Before we at Entertainment Fuse begin this, let's throw out a disclaimer: Halo 4 is a fantastic game. Putting in about fifty hours into the game all around, and still having a blast with it. But like any good game that die-hard fans have been clamoring for, Halo 4 is not without problems. With that being said, we do want to applaud 343 Industries for a mostly job well done with the newest edition to the franchise, and the first part in “The Reclaimer Trilogy”. But now that the dust has settled, many people are talking about story elements, changes in multiplayer, and of course, Halo 4's ending, which contains spoilers if you haven't beaten the campaign yet. While Halo 4 is good, here's some things that, with high hopes, 343 can learn from while they begin the process of developing Halo 5.
In Halo 4, 5, and Infinite, Master Chief became a more nuanced, human character.
In spite of the Halo series’ struggles, 343 deserves praise for adding nuance and characterisation to the ever-beating heart of Halo - The Master Chief. Playing through Infinite, it's abundantly clear that the events of the current and previous trilogies have irrevocably changed the iconic hero. He’s no longer the ‘blank slate’ that was previously presented by Bungie. He’s a fatigued, damaged and fallible protagonist, and one who is meandering through currents of grief, while reveling in his newfound agency. Giving the Chief a compelling and meaningful voice was no small feat, and 343 should be proud of that victory.
This article completely misses part of the appeal of the original iteration of character in the original game trilogy. It was the Chief and Cortana vs an entire alien collective. The blank slate Bungie displayed in their games was genius, he was an mysterious hero a wide audience could identify with because he wasn't as clearly defined as most characters.
The books added a lot of lore and backstory but most Halo players just want a fun game with exposition that doesn't get in the way of gameplay, it's why the Cortana level in Halo 3 was derided.
Not every character has to be a damaged soyboy, a soldier has to suck it up and do his duty.
The 343i Master Chief has is based on the books. However, in Halo 4-Infinite, the Master Chief overtime become. gradually becomes more willing to show some emotion.
It’s a law of nature that eventually, every long-running game franchise will have a particular entry that gets dinged for straying too far from what made it so fun in the first place. Your Super Mario Sunshine, your Dragon Age II, Assassin’s Creed III, and so on. Whether or not that opinion changes more favorably over time, the initial specter of negativity will forever hover it. Microsoft’s Halo is no exception, except that negative specter hasn’t hovered over one particular game, but one whole studio.
Halo 4 released 10 years ago today, and its disappointing reception was just an omen of things to come with 343 Industries at the helm.
Halo 4 and infinite have a 87 on metacritic and five a 84🤣. 343i need contents and everything else will play it self out.
Halo 4-6 are like the Star Wars sequel trilogy
They all just seem like a brand new games with small connections to the last one but no solid arc connecting them, you’re just told stuff that happened off screen in between the games and nothing makes sense
It’s like they didn’t plan a new trilogy out
I'm getting a good gaming laptop soon and i'm finally going to play through the Halo franchise again plus Infinite but i never played Halo 4 before .. can anyone tell me how's the campaign in comparison to the games before it and compared to Halo 5 ?
Because camping power weapon spawns in multiplayer is completely fair, right? And earning your power weapons through ordnance drops isn't? Good logic there.
Exile is a terrible map anyway. There should be either a Gauss Hog or a Scorpion -- not both. I can agree the spawns are pretty screwed up.
And you're mad because you have to wait 5 weeks to play every mission of Spartan Ops *even though it's free*? Good logic again. 343i is just trying to extend the life of the game a little and trying to add something a group of friends can look forward to every week. How evil and diabolical, right?
Firefight... meh.
I do agree on the scrambled story. I'm big into Halo lore but I've yet to finish The Thursday War and Cryptum and I haven't even bought Primordium yet, so half of the Covenant backstory is missing and 100% of the Forerunner backstory is missing as well. As such, I'm still pretty clueless as to what exactly is going on in Halo 4. And whoever thought it was a good idea to force players to go to Waypoint just to get caught up on key story elements is an idiot.