It’s been well established at this point thatHalois more than just a game series. What started as one of several blindfire attempts at an identifying exclusive for the original Xbox has since become a major franchise, to the point there’s a TV show (that doesn’t get enough credit, but that’s a topic for another day), a Megabloks sets for kids, and young adult novels (because there’s a market big enough that adult-targeted ones weren’t enough).
So why is it that when the franchise is at its vastest, most publicly visible point, nobody can figure out what direction to drive the darn thing?
Don’t get me wrong - I actually really liked Halo 4, and despite its thematic issues, Halo 5: Guardian’s gameplayfeltamazing, but at three games into the “Reclaimer Saga”, I just don’t see what 343 Industries is thinking. If theStar Warssequel trilogy was a barely planned outline, then Halo has just become a series of soft-reboots that never take the time to deliver. It’s always a bold new idea that could work, but then it either pulls up short somehow or never gets to go anywhere.
Halo 4 felt like an ending to Master Chief’s saga, with Spartan Ops clearly meant to establish new heroes to replace him. Then Halo 5 did that in half-measures, with clearly cut and rewritten story arcs, including tossing out the villain of Halo 4 for a generic new antagonist for most of Halo 5 until turning a fan favorite character into the antagonist. Then Halo Infinite skips essentially an entire game’s worth of story to jump ahead to… another reset so divorced from the last two storylines that established characters barely get a mention in audio diaries. In fact, if I’m being honest, an actual reboot would’ve made more sense than Infinite’s actual premise, which tries to retroactively tell the story it skips instead of charting a course for a new one.
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And now, ifreports are to be believed, Infinite is beingabandoned, outside of multiplayer seasons. So much for being a “ten year journey”… and I don’t say that gleefully. As much as I found Infinite’s story campaign to be one of the weakest in the series, I had hopes that at least, with time, it could be improved. Surely, with enough feedback on the repetitive sandbox design, needless progression system, the overwrought means of retconning Cortana into once again being an ally, and the main antagonist not being present for the campaign could all be addressed in future DLC. It really felt like that was the plan in general.
Why else structure so much of the campaign like a series of tutorials and content types made for easy copy-pasting onto new sandbox environments. What benefit is there to establish new threats and effectively waste the player’s time for 10 to 20 hours merely to re-establish a status quo that honestly hasn’t been the status quo since the original Xbox.
After Halo 2, every subsequent Halo game has either been a prequel about how humanity gave it their all and Master Chief wasn’t the only real war hero, or a sequel where humanity and their Sangheili allies kick the Covenant’s behinds while another threat looms. Yes, I know we’re technically fighting The Banished now and there’s the new alien race the Endless, but realistically either group might not amount to anything more significant than the Forerunners AIs.
It’s hard to not be bitter about all of this. The expanded fiction has had to bend over backwards to make sense of the constantly changing lore to justify each game’s sudden pivots, and now the games are starting to be bent out of shape too. Infinite wouldn’t need to spend so much of its time moralizing Cortana’s second heel turn and The Weapon if it’d just embraced the consequences of Halo 5’s ending.
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We could’ve had a new generation ofcharacterslike inGears 4and 5, who could’ve have had a consistent narrative throughline despite a more drastic series of narrative choices. Gears 5 delves into dangerously sensitive topics like mental illness and toxic masculinity, and it stuck the landing perfectly. Halo Infinite is one giant fix-it fic that tosses any existing Reclaimer Saga fans aside to please part of the fandom that realistically won’t ever truly be happy unless Bungie gets magically reinstated as the franchise developer.
If there really is another pivot coming, that will make three games' worth of “actually, nevermind!” retcons, not simply in story either, but also game design. Halo 4 was lithe and quick, but a bit shallow; Halo 5 was so deep it overwhelmed more casual players online, while only offering a middling attempt at squad tactics in campaign; Infinite is pretty much Halo 3’s enemies but with a boilerplate open-world and Halo 4’s sprinting and built-in armor abilities. Those abilities are a blast, especially the grappling hook, but only really change things up at a higher skill level than the average person is going to reach. Instead, it’s the ability to summon supplies and allies before diving into a mission that changes things for the campaign, letting you stack the deck in your favor.
I just don’t think I’ve got it in me for another course correction. At this point, if whatever comes after Infinite were to barely change anything from Infinite’s story and structure, flaws and all, I’d actually be overjoyed. It’d be the first time in a decade that 343 Industries genuinely committed to a path for Halo.
Sequels iterate and change things no matter what. However, every Bungie developed Halo is clearly designed with the same universe and core philosophy in mind. Between Halo 4 and Infinite, an entire new faction was added, expanded, and deleted, on top of the seemingly permanent removal of The Flood, as well as four new protagonists now relegated to extras in tie-in novels. I can’t think of another franchise in gaming that’s scrambled this hard when just iterating would be a bold turn of events.
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I’m not asking the world here. I’m not even asking for my preferred style of Halo gameplay - if I want that, I’m better off with the modding efforts being made with The Master Chief Collection. I just want Halo to become consistent about anything other than its inconsistency. That way I at least rest assured that what’s being built isn’t a bridge to nowhere. Even a middling crowd pleaser like Infinite has the potential for greatness. You could build something amazing off of what’s been established here.
Or we can just throw an entire new style of Halo away again, start from scratch, and… I don’t know. Maybe The Weapon was secretly an actual tiny woman in Chief’s helmet and the Pilot was 343 Guilty Spark’s cousin, and they’re both plotting to unleash a fifth faction that’ll fight the Endless and the Banished while Chief tells Blue Team that they still can’t be in any other Halo game besides 5 because they’re cramping his style. Or it was all a dream that insult-hurling grunt had during the end of Halo 3. Little would surprise me at this point.
