Analog Addiction Writes: "What I hear a lot of from people is those who don’t take the story seriously, don’t understand it, or say it’s the least important part of the game. I just can’t disagree with that anymore. It is undermined too often and I just want to give my views on why it should not. The Halo franchise is a journey, since the beginning you are venturing off to new worlds and fight off ancient threats that wish nothing more than to gain power through any means necessary. This is nothing new and goes so much deeper if you allow yourself to understand."
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 ?
i helped a friend do the campaign and i was bored out of my mind. i actually considered turning my xbox off and just telling him my internet went down
Halo4Life
343 put most of the the damned game's termnial cut-scenes that explained a lot of the backstory on Halo Waypoint (which requires Live gold)and then you unlocked them and had to download/stream them. This kept people without Live Gold or who didn't know or care about Waypoint from seeing them. They ended up on Youtube anyway but from all the confusion apparently nobody watched them.
THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN ON THE DAMNED DISC AND EASILY AVAILABLE TO EVERYBODY WHO BOUGHT AND POLAYED THE GAME JUST LIKE THE BACKSTORY TERMINAL CUTSCENES WERE ON HALO CE: ANNIVERSARY.
Likewise the coop missions should have worked offline via lan and system link.
Most game developers are bad at story telling. The best thing about Halo is the universe and back story, they need to do a better job at telling it. The terminals were great and should have been available to watch at any of the terminals once you collected them.
Spartan Ops could be a great tool for story telling as well. Those cinematics could be filled with story.
But they should be careful they don't overdo it. Metal Gear Solid was a favourite of mine but the amount of story they have is silly. You couldn't meet anybody in the first game without them telling you their life story.