One thing that gets me about the newer Halo stuff is the fact that the Human-Covenant War is more or less just overlooked. When really it should be on everyone's mind and pretty much everyone alive should be impacted by it. More than half of all humanity is supposed to have died in this war and yet no one seems to really care or have any sense of anger or vengeance towards the Covenant
@@Pharis111 343 making non game media be the primary driver for Halo's story instead of the games was a massive mistake, I was hella confused when I first played Halo 5's story due to needing to read books, and significantly even more confused for Infinite, then I found out I needed to read a couple of books and a comic series to know wtf was even going on and I ain't got time for that, books should be a supplement for the stpry of a game, not replace them altogether.
So true. We shouldve been seeing some riots, rallies or ambassadorial stuff. ESPECIALLY in the game. The hunt the truth part about chief looking after that one politician was something I really expected to see. You could tell sabotage has been happening in the production We should be seeing secret joint training groups and covert revenge missions that were from splinter groups. We should be seeing all kinds of stuff. I thought we were going to see some museum type shit as some one just brushing up on their history, maybe even as chief as he got back to earth, maybe check up on which of the spartans were still alive while he was gone. So many things they couldve done with halo universe
I think the marine dialogue is a good example of this. In infinite, a marine gets hit with a needler and goes "Haha, that tickles!" in contrast with the og trilogy, where the marine seems to be in genuine pain and agony, screaming about how it burns. However the og marine still has their own instants of cracking a joke.
I don’t think Microsoft management has the ability to be gritty. The bean counters just want to appeal to everybody, being blind to the fact that what appealed to everybody was the original gritty, hard military sci-fi formula.
Under 343 I can’t imagine halo ever being gritty or hell good even. All the care about is profits and chasing trends. The T rating is a perfect example of this
Man, it's almost all modern games now. The only modern game that's popular and gritty is Helldivers. Hoping we can have gritty and some of the new style too
I feel like what halo needs is another studio to take Halo in another timeline from after Halo 3. Similar to how Elder Scrolls Online is separate from the main games. We need a timeline where master chief is still lost in space and assumed dead for at least two games. Humanity is struggling to recover from loosing 80% of all colonies and 40% of all mankind. The covenant is in turmoil in the aftermath of their civil war with the elites split between those who want to reclaim the covenant and those lead by The Arbiter who want to carve their own destiny and have a more isolationist outlook in a cold alliance with humanity. It takes place with marines and ODST. If this game had a large scale infantry based multiplayer that would draw in players who then would get invested in the story.
@ Considering everything they have touched after Halo 3 was garbage i think it's the only option to un-screw this horrid event chain. Either alternate timeline or trash the current one as a whole. But i think they have too much pride for that.
@ Really the only thing narratively bad that has been made since 3 is Halo 5. I really can’t think of a big IP that has gone back and said “Oh well, actually X is no longer canon, but we’re gonna redo it.” People who push do-overs like that don’t get it.
@ Plenty of franchises have removed, redone or rebooted stories. Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, DC. Unless you are talking about just games. Then there is Metal Gear completely redoing backstories, Devil May Cry, Assassin's Creed, Mortal Kombat completely rebooting, Resident Evil completely redoing story lines.
@ I’m referring to an IP’s main narrative. Star Wars when you boil it down, has mostly been films. Films have always trumped all other media. For Halo, the games have always trumped all other forms of media. So I personally can’t name an IP with their main media and narrative, have jumped backwards and made a “do over”.
I'd like to recommend you reading Rubicon Protocol, one of the earlies halo books that's set in Zeta Halo, it's actually very gritty and dark, that feeling of Halo being dark wasn't really lost in the wider lore, let's just hope they bring it to the games.
Infinite has the same problem as Breath of the Wild where all the coolest stuff happened in the past and it makes you wish you were playing that game instead.
I feel reach was the best Alien invasion. Also, look at Halo Wars 2. The banished were violent. Now the banished are goofy it was Halo 2 & 3 were the goofiest imo
Speaking of HellDivers, we know form ex-343 devs that the company in their infinite incompetence shot down a HellDivers style game. It’s crazy just how badly they’ve managed Halo. I have no faith in their rebrand.
@@MuhFugginJugginEh. 343 isn't the devil the Bungo Good fanboys keep saying it was, but it undeniably also did way too many mistakes for me to have actual faith on them by the time Halo Studios took over
@tiolloyd9555 im not saying your opinion or view is unfounded but if anyone saw how divided the studio was/was forced to be then theyd understand that blaming 343 every five fucking minutes is futile because there wasn't one 343 there were 3 or 4 funnily enough.
@tiolloyd9555 There’s various things from 343’s Halo I really like, but it’s objective fact they ran the franchise into the ground. Halo has never been in a worse state than it is now. Also, the lore is unrecognizable from what Bungie set up. Rampancy went by the Marathon definition, Forerunners were human and that’s what the war was started to cover up, and they introduced the idea of a species immune to the Rings. All of these go against what Bungie established. The Halo IP should’ve been given to Certain Affinity after Halo 4’s failure.
No Halo is a rated M game it is NOT a T game. The new ones have been bastardised and turned INTO a T game. Like Halo CE Anniversary if you melee the corpse of an alien you see this strange colored blood go everywhere across the ground and the walls and stuff. You switch over to anniversary graphics by clicking tab then all that blood disappears. It's incredibly stupid.
About night not being dark: one thing I've never seen discussed but makes perfect sense is that the Halo-shine from the day side of the ring will be hundreds of times brighter than a full moon. It wouldn't look that extreme because of how our eyes work though I'd expect something close to twilight.
Halo infinite had the potential to hit this mark with the campaign, but missed it. The Rubicon Protocol book gave a ton of context to all the locations in the game, including a bunch of the random dead marine patrols, and FOB remnants. The stuff the banished would do to Spartan prisoners at the Redoubt of Sundering. All the Atriox shrines with marine armor trophies, the living conditions and day to day lives of the marines and Spartans engaging in bitter guerrilla warfare on the ring during Chief’s 6 month nap. If only the game showed us more…
Even though I’ve never played the games during the day, I loved the atmosphere of ODST. A lone soldier exploring a captured city evading the Covenant and finding out what happened in around the location
Maybe, you could make content about Sony’s “Halo Killers” Resistance and Killzone (the true Halo Killer was 343). I’ve been playing Resistance and that series is a lot of fun. Such a shame Sony shot down Insomniac’s pitch for a 4th game. Can’t speak on Killzone since I haven’t played it yet.
Its a shame how much 343 has dumb downed the franchise. Sure halo 1-3 were more lighthearted but they could take themselves seriously when they wanted too and kept it mature. Halo reach gave them a good template for making more gritty halo games. Halo wars 2 gave 343 the perfect way to do this with the banished. The banished are a faction made of brutes. they could be as brutal as they want now with no restrictions from the prophets. it was a perfect set up and they blew it in infinite because the banished was never supposed to be in the game. it was supposed to be the covenant but 343 remade them to be the banished to try and appeal to the halo wars 2 fans. "Hey they liked them in halo wars 2 so that means it will work here!" So your left with the red covenant that suddenly wants to fire a halo ring in infinite. Which ruined everything unique about them and they completely avoided actually showing the brutality of the brutes in that game other tahn some audio logs and books nobody read other than a lore youtuber. cause instead of telling the story in game. rely on transmedia storytelling. thats the motto of game devs now. Thank halo 5 for starting this trend >:( Its like 343 has always decided to go full statistic and graphs mode like most modern devs and look for ever small value to appeal to the "broader audience". They want to replace us, halo fans with a subservient crowd of people that will keep buying whatever slop they create. They want the same people that play cod, fortnite and apex. Because those franchises did the exact same thing and succeeded, The problem is and why its always failed for them is that they aren't gonna drop their slop games to play another game. Halo is offering nothing new at the table. Instead of 343 expanding on halos battles and combat with global battles and naval battles (like bungie wanted) they tunnel visioned on the arena gameplay, the comp scene, the same stuff done in previous games. Leading to halo becoming bland and boring. Because despite people saying 343 did new things, it really feels like they didn't because all their new things were so lackluster and barely innovated on the gameplay
@nicolae-alexandruluca7853 Microsoft also owns CoD, Doom, and Gears of War. All three of those make Rated M games. 343’s just completely incompetent and their attempts to make Halo appeal to a “broader audience” (something it did in the original Xbox/360 days for simply being good) have only served to water down the IP, and run the franchise into the ground.
I think the project that felt most like halo in recent years was the Halo mod for Arma 3. Halo was never about power fantasy super hero stories but a pseudo-realistic military story. I say "pseudo" because it's not actually real when you look at it like Generation Kill, but it was hollywood military realism.
343/halo studios does the T rating and treats Spartans like marvel super heroes with marvel millennial writing. And the brutes are the main bad guys now and how are they supposed to show their true savage nature with a T rating?
The halo books get across a feeling of dread that only Reach was ever able to come close to regarding the covenant creeping closer and closer to earth, culminating in the planned longshot of sending a Spartan team on a suicide mission to capture a prophet and hold them hostage until hopefully a deal was made. Then Reach happened, and the rest is history. Also they showed that the arbiter was just John Elite. Man's first appearance was him murdering an assassin in a 1v1 before going to his elders and bragging that he didn't take any hits.
I am fully on board with this. But I think by explaining these possibilities, you mean how Halo could be rather than how it was by leaning into it's 'Military' Sci-fi roots, because Halo CE-3 certainly wasn't as 'gritty' as it's being envisioned here. I think you could've phrased it better. But 343 has definitely traded the more real feel for a plastic look, it's their art direction by nature. I hope they lean into the military aspect a lot more. We can have much more grit than OG games--the technology and talents exist. Of course Halo is not a unseeable dark war simulation. It has to be balanced. Anyway, happy holidays!
This video sums up exactly everything I’ve been wanting in a halo game. Even halo 4 had some grittyness in its writing but halo 5 and infinite just when all in on trying to cater to everyone.
No more campaigns entirely focused on spartans. Shit doesn’t feel like a war. 343 Campaigns feel like a story written around the spartans rather than in CE-Reach in which its a setting that has spartans in it
@@mikeythedino I meant like everything is focused on them. It doesn't feel like there is a larger conflict anymore. 343/Halo Studios are so focused on the spartans that that everything else is an afterthought. Halo CE to Reach felt like playing an important character influencing a much larger conflict with 2 big factions Halo Infinite is just the Master Chief and 2 side characters vs some Banished forces on a small section of Zeta Halo.
I think the fact that 343 won't work with the people who worked at bungie and on halo really goes to show 343 is just there for the cheese instead of making a good game. We all already know that new bungie isn't old bungie but at the start of destiny 1 you did have the same sort of "gritty" feel and especially the environmental story telling they threw that in the trash to make the game more addicting instead of fun with good storytelling and environments. All these companies have the funding and the rights to massive IPs and yet they cut every corner. Destiny 2 even now had the potential to be the game of thrones of gaming with it's souped up original halo engine capable of doing in game live events and fast paced PvP. I really like how the older Halo game engine felt and I hope it doesn't go to waste.
Not sure it’s necessarily a lack of grittiness because games like Portal and Prey have this clean aesthetic and it works. I think it’s more a mixture of the graphics, texture, the way the models look, and overall game design that makes it look like it needs more grittiness to look more alive, not to say it wouldn’t benefit from it.
Halo CE-3 had it exactly right. Militaristic science fiction + space mythology + action movie. Halo ODST was film noir, did fine. Reach was the grittiest one, mostly just militaristic science fiction. 4/5/6 is Marvel in space. Non-trilogy games miss the mythological aspect more than anything else. We don’t need a return to Reach, I think that’s an overcorrection.
Side note, even if the grit was improved to perfection. The game still won't be fun if it's not built to be fun first, which 343 can't figure out still. Bungie was great at creating for fun and then building their story, levels, and maps with it.
I've always found it weird that the UNSC does not use animals. That, at the very least, they did not learn from the Covenant and employ other species to assist. I'm surprised that the UNSC, while willing to work on an experiment on human beings, did not create like...a Spartan or Cyborg Elephant (animal). No Rhinos with armor grafted unto them. A Hunter could not stand up to an armored Rhino. Drones couldn't hold a candle to bio-engineered earth locust swarms. The UNSC could get MESSY if it wanted to.
can you imagine trying to ODST in an actual armoured rhino Or even trying to stuff one of those bad boys into a dropship - the Covenant has a whole lot of sapient species they've enslaved with religion and an iron fist, the UNSC just doesn't have the governmental system to support it even if the rhinos were hyperintelligent enough to play along nicely.
I've said for literally almost a Decade now that what Halo needs is a reset back to before the events of the first game. An ODST 2 set on some random planet years before the fall of Reach, where you're just there to complete a mission and get out. No spartans, no floaty or dash nonsense, just ODST but somewhere else in the galaxy. Frankly, what Halo needs is to stop treating itself like a linear saga and start treating itself like a universe. The Human-Covenant war lasted 27 years but outside of a few (massive overrated and extremely mid) books we only see the last year or so of it in games, and a montage of the first 5 on a single planet. Explore the rest of that war, 343, I beg you. Not that I really blame 343. Its pretty clear that Microsoft has had its grubby fingers in everything...
It’s just not possible, it’s not appealing to Microsoft shareholders. Bungie was a semi independent studio and got away with more than any other subsidiaries under Microsoft could. They even had profit sharing even though Microsoft owned them. They have rebranded to halo studios but it’s the same people who worked in 343 and they’ll have the same company culture and the same kind of Microsoft executives putting the same kind of pressure as before.
It's totally possible. Gears of War: E-Day is under tham. And it looks... just like how it should. They also have upcoming Doom game which also looks the way it does. They also have COD. It's not that Microsoft can't do it. They absolutely can.
Great video. Yeah, that kind of gritty detail and environmental story telling is something I'd love to see. And yeah, the next Halo game needs to be *'M' for MATURE* going forward. Enough of this lame T-for-teen nonsense. I went back and played Reach after a long time and still adore the style that game too. I'd love to see what worked in Infinite blended with what Reach did (and still better in my opinion).
I'd like to see reaches grit mixed with the original color scheme. I appreciate it's story but the grey/yellow tunes in the 2010s got kinda annoying to me and I feel like Grey's blend in too well and make every scene feel the same. When having different popping colours. Makes your brain want to look at more than what's just cool on the screen. Not that it's important to everyone. Another point too is that 80s to Y2K futurism is a huge piece to Halo's art style that I haven't seen other sci fi games replicate besides titanfall 2(to a degree) deadspace, WH40k Space Marine, Helldivers And ofc one of the core inspirations Half Life.
Halo was gritty twice Halo 2 (could have been grittier) and Reach (had a whatever story) ODST should have been a third person cover based shooter with more death and grit. Don't tell me it can't be done. Republic Commando did it with a way less talented team. Those clones could fucking stack on doors. It should have been the Dark Souls of shooters with you fighting brutes where a single one could literally murder your entire squad. Grunts were about the same size as you. An elite minor should have been a boss.
I never want to see a halo game set in the pacific northwest ever again. it is unbelievably boring. But then again 343 lack creativity and can only produce things based on where they live.
I don’t think Halo was ever gritty. Halo Reach was an exception only because it served to tell the story, but every Halo game has had exaggerated colours and not a very gritty art style. Even the stories were never gritty. They were large space operas. That’s something Halo 5 did well, it captured that massive space opera feeling. I’d also say Halo Infinite had a ton of environmental storytelling. All of the tents, abandoned sniper rifles, MREs, the goddamn barbecue the brutes were having. All of that is excellent environmental storytelling. However, Infinite was supposed to have more gritty elements, like there were going to be marines being tortured by brutes, marines bodies being thrown off the side of the ring, etc. The only traces of those things we see in game are the marine armours on the sticks. I really don’t think Halo should have a gritty art style. A mix between Halo 2’s space opera story and Halo CE’s darker story would be ideal in my opinion.
The only one that knows Halo is the OG Bungie devs. Halo will never be great again, and that's okay. 343 are going to take another dumb on Halo CE with the unreal engine.
I also don't know about them switching to unreal engine like sure you switch to a new engine but what happened to all the effort put into slip space ? Was for nothing?! Or mabe they would port stuff over but at this point in time who cares about cool graphics when that stuff peaked years ago ? Like i don't see the idea honestly i wish halo would go back but i know im just imaging it there no hope for the future but thats just me and my opinion
I really shudder at the fact that people praise Halo Infinite. It's just slop man. It's just a cast of mustache twirling villains. I miss the prophets and the great journey... 343i never even tried to replace them. I guess maybe Mdama's faction? But they were like immediately irrelevant. It seems the games are more about Chief's relationships rather than war with an indomitable alien religious faction and overcoming that with seemingly sheer luck.
Doubt we'll get back to it unless fans make the game themselves (there's hope in that one fanmade one, what was it called again? ty) . Because Halo Studios is woke af lol
No thanks, Cleaner Halo like CE and 2 and Infinite, not the washed out brown shooter inspired games like 3/Reach/4. The more realistic the game goes the kess interesting it was. The more cyber-fantasy it goes the nore it feels closer it feels to what the game was alsways supposed to feel.
My god, it's been so long. Finally, you're back! Also, did you delete the Discord, cause I haven't found it in my list for a while. Yeah, Halo 100% needs more gritty, brutal, and kinda darker themes. After all, the series is about a *massive* war in which tens of billions died on both sides, and Humanity was going to *actually* be completely wiped out. Pretty grim and dark, almost. Halo lost it, and needs it again. I also think that Halo could use at least some more gore. It doesn't need to be over the top and super edgy, especially cause nowadays compared to back then, some gore in games is seen by audiences to be much more tame than it was back in the day. More to what you said in the video, we absolutely should get a slightly more realistic military feel. More artillery, more CAS, more heavier vehicles besides stuff like the Warthog. More MRAPs and IFVs. I also don't want to lose too much of the original artstyle. Reach honestly really pushed too far with it's artstyle, a lotta the stuff wasn't just more gritty, but overdesigned, especially the weapons. Ironically, besides the Army Troopers, the equipment, weapons, and vehicles are much more visually noisy and straight up unrealistic and incontinent looking. They can keep the older designs for a lot, cause keeping some designs of weapons and vehicles more simple is much more realistic than tons of needless extra flair. Honestly, my favorite armor design is the Combat Evolved armor for the infantry. I think seeing that in modern renders mixed with all kinds of, "tacticool" attachments and gear would be absolutely perfect. Keeps both the classic, iconic, and simple overall design, but making it realistic in a way which doesn't just change everything to try and be COD or something.
One thing that gets me about the newer Halo stuff is the fact that the Human-Covenant War is more or less just overlooked. When really it should be on everyone's mind and pretty much everyone alive should be impacted by it. More than half of all humanity is supposed to have died in this war and yet no one seems to really care or have any sense of anger or vengeance towards the Covenant
They do...in the books....that don't get implemented into the games leaving massive chunks in the story for the vast majority of people.
I know literally answer entire generation being born and raised thru adulthood only knowing genocidal war
@@Pharis111 Yeah... 🤦♂️
@@Pharis111 343 making non game media be the primary driver for Halo's story instead of the games was a massive mistake, I was hella confused when I first played Halo 5's story due to needing to read books, and significantly even more confused for Infinite, then I found out I needed to read a couple of books and a comic series to know wtf was even going on and I ain't got time for that, books should be a supplement for the stpry of a game, not replace them altogether.
So true. We shouldve been seeing some riots, rallies or ambassadorial stuff. ESPECIALLY in the game. The hunt the truth part about chief looking after that one politician was something I really expected to see. You could tell sabotage has been happening in the production
We should be seeing secret joint training groups and covert revenge missions that were from splinter groups. We should be seeing all kinds of stuff. I thought we were going to see some museum type shit as some one just brushing up on their history, maybe even as chief as he got back to earth, maybe check up on which of the spartans were still alive while he was gone.
So many things they couldve done with halo universe
Halo CE was rated M and they should have always kept it that way
It was rated R in here in Australia
What I think we need is an even balance of hope, awe and grit. Not grimdark but hopeful and bittersweet
I think the marine dialogue is a good example of this. In infinite, a marine gets hit with a needler and goes "Haha, that tickles!" in contrast with the og trilogy, where the marine seems to be in genuine pain and agony, screaming about how it burns. However the og marine still has their own instants of cracking a joke.
I don’t think Microsoft management has the ability to be gritty. The bean counters just want to appeal to everybody, being blind to the fact that what appealed to everybody was the original gritty, hard military sci-fi formula.
Make Halo griddy again
sheeeeeeeesh
Under 343 I can’t imagine halo ever being gritty or hell good even. All the care about is profits and chasing trends. The T rating is a perfect example of this
Man, it's almost all modern games now. The only modern game that's popular and gritty is Helldivers. Hoping we can have gritty and some of the new style too
helldivers and gritty in the same sentence
I feel like what halo needs is another studio to take Halo in another timeline from after Halo 3. Similar to how Elder Scrolls Online is separate from the main games.
We need a timeline where master chief is still lost in space and assumed dead for at least two games. Humanity is struggling to recover from loosing 80% of all colonies and 40% of all mankind. The covenant is in turmoil in the aftermath of their civil war with the elites split between those who want to reclaim the covenant and those lead by The Arbiter who want to carve their own destiny and have a more isolationist outlook in a cold alliance with humanity. It takes place with marines and ODST.
If this game had a large scale infantry based multiplayer that would draw in players who then would get invested in the story.
Alternate timelines are such a cop-out. They're done to death at this point and it's just lazy.
@ Considering everything they have touched after Halo 3 was garbage i think it's the only option to un-screw this horrid event chain. Either alternate timeline or trash the current one as a whole. But i think they have too much pride for that.
@ Really the only thing narratively bad that has been made since 3 is Halo 5. I really can’t think of a big IP that has gone back and said “Oh well, actually X is no longer canon, but we’re gonna redo it.”
People who push do-overs like that don’t get it.
@ Plenty of franchises have removed, redone or rebooted stories. Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, DC. Unless you are talking about just games.
Then there is Metal Gear completely redoing backstories, Devil May Cry, Assassin's Creed, Mortal Kombat completely rebooting, Resident Evil completely redoing story lines.
@ I’m referring to an IP’s main narrative. Star Wars when you boil it down, has mostly been films. Films have always trumped all other media.
For Halo, the games have always trumped all other forms of media.
So I personally can’t name an IP with their main media and narrative, have jumped backwards and made a “do over”.
I'd like to recommend you reading Rubicon Protocol, one of the earlies halo books that's set in Zeta Halo, it's actually very gritty and dark, that feeling of Halo being dark wasn't really lost in the wider lore, let's just hope they bring it to the games.
I loved Halo Envoy, Scott Brick all day
Infinite has the same problem as Breath of the Wild where all the coolest stuff happened in the past and it makes you wish you were playing that game instead.
I feel reach was the best Alien invasion. Also, look at Halo Wars 2. The banished were violent. Now the banished are goofy it was Halo 2 & 3 were the goofiest imo
Speaking of HellDivers, we know form ex-343 devs that the company in their infinite incompetence shot down a HellDivers style game. It’s crazy just how badly they’ve managed Halo. I have no faith in their rebrand.
The helldivers like game was denied by Microsoft, not 343.
@guijpc4145 this discrepancy between who is actually to blame and who actually gets blamed is why i hate halo fans
@@MuhFugginJugginEh. 343 isn't the devil the Bungo Good fanboys keep saying it was, but it undeniably also did way too many mistakes for me to have actual faith on them by the time Halo Studios took over
@tiolloyd9555 im not saying your opinion or view is unfounded but if anyone saw how divided the studio was/was forced to be then theyd understand that blaming 343 every five fucking minutes is futile because there wasn't one 343 there were 3 or 4 funnily enough.
@tiolloyd9555 There’s various things from 343’s Halo I really like, but it’s objective fact they ran the franchise into the ground. Halo has never been in a worse state than it is now. Also, the lore is unrecognizable from what Bungie set up. Rampancy went by the Marathon definition, Forerunners were human and that’s what the war was started to cover up, and they introduced the idea of a species immune to the Rings. All of these go against what Bungie established. The Halo IP should’ve been given to Certain Affinity after Halo 4’s failure.
No Halo is a rated M game it is NOT a T game. The new ones have been bastardised and turned INTO a T game. Like Halo CE Anniversary if you melee the corpse of an alien you see this strange colored blood go everywhere across the ground and the walls and stuff. You switch over to anniversary graphics by clicking tab then all that blood disappears. It's incredibly stupid.
About night not being dark: one thing I've never seen discussed but makes perfect sense is that the Halo-shine from the day side of the ring will be hundreds of times brighter than a full moon. It wouldn't look that extreme because of how our eyes work though I'd expect something close to twilight.
Installation00 actually made a short about this. And I agree.
Im gonna go watch it now@@Sahlan_Ahamed
Regardless, a proper night looks way better and we’ve had it on Halos in the past, so there’s no point in explaining its absence away now.
@@ryatt9365 That's the whole point. It's not a proper night.
Halo infinite had the potential to hit this mark with the campaign, but missed it. The Rubicon Protocol book gave a ton of context to all the locations in the game, including a bunch of the random dead marine patrols, and FOB remnants. The stuff the banished would do to Spartan prisoners at the Redoubt of Sundering. All the Atriox shrines with marine armor trophies, the living conditions and day to day lives of the marines and Spartans engaging in bitter guerrilla warfare on the ring during Chief’s 6 month nap. If only the game showed us more…
Even though I’ve never played the games during the day, I loved the atmosphere of ODST. A lone soldier exploring a captured city evading the Covenant and finding out what happened in around the location
Maybe, you could make content about Sony’s “Halo Killers” Resistance and Killzone (the true Halo Killer was 343). I’ve been playing Resistance and that series is a lot of fun. Such a shame Sony shot down Insomniac’s pitch for a 4th game. Can’t speak on Killzone since I haven’t played it yet.
Get better story writers fr. I want to see more odsts fighting until their last bullet.
Its a shame how much 343 has dumb downed the franchise. Sure halo 1-3 were more lighthearted but they could take themselves seriously when they wanted too and kept it mature. Halo reach gave them a good template for making more gritty halo games.
Halo wars 2 gave 343 the perfect way to do this with the banished. The banished are a faction made of brutes. they could be as brutal as they want now with no restrictions from the prophets. it was a perfect set up and they blew it in infinite because the banished was never supposed to be in the game. it was supposed to be the covenant but 343 remade them to be the banished to try and appeal to the halo wars 2 fans. "Hey they liked them in halo wars 2 so that means it will work here!" So your left with the red covenant that suddenly wants to fire a halo ring in infinite. Which ruined everything unique about them and they completely avoided actually showing the brutality of the brutes in that game other tahn some audio logs and books nobody read other than a lore youtuber. cause instead of telling the story in game. rely on transmedia storytelling. thats the motto of game devs now. Thank halo 5 for starting this trend >:(
Its like 343 has always decided to go full statistic and graphs mode like most modern devs and look for ever small value to appeal to the "broader audience". They want to replace us, halo fans with a subservient crowd of people that will keep buying whatever slop they create. They want the same people that play cod, fortnite and apex. Because those franchises did the exact same thing and succeeded, The problem is and why its always failed for them is that they aren't gonna drop their slop games to play another game. Halo is offering nothing new at the table. Instead of 343 expanding on halos battles and combat with global battles and naval battles (like bungie wanted) they tunnel visioned on the arena gameplay, the comp scene, the same stuff done in previous games. Leading to halo becoming bland and boring. Because despite people saying 343 did new things, it really feels like they didn't because all their new things were so lackluster and barely innovated on the gameplay
T for teen rated, you can't have brutality otherwise the game will be flagged and shutdown, 343 wanted to appeal to a young audience as well so yeah
@nicolae-alexandruluca7853 Microsoft also owns CoD, Doom, and Gears of War. All three of those make Rated M games. 343’s just completely incompetent and their attempts to make Halo appeal to a “broader audience” (something it did in the original Xbox/360 days for simply being good) have only served to water down the IP, and run the franchise into the ground.
Just checked on your channel this morning. Serendipitous that you uploaded again today.
I think the project that felt most like halo in recent years was the Halo mod for Arma 3. Halo was never about power fantasy super hero stories but a pseudo-realistic military story. I say "pseudo" because it's not actually real when you look at it like Generation Kill, but it was hollywood military realism.
Also Helldivers 1 was originally intended to be a a Halo ODST squad based shooter but was rejected by Microsoft.
Starry Night gets me every time!
I just began watching you again and was met with this. Peak.
Halo 2 and Reach were like almost 18 plus games
343/halo studios does the T rating and treats Spartans like marvel super heroes with marvel millennial writing. And the brutes are the main bad guys now and how are they supposed to show their true savage nature with a T rating?
The halo books get across a feeling of dread that only Reach was ever able to come close to regarding the covenant creeping closer and closer to earth, culminating in the planned longshot of sending a Spartan team on a suicide mission to capture a prophet and hold them hostage until hopefully a deal was made. Then Reach happened, and the rest is history.
Also they showed that the arbiter was just John Elite. Man's first appearance was him murdering an assassin in a 1v1 before going to his elders and bragging that he didn't take any hits.
i love your content dude
They should really amp the Aliens influences back up. Not just with the flood, even levels without the flood still had the aame vibes as aliens
I am fully on board with this. But I think by explaining these possibilities, you mean how Halo could be rather than how it was by leaning into it's 'Military' Sci-fi roots, because Halo CE-3 certainly wasn't as 'gritty' as it's being envisioned here. I think you could've phrased it better.
But 343 has definitely traded the more real feel for a plastic look, it's their art direction by nature.
I hope they lean into the military aspect a lot more. We can have much more grit than OG games--the technology and talents exist. Of course Halo is not a unseeable dark war simulation. It has to be balanced.
Anyway, happy holidays!
This video sums up exactly everything I’ve been wanting in a halo game. Even halo 4 had some grittyness in its writing but halo 5 and infinite just when all in on trying to cater to everyone.
We need Edge of Tomorrow Beach assault in halo. How much lore in this universe.
OH MY GOD YOU'RE ALIVE
No more campaigns entirely focused on spartans.
Shit doesn’t feel like a war.
343 Campaigns feel like a story written around the spartans rather than in CE-Reach in which its a setting that has spartans in it
yeah bro i dont want a main line campaign about the most important charactsrs in the franchise
@@mikeythedino I meant like everything is focused on them. It doesn't feel like there is a larger conflict anymore.
343/Halo Studios are so focused on the spartans that that everything else is an afterthought.
Halo CE to Reach felt like playing an important character influencing a much larger conflict with 2 big factions
Halo Infinite is just the Master Chief and 2 side characters vs some Banished forces on a small section of Zeta Halo.
Fans only care about Spartans tho.
@nobleman9393 You clearly haven’t seen the demand for another ODST game or a new Halo Wars.
@@shreksnow1918 That's what's called a vocal minority.
I think the fact that 343 won't work with the people who worked at bungie and on halo really goes to show 343 is just there for the cheese instead of making a good game. We all already know that new bungie isn't old bungie but at the start of destiny 1 you did have the same sort of "gritty" feel and especially the environmental story telling they threw that in the trash to make the game more addicting instead of fun with good storytelling and environments. All these companies have the funding and the rights to massive IPs and yet they cut every corner. Destiny 2 even now had the potential to be the game of thrones of gaming with it's souped up original halo engine capable of doing in game live events and fast paced PvP. I really like how the older Halo game engine felt and I hope it doesn't go to waste.
Holy crap he’s back!!
Not sure it’s necessarily a lack of grittiness because games like Portal and Prey have this clean aesthetic and it works. I think it’s more a mixture of the graphics, texture, the way the models look, and overall game design that makes it look like it needs more grittiness to look more alive, not to say it wouldn’t benefit from it.
Portal has some really gritty areas! But yeah it's also very clean
Halo CE-3 had it exactly right. Militaristic science fiction + space mythology + action movie.
Halo ODST was film noir, did fine.
Reach was the grittiest one, mostly just militaristic science fiction.
4/5/6 is Marvel in space.
Non-trilogy games miss the mythological aspect more than anything else. We don’t need a return to Reach, I think that’s an overcorrection.
@anomymous1286
4 5 and 6 weren't specifically marvel in space, it's just a bit brighter but even then that's it
Master Chief hits the griddy
Melissa Boone and Mr skittles DEI will ensure it’s not good
I felt More attachment to fauhammer than new cortina
dark and griddy
Master chief left foot green
Side note, even if the grit was improved to perfection. The game still won't be fun if it's not built to be fun first, which 343 can't figure out still. Bungie was great at creating for fun and then building their story, levels, and maps with it.
Amen, brother.
Welcome back
I've always found it weird that the UNSC does not use animals. That, at the very least, they did not learn from the Covenant and employ other species to assist. I'm surprised that the UNSC, while willing to work on an experiment on human beings, did not create like...a Spartan or Cyborg Elephant (animal). No Rhinos with armor grafted unto them. A Hunter could not stand up to an armored Rhino. Drones couldn't hold a candle to bio-engineered earth locust swarms. The UNSC could get MESSY if it wanted to.
theres a halo mod that has done this recently but with megalodons and dinosaurs
can you imagine trying to ODST in an actual armoured rhino
Or even trying to stuff one of those bad boys into a dropship - the Covenant has a whole lot of sapient species they've enslaved with religion and an iron fist, the UNSC just doesn't have the governmental system to support it even if the rhinos were hyperintelligent enough to play along nicely.
I've said for literally almost a Decade now that what Halo needs is a reset back to before the events of the first game. An ODST 2 set on some random planet years before the fall of Reach, where you're just there to complete a mission and get out. No spartans, no floaty or dash nonsense, just ODST but somewhere else in the galaxy.
Frankly, what Halo needs is to stop treating itself like a linear saga and start treating itself like a universe. The Human-Covenant war lasted 27 years but outside of a few (massive overrated and extremely mid) books we only see the last year or so of it in games, and a montage of the first 5 on a single planet. Explore the rest of that war, 343, I beg you.
Not that I really blame 343. Its pretty clear that Microsoft has had its grubby fingers in everything...
Both Microsoft and 343 are equally to blame for Halo’s downfall and the lack of spinoffs.
He's back!
It’s just not possible, it’s not appealing to Microsoft shareholders. Bungie was a semi independent studio and got away with more than any other subsidiaries under Microsoft could. They even had profit sharing even though Microsoft owned them. They have rebranded to halo studios but it’s the same people who worked in 343 and they’ll have the same company culture and the same kind of Microsoft executives putting the same kind of pressure as before.
It's totally possible. Gears of War: E-Day is under tham. And it looks... just like how it should. They also have upcoming Doom game which also looks the way it does. They also have COD. It's not that Microsoft can't do it. They absolutely can.
Great video. Yeah, that kind of gritty detail and environmental story telling is something I'd love to see. And yeah, the next Halo game needs to be *'M' for MATURE* going forward. Enough of this lame T-for-teen nonsense. I went back and played Reach after a long time and still adore the style that game too. I'd love to see what worked in Infinite blended with what Reach did (and still better in my opinion).
I'd like to see reaches grit mixed with the original color scheme. I appreciate it's story but the grey/yellow tunes in the 2010s got kinda annoying to me and I feel like Grey's blend in too well and make every scene feel the same. When having different popping colours. Makes your brain want to look at more than what's just cool on the screen. Not that it's important to everyone. Another point too is that 80s to Y2K futurism is a huge piece to Halo's art style that I haven't seen other sci fi games replicate besides titanfall 2(to a degree) deadspace, WH40k Space Marine, Helldivers And ofc one of the core inspirations Half Life.
Halo was gritty twice
Halo 2 (could have been grittier) and Reach (had a whatever story)
ODST should have been a third person cover based shooter with more death and grit. Don't tell me it can't be done. Republic Commando did it with a way less talented team. Those clones could fucking stack on doors. It should have been the Dark Souls of shooters with you fighting brutes where a single one could literally murder your entire squad.
Grunts were about the same size as you. An elite minor should have been a boss.
I never want to see a halo game set in the pacific northwest ever again. it is unbelievably boring. But then again 343 lack creativity and can only produce things based on where they live.
I don’t think Halo was ever gritty. Halo Reach was an exception only because it served to tell the story, but every Halo game has had exaggerated colours and not a very gritty art style.
Even the stories were never gritty. They were large space operas. That’s something Halo 5 did well, it captured that massive space opera feeling.
I’d also say Halo Infinite had a ton of environmental storytelling. All of the tents, abandoned sniper rifles, MREs, the goddamn barbecue the brutes were having. All of that is excellent environmental storytelling. However, Infinite was supposed to have more gritty elements, like there were going to be marines being tortured by brutes, marines bodies being thrown off the side of the ring, etc. The only traces of those things we see in game are the marine armours on the sticks.
I really don’t think Halo should have a gritty art style. A mix between Halo 2’s space opera story and Halo CE’s darker story would be ideal in my opinion.
also i gotta say i'd love helldivers lore vids or speculation. Helldivers kinda lacks lore, no offense
The only one that knows Halo is the OG Bungie devs. Halo will never be great again, and that's okay. 343 are going to take another dumb on Halo CE with the unreal engine.
But try telling that to a shareholder who wants to make the game E for everyone to broaden appeal 🙄
Agreed! Make Halo M rated again and not the fortnite shit 343 gave us
I also don't know about them switching to unreal engine like sure you switch to a new engine but what happened to all the effort put into slip space ? Was for nothing?! Or mabe they would port stuff over but at this point in time who cares about cool graphics when that stuff peaked years ago ? Like i don't see the idea honestly i wish halo would go back but i know im just imaging it there no hope for the future but thats just me and my opinion
I really shudder at the fact that people praise Halo Infinite. It's just slop man. It's just a cast of mustache twirling villains. I miss the prophets and the great journey... 343i never even tried to replace them. I guess maybe Mdama's faction? But they were like immediately irrelevant. It seems the games are more about Chief's relationships rather than war with an indomitable alien religious faction and overcoming that with seemingly sheer luck.
Doubt we'll get back to it unless fans make the game themselves (there's hope in that one fanmade one, what was it called again? ty) . Because Halo Studios is woke af lol
No thanks, Cleaner Halo like CE and 2 and Infinite, not the washed out brown shooter inspired games like 3/Reach/4.
The more realistic the game goes the kess interesting it was. The more cyber-fantasy it goes the nore it feels closer it feels to what the game was alsways supposed to feel.
My god, it's been so long. Finally, you're back! Also, did you delete the Discord, cause I haven't found it in my list for a while.
Yeah, Halo 100% needs more gritty, brutal, and kinda darker themes. After all, the series is about a *massive* war in which tens of billions died on both sides, and Humanity was going to *actually* be completely wiped out. Pretty grim and dark, almost. Halo lost it, and needs it again.
I also think that Halo could use at least some more gore. It doesn't need to be over the top and super edgy, especially cause nowadays compared to back then, some gore in games is seen by audiences to be much more tame than it was back in the day. More to what you said in the video, we absolutely should get a slightly more realistic military feel. More artillery, more CAS, more heavier vehicles besides stuff like the Warthog. More MRAPs and IFVs.
I also don't want to lose too much of the original artstyle. Reach honestly really pushed too far with it's artstyle, a lotta the stuff wasn't just more gritty, but overdesigned, especially the weapons. Ironically, besides the Army Troopers, the equipment, weapons, and vehicles are much more visually noisy and straight up unrealistic and incontinent looking. They can keep the older designs for a lot, cause keeping some designs of weapons and vehicles more simple is much more realistic than tons of needless extra flair. Honestly, my favorite armor design is the Combat Evolved armor for the infantry. I think seeing that in modern renders mixed with all kinds of, "tacticool" attachments and gear would be absolutely perfect. Keeps both the classic, iconic, and simple overall design, but making it realistic in a way which doesn't just change everything to try and be COD or something.
Its never gonna be a great at is was. Sad.
Nah thats edgy bullshit they brought in for the COD kids. Reach sucks.
Welcome back