What would you like to see in Halo 6?

[MCPO Mayh3m]

My guess is that Halo 6 is not the next Halo FPS game to be released. So I have no opinion on how that will be... yet.

 

Theory time: Halo 5: Guardians is only the beginning of Halo 5. 

[Caboose The Ace]

Playable Elites? Why? What benefit is that? They have never been anything interesting because THEY HAVE NEXT TO NONE IN CUSTOMISATION.

 

You do realise what has happened to Drones and Brutes, don't you? Brutes are used for slave labour and therefore have no chance of anything and Drones have given up fighting altogether because they don't need to. So all-in-all, they aren't doing anything.

 

I can understand the all gametypes at launch bit but really, there's no call for anger or disappointed over it.

 

Your last point though, the Flood. The Flood were interesting in CE as they were a mysterious enemy who killed all. In Halo 2, it was a shock to see them show up. BUT, Halo 3 came along. The Flood just ended up being a nuisance then. I don't mind if they show up again but it really isn't an "improvement".

 

Playable is not only a preference but it helps Machinima too.  You may not prefer Elites but I know people who do.

Plus there is still a Brute Elite war going on so Brutes can easily return. Drones too.

[Fishy]

Okay guys, this is it, I'm going in. If you're triggered by walls of text, stop reading now because you're not going to like this. Content has been spoiler-tagged for the sake of length - cheers for the idea, Spartan!

 

 

Characters

 

Chief is barely in it. The one returning character from previous games who's had any degree of character development or exploration, and he gets three missions. This isn't helped by the fact that Blue Team's interactions with him are terrible - at the start of their first mission things are promising, with the Chief getting lost in thought as he strokes the part of his helmet where Cortana used to be, and Fred quietly voicing some concerns to Linda and Kelly about him in the back. I'd hoped that what was going to happen was that Blue Team were going to be used as a way of examining the Chief's mental state - that there'd be something about him trying to fall back onto them as friends in his grief, with them unsure about how to support him after being apart for so long and having gone through something so traumatic. Perhaps even little things like someone cracking a joke that the other two would laugh at, but Chief wouldn't really get, showing how estranged he'd become - and perhaps leading onto more character evolution where he slowly starts to deal with his grief and embrace his family again, or where it just consumes him and he starts pushing everyone away completely, believing that there just isn't a place for him in the world anymore.

 

This would have set up a much more interesting confrontation with Cortana. If he hadn't dealt with her death, and instead felt like there was no going back for him, as though there was no way he could find purpose in a society in which everyone he knew is either dead or has moved on from him - in which he's been replaced by his military, and in which he's a soldier in a war which has just wound down and he's likely to be sent off to start killing the very humans who he's spent the last over thirty years risking his life trying to defend - then the confrontation with Cortana becomes so much more compelling. He's being offered a chance to reunite with the love of his life, the one person who has literally been inside his head, and who is offering him both value as an individual and a new purpose, all while promising to make his sacrifices worthwhile by trying to prevent more human blood from being shed in petty politics and internal strife. That makes for some absolutely heartbreaking drama, whichever way he decides - either he accepts her offer, severing the last of his ties to humanity and his old life in pursuit of actually getting some feeling of fulfilment and independence for the first time since he was kidnapped as a child, or he refuses and in doing so puts his principles and loyalty to a coldly indifferent military-industrial complex which treats him as nothing more than a tool ahead of any chance he has of actually finding peace and happiness.

 

See, this would have worked so much better than what we got, and would have tied in nicely with the whole 'Hunt The Truth' thing, and done right, could have made for a genuinely emotional moment in which the true nature of the Chief's character is revealed and we see the facade slip, just for a few moments. But nope, instead after that initial promise we just get dull, flat characters with no evolution or development, showing a constant professionally stoic attitude about everything that happens and in which party banter is restricted to little more than mission details or brief questions about what they're shooting next, in which Cortana becomes a flat one-dimensional villain, and there's no real sense of conflict or difficulty about the decision Chief eventually makes.

 

And so, having covered one character, on to Osiris!

 

Osiris do a little bit better than Blue Team in terms of how they're developed. Having Nathan Fillion and Laura Bailey is a big plus, as they're both fantastic voice actors with a ton of charisma, and being allowed to actually inject a little emotion and variance into their lines definitely helps add a bit of character. But again, they suffer from the same issue as Blue Team, in that there's no real sense of inner conflict about what they're doing - Buck briefly mentions he's worried about what they're seen to be doing, and then drops it after one conversation, while Locke, Tanaka, and Vale never voice a single concern about it. They're just told 'go and capture Chief', and so they set out to do it. That's it.

 

In terms of party banter - it's better than Blue Team, but still lacking. Buck aside, none of them really seem to have any actual personality - they're slightly more light-hearted and upbeat than Blue Team, and they crack a few jokes here and there, but again there's nothing to really differentiate them from one another - barring a few of Locke's orders, and bits where Vale speaks or translates Sangheili, you could swap all the dialogue around between the characters and probably wouldn't notice the difference. And worse, we don't even find out who they actually are until the very end of the game - Buck gets a pass as he's in ODST, but unless you've paid attention to the expanded universe stuff, they barely get any backstory at all. Vale gets a little bit in order to explain how she learned Sangheili, but that's about it. Don't get me wrong, they're not bad, per sais, they're pretty average for most shooters. But they're just really hollow and disappointing after how well-developed and interesting the Chief and Cortana were in Halo 4, and to come on from characterisation that strong to protagonists as underdeveloped and generic as Osiris are is a real let-down.

 

We were also promised before the game came out that there'd be subtle differences between Blue and Osiris in their missions, to show how different the different Spartan generations are. But that doesn't really come through at all - I can understand that they don't want to alter the gameplay between the two teams too much, as that would probably be more frustrating than fun, but most of the time they don't really feel any different. There's not really a sense of Blue Team being more of a 'classic' Halo experience or anything - even things like using slightly older weapons, having more traditional levels, talking less in combat, would have contributed to a sense of a generation gap, but it's just not present. One thing that I'd have loved to have seen would be if Osiris had actually had a few generic lines in combat - think Spartan voices in Reach's Firefight or whatever, just something to make them seem a bit more audacious and flamboyant compared to the cold, more serious Spartan-IIs. But other than the Artemis and their scripted lines in cutscenes - they're not really any different. It's wasted potential, more than anything.

 

Going on to the supporting cast - again, they're a real let-down. Lasky got a fair bit of screentime in Halo 4, and Roland and Palmer got a bit more in Spartan Ops. There's also Halsey (and we'll come onto her more later), forming an incredibly diverse range of opinions with which we could get some fresh and unique perspectives on the Halo universe: Lasky is the regular UNSC, who may well be a little intimidated by the Spartans who seem to be taking over everything these days or feel like they're the best hope humanity has for lasting peace, Palmer is the Spartan-IV, who might want to live up to or even outdo the older Spartan-IIs or just feels that they're ultimately obsolete and overrated, Halsey who could either be slowly cracking and showing genuine concern and affection for Blue Team as she realises that they're essentially her children or still hoping that they're going to be the next step in evolution as she was suggesting in Halo 4, and Roland of course giving some much-needed perspective on what it's like to be an AI in this new order, as well as getting the chance to actually develop as a character, having to make a genuinely difficult decision between Cortana's offer and his loyalty to the UNSC in what could parallel Chief's own decision since both of them are regarded as expendable assets - but again, nothing comes of it. They have a few conversations for plot exposition and advancement, and that's really all there is to it.

 

And what's worse is that this is even set up at the end of Halo 4 - the conflict between being alive and being a machine, which Halo 5 then blurs with Cortana and the domain. What does it mean to be alive - and to die? Is there life after death, and what is the price? If you were designed, can you ever actually grow beyond your purpose - and is it right to find acceptance outside of the society you grew up in? Can you ever go back to how things were, or are you just deluding yourself by trying? What if you want to go back a world which has moved on without you? These are all incredibly profound questions which could give so much depth and development to characters as they're forced to confront the nature of their lives, but it's all swept under the damn rug. Chief goes straight back to being a stoic UNSC loyalist, Roland is loyal to his crew just because, Locke and the Chief ultimately reconcile having only ever had a misunderstanding to begin with, and Cortana is just a tyrant now. Utterly, utterly wasted potential.

 

And that, of course, brings us on to section two:

 

Stuff from Halo 4

 

What the hell happened here? There were so many plot threads in Halo 4 which could have led to big story developments or character progression, but were just swept under the rug and forgotten, or wasted completely. To take the first example - Halsey gives a speech about how the Spartans are the next step of human evolution. Indeed, there's even a brief moment where Cortana freaks out and points out to the Chief that the UNSC just replaced him with the Spartan-IVs - a new generation of Spartans, not his peers but his descendants. The Librarian herself shows up to tell Chief about how everything that has happened was orchestrated specifically to bring him about, so that humanity could attain the mantle, so the idea of humanity evolving to their next step is very much set up for use in Halo 5... and it's not mentioned once.

 

There's other stuff, too. In Spartan Ops, we discover that the Prometheans are being formed from recent victims of the Composer, even on Requiem - there's a lot that could have been done with this. Cortana comes back, after all - is there no way we could use the Domain to help all those Prometheans too? Is killing them, in a very real sense, murdering civilians because each one destroyed is one less person who can't be saved? Bungie loved their religious symbolism - this is setting up a whole concept of John as the literal Messiah, returning to save humanity from robotic purgatory, or the Spartans becoming actual Demons and thus giving some credit back to the Covenant, as well as highlighting the divide between Spartans who just enjoy killing enemies versus civilians who want nothing more than to see their loved ones again. This, too, goes nowhere. Prometheans are just the stuff we shoot. No philosophy, no discussion.

 

And it gets worse, too. Between the Librarian and the Didact, we're getting the most in-depth look at Forerunner society to date outside of the expanded universe - we're seeing that divide between the martial authority and conservatism of the Didact, who wants to maintain the status quo because he believes it's the healthiest thing for the galaxy, and the naturalism and revolutionism of the Librarian, who feels the best thing for the galaxy is to allow it to continue developing and changing rather than stagnating. That's another conflict which is set up in Halo 5 - Chief isn't just having to choose between love and duty, he's also facing essentially the same choice as the AIs, of a conservative peace across the galaxy in which he, as a Spartan-II, remains relevant, and one in which he accepts that he is in fact redundant and obsolete, and that he's going to be replaced and have nothing left in his life. For goodness' sake, the terminals in Halo 4 showed conversations between the Librarian and the Didact which set this up perfectly, The Librarian even eventually shoots the Didact and sticks him in a Cryptum until he wakes up to help lead the better universe that she's created in thousands of years' time. This is such an obvious parallel between John and Cortana that I can't believe it isn't explicitly lampshaded in Halo 5 - and yet, it's completely ignored.

 

What about the Janus Key? That was the climax of Spartan Ops, a device of huge significance and which formed the entire basis of the cliffhanger Halo 4's story ended on. When Halsey came back (and was immediately forgiven and forgave as though nothing had ever happened), that key could be reformed... and yet, this was also just completely ignored. Another potential plot thread completely discarded.

 

In fact, Halo 5 essentially just undoes the whole plot of Halo 4. Nothing that happened actually matters in the slightest other than Cortana 'dying'. You could have opened Halo 5 with Chief having a nightmare about how Cortana vanished before he was rescued from the Forward unto Dawn and he couldn't do anything to help her, and Halo 5's plot wouldn't really be affected in the slightest. Retroactively, the strongest story of the entire Halo series to date, with all the character development it entailed, has been rendered completely moot. There's no follow-up on anything that happened except Cortana's death, and that's just completely wasted potential.

 

And speaking of wastes of time...

 

The Plot

 

The plot has no character agency at all. Nothing you do matters in the slightest - if Chief, Locke et al had simply decided to take the day off and curl up in bed with a cup of coffee and some future Netflix, it wouldn't have made any difference to what actually happened.

 

Even a bad plot can be saved by some good underlying themes or questions, or even just strong characters facing personal dilemmas. But, as we've established, Halo 5 doesn't really have any of those, so it's forced to rely on its core plot... which is just nonsense. Cortana is back, but now she's evil, and wants to take over the galaxy. Chief opposes her because it would make for a pretty short game if he just joined her as soon as he found out and because Warden Eternal insists on trying to kill him for... reasons, and Cortana is basically shown as being callous and arrogant throughout the entire game, because apparently that's what happens when you become immortal. Also, Locke wants to hunt down the Chief, because we have to pad the game time out somehow and don't want to make the plot deeper or more compelling.

 

Now, it's very possible to get basic plots like this to work well - Halo 4's plot wasn't exactly complicated, but it was executed with plenty of drama, strong characters and in a tasteful and appropriate way. But since Halo 5 is so devoid of that characterisation, it just feels lazy and uninspired. We get a short speech from Cortana about how she's going to make the world a better place, and how she got extra perspective when her rampancy was cured, but that's really it. There's a short back-and-forth between her and John when they discuss how Cortana will be essentially using the Guardians to intimidate systems into submission and enforcing her dictatorship on everyone, but that's it. Another incredibly compelling questions just wasted - and frankly, maybe Cortana does have a point. In a galaxy completely wracked with war, under the threat of the Flood, in which the survival of most of the sentient species is again under threat, and with constant political infighting to the point where there's a very real chance John is going to be sent to kill the people he's supposed to be defending, perhaps a benevolent dictatorship which removes all military power is the best option for everyone's quality of life. I'm sure the Prometheans, backed by Forerunner tech, could de-glass planets far more efficiently than the colonists on Meridian, for example: and ONI would have a far harder time spreading plagues meant to disintegrate people to planets whose species it didn't like. As usual, this is a question which is just completely wasted, in favour of an incredibly short and shallow anti-imperialist message (and a particularly ironic one from a man who is loyal to a heavily militarised state).

 

What's worse is that we don't even really get the chance to see for ourselves how Cortana's vision compares. We saw how hard life was for the colonists on Meridian - backbreaking labour, constant threat of attack, paranoia about super-soldiers suddenly showing up with undeclared intentions, poor quality-of-life and exploitation by indifferent corporate industry. But we don't see what the alternative under Cortana would actually be like - it would have been nice even if we'd just had a short interlude-style mission on Genesis. There's no reason why a few colonists couldn't have somehow gotten there - survived being dragged by a Guardian, bad luck in slipspace, tricked into boarding a transport actually run by Cortana or a rogue AI, captured and teleported by the Prometheans, whatever. It would have been a great opportunity to actually show how different Cortana's proposed future would be from how conditions actually are, for better or worse, and given some real context to the Chief's decision. But again, it's a potential story avenue and much-needed context which is completely overlooked, and thus deprives Cortana of some potential sympathy for her motives. Granted, this would probably have affected the Chief's decision toward the end - but since the way it's done is extremely shallow and dull anyway, that's not really a big problem.

 

And, speaking of big problems, we come to our next section...

 

The Warden Eternal

 

For goodness' sake. I don't even know where to begin with this guy. He's a villain with no backstory, no explanation, and no real motive. He exists for one purpose only - to be a boss fight. That's his one purpose in the game... and he does a terrible job of it. Fighting the Warden isn't fun - he's incredibly tanky, very agile, and has a multitude of instant-kill attacks, most of which are poorly telegraphed, and often backed up by large numbers of enemies, some of which infinitely respawn. In single-player he's a nightmare to kill as he always focuses on the human player, his sword/charge attacks are nearly impossible to dodge, you can't attack him from the from, and if you try and run away from him he'll just instakill you with a ranged attack anyway. With four players? Sure, fun. With one? Not in the least.

 

And you have to fight him something like six times.

 

Warden is just plain frustrating. He's there purely because the devs wanted to have a boss fight, but in a strong Halo tradition, couldn't be bothered to actually make an interesting one, so they just went with the most generic thing imaginable - a big guy with a weak spot who can soak up a lot of fire and has instant kill attacks, and they don't even really bother giving him a place in the plot. He's just sort of there, as a reason for there to be enemies. His stated motive (of protecting Cortana) is ridiculous and the worst kind of possessive misogynist trash, and surprisingly the game doesn't even address how problematic that is, which is a particular shame as Halo 5 is otherwise generally pretty good on gender matters. If you were to rip the Warden out, there would be a lot less shooting, but not really anything different plot-wise.

 

I think that's about it for now. I might come back and do another post some time about what I dislike about the game mechanically, but since this is already running close to 3,500 words, I think it's probably for the best that I cut this 'short', in what is possibly the least appropriate use of that word ever.

 

 

Anyway, hope this helps explain some of my problems with the campaign as a story!

So what you're saying is...

 

Halo 6 is probably gonna be another story where Cortana is alive this time, but we gotta find her.

 

The Guardians, Osiris, Blue Team... None of that happens?

 

Sounds pretty 343ish to me, plus it makes sense.

[ESPADAS03]

I wuld like to see a true PVE mode justa  good old mode where one can be freeto blast AI with no fear of having there high level REQ blown up or taken away within a mere seconds of calling it in... Yes I'm still a bit bitter to the random teammate who ran me over with a ghost after egtt8gn a random weapon and behold it was non other then the norphang sniper... but yes Just some true PVE only mode

 

I wuld say have players split into different locations having one set drop in via pelican as usual and the other half air insert behind enemy lines.

[BaconShelf]

A complete and utter retcon of Halo 5 would be a nice start. Then the firing of whoever approves the godawful armour designs and weapon skins we're getting now.

 

I'd also settle for a feature-complete game on launch, too.

[karothic]

Crazy idea add a patch for split screen mode.

 

[Mr Kittens and Gibberish]

^{I've said it once, and I will say it again...}

 

GIVE ME A DAMN MOTORCYCLE!

 

 

Remember way back when, during Halo 2? The ghost could do a wheelie by pressing the jump button?

I want that to happen again. With both the Ghost, and MOTORCYCLE!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111!!!!!!!111!!!1

 

I would also love to see the flood return. I have a great idea on how it would happen, and I think it would make a MUCH better story then what they are giving us. Or at least I know a way to incorporate both the Flood, and this current "Threat".