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[CamHostage]

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.

Have gun, will travel.

There's lots more out there if fans want to deep-dive, as you are saying, but storytelling isn't necessarily Halo's aim. Halo is gameplay in a realm of carefully-constructed world-building. You don't need to know what all these things are, but you're still fascinated by this gigantic ring world, or amused by the squishy violence you bring upon its inhabitants, or terrified by these unknown entities who suddenly show up in overwhelming numbers, or commiserative over the alternative experience of an opposing-force solder who is drummed out of his corps for the damage your hero did to their cause, or that your one close friend and companion in your journeys has been lost and turned against you. We may not all understand the complications of what's going on in the wide span of these stories, but you can feel what it all adds up to, and you can instinctually know what it means to progress through the campaign and get closer to the goal.

(I remember playing Halo 2 before getting Halo 1 and thinking, "Ooh, this new guy's cool! I almost wish I had played the first game and gotten to know him so this twist wasn't out of nowhere, but still works for me..." Turns out, the twist was out of nowhere for everyone, and it was set to work the same however much time you had spent in the Halo world.)

Probably some of these games lose their footing when they pause the gameplay too much so that they can dump the lore on you with cutscenes of dialog that you may or may not be following. The series is at its best when it feels like something monumental is happening in a conversation, and you get to hear just enough of it that it impacts you, then it's back on the trail. It's not that the makers don't want you to get all of the story, but they're doing it wrong if you're overly concerned what it all means rather than where you are going next.

The thrust of Halo is that you wake up and see that you've got to get to work. And that you need a weapon.

 

[MagnesD3]

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.

Id accept it if they tried to actually go somewhere after halo 4s story. Halo 5 killed any interest it was so bad. But it would to be made by people who are willing to keep halo still halo instead of trying to make it a faster modern shooter.

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

Plot-wise I've actually really enjoyed 4. Especially main plot points about Spatran II godlike abilities and lack of humanity, attachment to personal AIs and darker take on humanity as a whole, thanks to character of Dr. Halsey. Plus the whole trilogy idea about fighting the Foerunners instead of Flood or Covenant was more or less sound, especially if they've planned to drop robots for resurrected Foerunners in the flesh for 5 and 6. It was even called The Reclaimer Trilogy so some sort of coherent plot was there.

So sad that the entire Halo was massively (and very amateurishly) rebooted somewhere halfway through 5's development. it was an atrocious reboot with every storytelling sin possible. Turning Cortana into Skynet basically destroyed every bit of buildup from previous games and smashed the coherent hard sci-fi Halo setting to pieces. And they did dirty both to Chief and Cortana . It's beyond OOT for Chief to suddenly go AWOL (and even that was a freaking storytelling mess without any resolution) and Cortana to hate humanity even with the Rampancy in mind.

At this point it's easier to fully reboot the whole thing or pretend that everything after 3/4 was some sort of Chief's long nightmare in cryogenic sleep.

Storytelling isn't necessarily Halo's aim

Halo is one of the best, vast, non-banal and intereting sci-fi universes in the medium of videogames. It's standing on the sholders of even more involved titan called Marathon brilliantly. To kill this you need a lot of talent, but guys at 343i were skilled, I guess.

 

[gatti-man]

I couldn’t even tell you the story of 4/5 and I played both all the way through. Felt generic and pointless.

 

[Shut0wen]

yes its pretty much been this way since halo 4 dropped.

Yeah frank o connor is to blame for this shit, much preferred bungies just for the fact that all you need to know is halo is bad, aliens are bad

 

[Rentahamster]

Halo has a story?

It used to.

 

[CamHostage]

Halo is one of the best, vast, non-banal and intereting sci-fi universes in the medium of videogames. It's standing on the sholders of even more involved titan called Marathon brilliantly...

I agree, but I think the purpose of all that investment of intelligently-conceived, richly-invested lore was always the world-building rathe than the storytelling.

It makes sense to me that Bungie's third major franchise (leaving out Oni and the Myths) was again designed with complex lore but, late in production, the story being told in Destiny was jettisoned in favor of a very simple set-up narrative. They did their homework (albeit Destiny changed over that time too,) but they try to avoid putting the homework getting in the player's way of their own work in play.

 

[Celcius]

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.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

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.

Halo ended at 3 for me?

The way it should have.

 

[BigLee74]

Halo has a story problem alright! It is largely incomprehensible tosh (apart from the first one - ring ancient weapon to kill universe parasites).

Pretty sure I played through 4 and 5 without having a scooby about what was going on.

 

[Deputy Moonman]

I don't feel like you needed to know any of the prior lore/story to play through Halo Infinite. Hey look the MC is still alive! Straight into survival mode while fighting through mini bosses. Story not as important. I am, however, interested in where the story goes after Infinite. I'd like to know more about the final boss. 343 at least left some intrigue.

 

[Indyblue]

After the first few, I had no idea wtf was going on