stuff falls apart is the Waypoint redesign, which makes a lot of stuff actually worse. If they had spruced up their Halo Reach stat design to give a little more power and make it easier to find games, I'd have been happy, but they've just made the desktop version harder to find anything. I haven't even tried to open up Waypoint on the Xbox, I'm scared.
 

TheOddOne

Member
That doesn't really have anything to do with that comparison. Not only is he not a writer, he joined 343 long after Cryptum came out and the backstory's backstory explosion was already in effect.
There has to be some input that is his own trademark. With the comment I didn't want to imply that he was the only one pulling all the strings, but some of the influences might have come from the titles he worked on before. While the concept was already out there, he might have focused on specific aspects when he came aboard.
 

Flipyap

Member
Spartan Ops Episode 4.
"Didact's Hand". You can tell which elite that is, because he's covered in handprints with Didact's branding. Real subtle there, boss.

I enjoyed that mysterious talking iPad, but by the time the hand bro said "Librarian", I started throwing up blood, passed out and woke up covered in a mess of my own vomit, internal organs and poop. I'm not exactly what you would call a "fan" of mixing alien languages with words that clearly should have their own alien equivalents.
Oh, and whoever thought that this was the right way to direct Jen Taylor's performance is a war criminal him/herself; performance as a character who has been established as not sounding like a cartoon villain, no less!
Why. All of this.
 

Fehyd

Banned
I'm pretty sure it's supposed to go with the whole "man vs. machine" thing that's present throughout the story. For the first time in the series, we see Master Chief take off his armour and we even see a glimpse at his eyes in the Legendary ending.

I actually think it was John taking what Lasky and Cortana said to heart, and endeavoring to be more human.

In the intro, he's "alone" until Cortana is given to him by Halsey. I took the ending to be more along the lines of him breaking down some of those walls he'd built up during his life.
 
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