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Halo Has A Real (Story) Problem

The main problem with Halo is that you have to read the novels and invest in the expanded universe to understand almost everything that's going on.

The main games make almost no sense unless you read the books or Halopaedia, the wiki for Halo.

To make matters slightly worse, some people are not going to realize that the streaming series has nothing to do with the games or novels and that it is a completely separate non-canon story.

Compare this with Mass Effect, in which almost everything you need to know are in the games themselves. There's extensive descriptions and knowledge in the Codex of the games. In fact there's hardly any expanded universe supplements at all for Mass Effect.

I think that's a major problem with halo. For those concerned about the story, there's almost no understanding without media outside of the games themselves.
 

Meicyn

Gold Member
Final Fantasy XV was even worse. Instead of one self contained product, you were expected to watch their badly directed tie-in movie, then their awful anime, and buy all the DLCs just so you could get just a basic idea of what the hell is going on. And even with all of that, it’s still a nonsensical mess.
 

MarkMe2525

Member
I mean, any large entertainment property, that has been around long enough, is like this, if you want to understand every callback or reference given. If you are playing Halo 1-6 only, they give you enough to understand what's going on.
 
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Final Fantasy XV was even worse. Instead of one self contained product, you were expected to watch their badly directed tie-in movie, then their awful anime, and buy all the DLCs just so you could get just a basic idea of what the hell is going on. And even with all of that, it’s still a nonsensical mess.
Damn, Final Fantasy was always so well self-contained. I guess I won't be touching XV. To be honest it doesn't look interesting to me anyways.
 

Codes 208

Member
Thats the real problem with 343’s halo. This was never an issue with bungie because bungie didnt even like the idea of people expanding on their bread and butter.

Reach naturally leads into CE which leads into 2 which leads into 3

Halo 4 awkwardly leads into halo 5 which 180’d the story of the didact. and the. infinite essentially 180’d halo 5’s story about the created. Its like they dont have enough confidence to back up any of their visions
 
The Greg Bear novels really brought forth some fascinating things but he recently passed away so you know most of it is going to get ignored or ruined.
 
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MarkMe2525

Member
Thats the real problem with 343’s halo. This was never an issue with bungie because bungie didnt even like the idea of people expanding on their bread and butter.

Reach naturally leads into CE which leads into 2 which leads into 3

Halo 4 awkwardly leads into halo 5 which 180’d the story of the didact. and the. infinite essentially 180’d halo 5’s story about the created. Its like they dont have enough confidence to back up any of their visions
I would agree, that the last 3 Halo games lacked follow through. I didn't mind the stories on their own, but not enough cohesive threads ran through them.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
Hopefully the TV show season 3 gets things back to Chief and Cortana on a Halo ring with support from Halsey. Back to a fresh start, build from there anew. Sure felt like a return and a smattering of supporting lead roles.
Isn't the Halo show written by a bunch of people proud of not playing or liking Halo? They don't give a shit.
 
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Isn't the Halo show written by a bunch of people proud of not playing or liking Halo? They don't give a shit.
First season was horribly bad.

Second season was far better and there are some great episodes and action bits, there is still some dumbass things but fan throwbacks and expected Halo, chief/cortana things are more front and centre. Finally. There are some good performances and the production value took a step up again IMO.
 

Meicyn

Gold Member
Damn, Final Fantasy was always so well self-contained. I guess I won't be touching XV. To be honest it doesn't look interesting to me anyways.
They usually are, but XV was definitely not. As disappointing as FFXVI ended up being for me, at least it was coherent akin to the rest of the titles.

Seriously, major character development stuff for your party members was locked behind paid DLC. Those characters have zero growth or development unless you forked out cash. Even the main villain’s core motivations are explored in a fucking DLC. It‘s unreal.
 
Isn't the Halo show written by a bunch of people proud of not playing or liking Halo? They don't give a shit.
Why does it seem so much with media today that they get people to direct or write things based on video games or comics they almost have no knowledge of?
 

Codes 208

Member
Hopefully the TV show season 3 gets things back to Chief and Cortana on a Halo ring with support from Halsey. Back to a fresh start, build from there anew. Sure felt like a return and a smattering of supporting lead roles.
Ok unless a cure is actually found, I dont see that happening
 

Loomy

Thinks Microaggressions are Real
They usually are, but XV was definitely not. As disappointing as FFXVI ended up being for me, at least it was coherent akin to the rest of the titles.

Seriously, major character development stuff for your party members was locked behind paid DLC. Those characters have zero growth or development unless you forked out cash. Even the main villain’s core motivations are explored in a fucking DLC. It‘s unreal.
Yeah it was pretty weird. You had to watch the 5 episode prequel anime series to find out how the friends met/because friends. You had to watch the movie to find out how Insomnia fell and what happened to Luna.
 
Ok unless a cure is actually found, I dont see that happening
Who knows what they pull, clone Halsey, use the disease that halted infection to form a cure, maybe the actress had enough of the show. No idea where Halo story is going.
 
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ByWatterson

Member
Halo fans don't want to acknowledge it, but it's in desperate need of a complete reboot.

Doom came out in 1993 and was rebooted in 2016. A span of 23 years.

Halo came out 2001. 23 years ago. It's time.
 
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Halo fans don't want to acknowledge it, but it's in desperate need of a complete reboot.
I think there's a fair amount of players that think it needs a reboot.

It's become way too split across different multimedia avenues. It's fine to have expanded material(s) and fleshing out the universe, but main story beats and plots need to be shown in game and not left to outside material in order for the general populous to embrace it the way it was when it was much smaller in scope.

Halo was the biggest media product for quite a few launches and all that good will and hard fought viewership has essentially been killed at this point. The story and direction is way too convoluted for a casual fan to enjoy and for even the semi-fan, just too much work to understand what's even happening.
 
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Halo fans don't want to acknowledge it, but it's in desperate need of a complete reboot.

Doom came out in 1993 and was rebooted in 2016. A span of 23 years.

Halo came out 2001. 23 years ago. It's time.
Halo is largely a dead franchise after Infinite, and nobody actually thinks 343/MS could actually make a reboot or remake of the OG a good game

Let Halo rest, a lot of people have good memories of that franchise from the OG Xbox and 360 days, but it's been a shambling zombie for a decade now
 

DAHGAMING

Gold Member
Hopefully the TV show season 3 gets things back to Chief and Cortana on a Halo ring with support from Halsey. Back to a fresh start, build from there anew. Sure felt like a return and a smattering of supporting lead roles.
I heard its going to crossover with The Last Of Us after s2 of that and its mainly scenes of Master Chief and Abby compareing cock size.
 

Dacvak

No one shall be brought before our LORD David Bowie without the true and secret knowledge of the Photoshop. For in that time, so shall He appear.
Halo has a story?
 

MagnesD3

Member
Anything after Halo 4 doesnt matter. The story ends after cortanas sacrifice as far as im concerned.

Also no reboot just let it die, it wont be Halo with how modern games play. The only new thing that could be worthwhile from Halo is a Halo 3 graphic overhall like 2 got with a fully dedicated online just for halo 3 with the old ranking system options and everything.
 
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simpatico

Member
Halo would be better with less overarching lore to worry about. Just make each entry about one big cool mission or war. Doesn’t have to have the fate of the universe on the line. Less backstory the better. Just moment to moment dialog about the mission.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
It’s so weird, 343 made my favorite Halo (4) and my least favorite Halo (5). I enjoyed Infinite, but sure as shit not for the story. BUT, the gameplay is top notch. So there is at least something to work with there for the next one.

Infinite's gameplay is so fucking good tho. One of the best playing FPS games of all time.
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Halo fans don't want to acknowledge it, but it's in desperate need of a complete reboot.

Doom came out in 1993 and was rebooted in 2016. A span of 23 years.

Halo came out 2001. 23 years ago. It's time.

It is due for a reboot, and it's likely they are working on one. With the right team, and a proper on rails story driven campaign, it's can do very well again.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Infinite's gameplay is so fucking good tho. One of the best playing FPS games of all time.

Agreed, it's frustrating that the massive scope of the game overshadowed and sort of ruined what they did do right at the core. But ultimately, it's a game that lacks focus as there was just too much ground to cover without another 2 or 3 years dev time.
I swear you take that exact same team and make a focused single player story driven FPS with amazing graphics, and everyone woukd have been happy.
 
Halo is a mess. Needs a hard reset. The story is so convoluted that I don't give a shit about it.

Just give us an open world dark Sci fi noir experience and get rid of the same old enemies that should've stayed in 2007.
 

Codes 208

Member
we need another reach-esque spinoff. A new mainline title that shifts focus from the current story and on a more narrow focus, thats part of why I liied halo wars as well since they give us a new pov of the covenant war from a group unrelated to master chief.

Or even some genre bends, I would take a game based on the mona lisa in a heartbeat (even if it would essentially just be dead space but with flood)
 

Crew511A

Member
Probably the most jarring example of this us was the transition from 5 to Infinite. I was expecting some kind of massive war between AI and the rest of the galaxy, but...meh?

I found Cortana's "redemption" in Infinite to be laughable. I found the Chief excusing Escharum's behavior because "he's just a soldier who wondered if he did what was right" to also be laughable. Who writes this crap?

I don't know if a hard reboot is needed. Just hire a competent dev team that isn't hindered by the carousel of contractors and someone who can write a proper story. They'd probably have to come out and just say everything after Halo 4 didn't happen, because I don't see any of that being salvageable.
 

Sushi_Combo

Member
Never played Halo for its story, I always found it to be quite boring. So long as the gameplay is solid that's all that matters.
 

Jaybe

Member
Halo Infinite’s story was abysmal. All I remember is some dumb some ape guy shouting some embarrassing drivel at the screen for a minute or two and thinking thank fuck no one is here now seeing me play this garbage.
 
yes its pretty much been this way since halo 4 dropped.

I played all the Halos up to that point and never had a problem following along, but then 4 came along and I was lost as to who the eff these new Spartans were, the new ship, etc.

343 really did run Halo into the ground.
 

Pimpbaa

Member
Halo fans don't want to acknowledge it, but it's in desperate need of a complete reboot.

Doom came out in 1993 and was rebooted in 2016. A span of 23 years.

Halo came out 2001. 23 years ago. It's time.

But Doom wasn’t rebooted. The events of the first two games happened before Doom 2016 (Doom 3 events not canon). I mean yeah the gameplay was totally rebooted but story wise Doom 2016 was the true Doom 3.
 

ahtlas7

Member
Seems kinda straight forward: mutant military dude kicks alien ass and sometimes The Flood.
For real, I don’t need a bunch of cut scenes showing me who MC is dating. Save that shit for the book.
 

ZehDon

Gold Member
That's 343i's doing.
During Bungie's tenure, the books expanded on what the games setup, adding backstory or side stories to the world in order to expand it. But it was supplemental; the games were relatively easy to follow with nothing else needed.
When 343i took over, Bonnie Ross decided that Halo was now super-serious Star Wars. Starting with Halo 4, they re-booted the look and feel of the world to accommodate their new story direction, while leaving several portions of the story such that they didn't make sense, or lacked proper context, without the tie-in novels and TV shows. Instead of expanding the world, they damaged its foundations. With Halo 5, they effectively re-booted the look and feel of the world to accommodate their new NEW story direction, leaving virtually the entire plot in a place where it doesn't make a lick of sense without the litany of required reading - and even then, I'd argue that none of it is actually any good. The backlash from Halo 5 was so immense, it basically killed the franchise. So, with Halo Infinite, they re-booted the look and feel of the world AGAIN to accommodate their new new NEW story direction, but basically created zero context to the complete over-haul, and so virtually nothing makes sense.
Right now, 343i effectively have three entirely separate story directions and world designs, all of which have unresolved threads.
I don't know who I'd want to try and clean up that fucking mess, but I do know who is absolutely physically incapable of cleaning up that mess: 343i.
 

Fredrik

Member
I loved Halo 4, was the first Halo I finished. The Bungie games bored me. Halo 5 was okay. Infinite bored me. Hoping for something exciting in the next one!

Was it ever explained why Cortana’s appearance changed btw when she looks the way she looks to attract and demand attention?
 

JimmyRustler

Gold Member
For all I care the story of Halo is done after 3 and Master Chief is still floating around somewhere in space.
 
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Mooreberg

Member
I think that's a major problem with halo. For those concerned about the story, there's almost no understanding without media outside of the games themselves.

Yeah, tell me about it.

343 murdered the Halo story/lore, there's no real point to following it anymore. Both Halo 5 and Halo Shitfinite had to retcon huge parts and basically pretend like the prior games didn't happen, it's over.

This is true. 343's handling of the narrative has been a train wreck. It is genuinely amazing how primary antagonists keep dying between games.

Halo fans don't want to acknowledge it, but it's in desperate need of a complete reboot.

Doom came out in 1993 and was rebooted in 2016. A span of 23 years.

Halo came out 2001. 23 years ago. It's time.

The emphasis on plot is quite different between the two. As to whether Halo "needs" a full reboot... well, lets see if Atriox didn't choke to death by the time the next game rolls around. If it is like the last two games, yes, hit the reset button. Overall a better approach might be to let time pass, and bring the story full circle (no pun intended), focusing on the horrendous shit humans did to each other well before Harvest.
 
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