Halo 5's Storytelling Was A Mistake- 343 Industries

We took some digs for storytelling in Halo 5, but they were absolutely merited. We very much realized that people wanted Master Chief’s story of Halo 5.

We definitely marketed in a way that we hoped was going to bring surprise, but for some fans and certainly fans of Master Chief, it was a huge disappointment because they wanted more Chief.

They loved Blue Team, they liked Osiris, but they wanted Chief. And that has been a big learning. Chief we tend to think of as kind of a vessel for your adventure rather than necessarily this major character in the universe. He’s really just your entry into the universe.

But people have become attached to him over the last fifteen years and they’ve started to sort of fill in the gaps that the character deliberately has for gameplay reasons with a genuine emotional attachment. We certainly underestimated that with Halo 5.

The effect that the character has on his surroundings and ‘the fate of the galaxy’ has had a resonant effect on fans over the years. It wasn’t that surprising to me, but the volume of ‘give us more Chief’ at the end of Halo 5 was significant and so I think if anything he’s slightly more important now than he has ever been, certainly to our franchise. Instead of focusing on bringing new characters into the world and expanding the playable characters we’ve sort of shifted the focus a little bit to making the world a little bit more realistic and compelling and, I would say, more fun for players who get to inhabit the Chief in the future, pretty much as they demanded.

Source.

Thoughts? I haven't had the chance to play the Halo 5 campaign, but some of my friends, including @zassimick and @cainetao11 have. I know zass didn't like it much, and that cain liked it more than most (I think, please correct me if I am wrong, guys!)

But to those who have played- did he identify the right issue? Do his words fill you with confidence for the future games in the series?

It was a cool concept but poorly executed, with that said...I still enjoyed the campaign.

343i in charge of Halo is a mistake but no one from MS will ever admit it.

Let's see if the Lems will admit it now

Halo 5's campaign was definitely the weakest in the series I think, and I definitely wanted more Chief/Blue team... so this is music to my ears. Also, "making the world a little bit more realistic and compelling" sounds very promising too.

However, I don't think the introduction of new characters is necessarily a bad thing, & what made 5's campaign disappointing. I think the series needs to introduce new characters, but maybe ease them into the story a little more slowly. Chief should still be the backbone of the series (at least for the time being), but introduce new playable characters steadily.

But overall, I like what I hear. I just hope 343 put more focus into the campaign this time & not focus on MP so much. Campaign is the backbone of the series!

NO REALLY!?????

I think he got it terribly, terribly, terribly wrong and it's just a little upsetting at how wrong I think O'Connor is. (of course this is my opinion so if you are gonna take it personally just step aside.)

It's not about the lack of the Chief. Sure, I wanted to see more of his story in Halo 5 especially after his journey through Halo 4 and the loss of Cortana. But following him isn't necessary. What's necessary are strong characters. Buck? Fairly strong character. The others? Not so much, especially Locke who needed to be great. He was not. And Blue Team was just there. Out of the game in books or other media? Sure, they may be great! That adds to the story being told, but it doesn't help the characterization or presence of these characters seen in the game.

Just overall, the story was not great. I'd say the skeleton is there of a good story, but it needed more character development on all fronts, for both Blue Team and Osiris. It needed to not have the crappy twist with Cortana at the end that felt like it had undone a bit of Halo 4. The game also needed a compelling villain or to have the entire game be a personal journey for both of these teams during the hunt for Chief. I dunno. Overall execution and the script itself was poor. And maybe this isn't script-related, but so many scenes were cut short right in the middle of conversations. What's up with that?

There's so much I like about Halo 5. The gameplay, especially multiplayer which I've played more than any other online game in recent memory. The music is great, particularly "Blue Team" which is one of my favorite songs in the entirety of Halo music. That story though... it just bums me out, and I don't think they see where they went wrong. It's a diplomatic PR answer if there ever was one (not that I'd expect more than that), but I think they're being stubborn on this one. Which fine, whatever.

EDIT: Maybe terribly, terribly, terribly wrong is a bit harsh. I do hope they bring the military themes back to the series rather than just super soldiers running around going crazy (and I hope we drop the Prometheans after Halo 6. Bring back the Covenant as main enemies.) I dunno. I still don't think they understand all the problems the campaign had, but whatever.

People want to play as master cheif in a halo campaign? "MIND BLOWN"

I like how they'er being honest and I agree that the story wasn't as good as previous Halo games. I also thought it was strange the way they marketed the game. That set up expectations for the story that never materialized.

Not gonna lie, I dumped hundreds of hours into each of the first few Halo games. Well over a thousand hours if combined. Shit, probably close to a thousand hours on Halo 2 alone... And I don't know shit about the story lol.

It always just seemed like afterthought territory to me, idk. Like, do you need to read Halo stuff outside of the game to really get invested?

As a huge fan of the extended universe (the novels, comics, podcast episodes, etc), i really enjoyed the story of Halo 5.. And as someone who, like many others, had a great time with Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach, I also didn't mind playing a Halo campaign that didn't primarily star the Master Chief..

But that said, I can completely understand the issues some people had with the story and lack of Chief.. Extended Universe material shouldn't be required reading in order to appreciate a self-contained story and as a main-line Halo game, it's clearly implied that the Master Chef would be the main playable character.. I wholeheartedly accept those facts and can respect the opinions of those that didn't enjoy the campaign as much as I did as a result..

Hopefully, 343 fine tunes their approach because I really do enjoy all the references to the extended universe and they need to continue that universe building in order to keep things fresh and interesting.. But a balance needs to be struck where an easy-to-follow and grounded story can still be told that places the focus squarely on the main characters.. Judging by the story in Halo Wars 2, it looks like they are definitely able to hit that balance.. We'll see if they can do the same in a main-line game again (Halo 4 did a good job of being character focused)..

Story aside, anyone who has played the game knows that the actual gameplay of the single-player campaign was rock solid and the game reviews back up that claim.. So no worries there.. And it goes without saying that the multiplayer was superb.. Needless to say, I'm very excited by what Halo 6 potentially has to offer and the fact that 343 is obviously listening to the fan base is a positive sign of good things to come..

I don't agree with this, because I thought they did a great job with Halo 4 (the campaign anyway, not sure how good MP was).

Sometimes artists can not find the beauty in their own masterpieces. Halo 5 is to Halo what FFXIII is to FF.

Yeah I definitely wanted more Master Chief. The story itself wasn't that bad, it was mostly just executed poorly. Still though good to see them acknowledge the weakness and I think they'll do much better for Halo 6.

Thanks for all the detailed responses guys, I am enjoying and appreciating reading them. I would respond and add to the discussion, but as I said, without having played the game myself, I can only be a passive observer, and hope to pick your brains on the matter. Thanks for the very detailed posts.

Campaign of Halo 4 is where the Halo campaign began a nose dive. It only got worse with Halo 5.

Halo 4 story was also a mistake.

A big one.

@silversix_: @Juub1990: Totally disagree. But ok :)

2>1 sorry but you must be wrong.

How about just create a campaign that doesn't suck? Regardless of who you're playing as, or what the plot is.

I get it. After my most recent playthrough of Halo 4 I cannot debate with people who really disliked the story and campaign. But I love a lot of what Halo 4 does and still enjoy going back through it.

@charizard1605: At least they have the balls to admit when they make a miscalculation and disappointed their fans. Plenty of devs would do the opposite, blame the fans for not embracing their new "vision".

True, I like the openness and honesty that 343 exhibits a lot. They aren't afraid to own up to their mistakes.

Every Halo (even halo 5) can be fun coming back to, especially in co-op. How long will that 'fun' last, tho?

Played through Halo 4 4 or 5 times now and I still find it enjoyable. I've only done Halo 5 twice, a big part of that is due to the lack of splitscreen. Never done a full four player coop game of it.

Other Halo games I've played so many times though. It's one of the few games that I can put on and just play and play and always enjoy myself. Maybe that will change someday, but today is not that day.

@appariti0n: Don't know where you're seeing devs blaming fans. That's just not a smart thing to do. Devs are very often admitting mistakes when their new entry is close to being revealed. Watch Halo 6 being shown this E3.

343 are simply amateurs. Halo sucked after 3. They have no business with this franchise.

Prometheans are lame.

Hey, I appreciate their honesty and courage to come out and admit that they felt it was wrong. But I enjoyed the story. Granted, it wasn't the best, and the ending was kind of like "uh, really" but I liked it. If it had co-op, it would have been fantastic. That feature really hurt my partner and I, we have always played the games together and it left a bad impression heading into the game.

@charizard1605: Story sucked. Osiris sucked. Gameplay great. Environments meh. Multiplayer stellar.

Which is all too bad because I thought they laid a good foundation with Halo 4.

I stopped caring about Halo lore after Reach.

I heard they are still on about some Forerunner bs. And Master Chief became black or something. Or was MC always black? I don't remember. And Cortana had crush on MC and died or something and revived and went berserk about vengeance? And Elites built this huge Dyson Sphere and and run around naked killing Spartans. And they have this space ship where Spartans gather to kill each other. And they branded MC as war criminal or something.

That's the extent of post-Halo 3 lore I know.

I didn't have any issues with the story, the characters or the direction of the game, I only took issue with the suddenness of everything. Like some reviewers point out the narrative direction just kind of jumps all over the place and is abruptly cut off during cut-scenes, like there's more to be said but it just ends.

People act as if John was not a main focus in this game, he was the entire focus, the entire game was about him even when you're not playing as him, unless you're completely blind it was abundantly obvious. I don't understand people tripping about The Warden Eternal either, he fits the plot of the game perfectly, and his subtext and existence is entirely rationalized by his function.

Who cares if you fight him 6-7 times, that's the entire point, he's a literal eternal AI with thousands of bodies and he functions as the essential Resident Evil Nemesis of this game imbued with the task of security and protection. In the context of this game and Cortana, he fits in perfectly for it, a series of random bosses couldn't be rationalized.

Everything they did makes sense, the way it's structured is the only point of contention I found because as I've said it's kind of all over the place in terms of what is going on, however it was still easy to follow.

@charizard1605: topic title is a bit misleading since thats not what 343 said in the part you quoted.

As a huge fan of the lore of the expanded Halo Universe, heres my take on it. Of course the fans want more Chief. That doesnt mean they made a mistake though.

From the beginning, 343 and MS said that Halo 5 is the first part of a trilogy. Lots of people griped about the story in Halo 5, but its basically equivalent to griping about the story in the Fellowship of the Ring without seeing the other parts of the trilogy.

Halo 5 was the set up story to introduce the characters. Chief is basically like Aragorn. In Fellowship, he wasnt the center of the story, but you knew he had an important role to play. Chief will be featured more prominently in Halo 6 because just like in the Two Towers, the shits about to hit the fan. Like Two Towers, Halo 6 will introduce the real villains (the Didact, the Banished and possibly the Flood which could be on the new halo ring or they could have survived in the Spirit of Fire while they were in hybernation like in Halo Escalation) The third part will be the finale for Master Chief, he'll get his happy ending and ride off into the sunset.

The reason I say this is because if you follow all the stuff on the Halo Channel leading up to Halo 5, its pretty clear MS wants 343 to take full ownership of the franchise and go in the direction of the expanded universe. The only way they can really do this is by retiring Chief. As long as Chief is still around, people will keep making the Bungie comparisons. As I've said before, theres also just so many times one guy can save the universe before it gets corny, and Chief has already done that multiple times.

Here's my tinfoil hat theory:

Cortana is being controlled by the evil Didact from inside the domain. But Chief can still talk to her 'good' parts mentally or whatever with the powers he gained after getting zapped by the Librarian, just like he can 'hear' the evil Didact in his mind, because he is now the new 'good' Didact, i.e. he inherited the mantle of responsibility when the Librarian zapped him.

Chief stole the Janus key so he can with help from Halsey use it with a composer to save Cortana and then make her into a physical being, disabling the Didact's plan in the process since he's now like 'Space Sauron' without a physical form. Thats how they will ride off into the sunset together. (yeah yeah Mendicant bias is dead, the domain was destroyed -- none of that is known for sure and the way it was presented its possible any of them didnt happened)

The big Winged Guardians are what the Forerunners used to enforce the Mantle. Cortana is controlling one because shes being controlled by the evil Didact that thinks the Prometheans inherited the Mantle. I'd bet money that the Guardian that showed up to greet Professor Anders at the end of Halo Wars 2, is the same Guardian being controlled by Cortana. The Halo in HW2 was pulled out of slipspace by Cortana and thats how its in the end of Halo 5. Its also possible that the planet in the background is actually Reach, which would tie multiple games all into the same place.

I bet we even see the Infinity find the Spirit of Fire and then use its tech to find Prof Anders. So they'll take the fight to the Banished in Halo 6 then go fight evil Didact/Cortana in Halo 7.

Eventually when its all said and done and The Mantle is in the hands of humanity, thats when the Flood comes back because the new Halo brings back the Gravemind. That might be why the Guardians activated themselves in the first place.

New heroes new story begins again without Master Chief, fighting the Flood.

I'd say dont count the story of Halo 5 out so quickly just because the fans want more Chief. You can already see by all the clues planted thru multiple games that 343 has already plotted out the story.

I enjoyed Halo 5. Wish the villain was better though, I always enjoy exciting villains in games...

@Antwan3K: Do you think it would've gone over better if they took a page from Star Wars (where the numbered movies are centered around the Skywalker family) and kept the numbered series centered around the Chief? Not, changing much, just altering the title like with ODST to signify a difference. Then they could even release Halo 5 covering the same period, only from the Chief's perspective.

When it comes to Halo 4, I liked what they did with Cortana and her issues, and the ending, and with regards to Halo 5, I didn;t take any issue with them focusing on other characters.

My main gripe with both games was that I had a hard time understanding what the hell was going on...

The addition of Blue Team was really awesome but they were so underdeveloped in the game. I have no problem with Osiris but they should have had their own spinoff game

Yeah like you could have come up with something better!

I don't think the issue is a lack of Chief, necessarily. Locke, Osiris, n blue team are paper thin in terms of writing, and require homework for any sort of investment. The script writing is dreadful, almost at odds with what is about to happen on screen, and does very little to highlight character attributes. To be fair, that's not a 343 exclusive issue, because Bungie was bad at handling an ensemble as well as I find Noble Team and the ODST's paper thin as well.

Cortona's motivations, the covy splinter-group's motivations are muddled at best, is wall to wall ludicrous to boot.

The only true benefit I see of them focusing back on Chief is the chance to simplify and make a more coherent story, but Halo 4 exists and Halo 3 exists. The former is messy n plays the pronoun game too often for its own good and does a terrible job of "humanizing" Chief, and the latter has Gravemind's bullshit.

i'd say that they need to retire Master Chief at some point if they truly want to expand the universe and make Halo a lasting franchise.. Much like the Star Wars franchise can, and likely will, live on without a Skywalker, "Halo" needs to be bigger than Master Chief if they want to keep the franchise going in the vein of a Star Wars or Mass Effect.. If not, they just need to retire the series as a whole after Halo 6 or 7.. One man can only save the universe so many times..

343 just needs to make sure they keep the proper balance of character driven stories that are both easy to understand and still expand the universe.. For example, I compare Halo 5: Guardians' story issues to the same issues that plagued the Star Wars prequels.. basically too much story for the casual fan who doesn't read Star Wars novels and comics, coupled with too many new characters who weren't given the proper time to fully develop.. Now, with movies like The Force Awakens, they took the time to focus on the characters rather than universe building.. as a result, the story was easier to follow and you cared about the characters more while they're leaving the Extended Universe stuff for TV series like Star Wars Rebels and side-movies like Rogue One..

By contrast, look at Halo Wars 2 and you can see that 343 has taken that same direction.. Halo Wars 2 story was much more character focused and the universe building stuff was left to in-game collectibles and comics (related to events after the original Halo Wars), neither of which needed to be read in order to appreciate and understand the story.. As a result, the story was mostly praised and we have a few new characters to care about in Captain Cutter, Professor Anders, Isabel, Atriox, and Red Team (well, Isabel and Atriox are the main new characters but you get my point).. Considering that 343 directly pointed to Halo Wars 2 as an example of how they should have told the story in Halo 5: Guardians, I think they've recognized their mistakes and are already implementing the proper changes.. Halo 6 will be a much bigger stage than Halo Wars 2 though, so I guess we'll have to wait and see..

But to definitively address your question, yes, they probably should make other side stories (in the fashion of ODST and Reach) in order to expand the universe as long as Master Chief is still the main protagonist while keeping the main-line games focused on him (until he retires or dies).. a game like "Halo: Osiris" would actually be a cool way to get to know that Fireteam in the meantime.. it just needs to be established on the frontend that it is a side-story that doesn't include the Chief.. People don't tend to like buying a game to play as one character only to find that the majority of the game is spent playing as someone else.. I learned that lesson firsthand with Metal Gear Solid 2..

I enjoyed the Halo 5 campaign, no major gripes. They tried something different and I just see it as part 2 of a trilogy. They only have so much time they can develop characters with in an fps game, and I definitely enjoy the lore and overall storylines in Halo games, but by and large this is not the main draw for me in a Halo game, the fun gameplay is, and they got that perfectly as far as I'm concerned. Kind of like a Zelda game for me, I enjoy the settings and the different storylines from title to title, but the fun core gameplay is why I would play a Zelda title, not the story.

Hopefully Halo 6 will improve its storytelling, I look forward to playing it. The other reason I enjoyed the Halo 5 campaign is because I'm a pretty big sci-fi fan and usually keep an open mind with these kind of storylines, and for me the Halo 5 campaign experience included the Mini live action series Nightfall and the little animation movie Fall of Reach, both of which I thought were good and they helped expand the story of Halo 5. So if you never watched these, maybe the campaign felt even less fleshed out for you...which is understandable, I mean the story should be all contained within a game but like I said it looks like they were trying something new with Halo 5 , some things turned out better than others. The story had a larger scope and they introduced new characters, so I didn't really mind the focus away from the Chief....but I wanted to see more of Chief vs Locke, I know that....that fight scene with them was great I thought.

I can respect the criticisms other fans have for the story, these tales all mean something different to us, but I guess I am part of the smaller group of people who didn't really have major issues with the campaign. Hopefully they bounce back with a stronger narrative for Halo 6, try to develop the new characters more, end the trilogy on a strong note. They can focus on the Chief again if they want but make it interesting. I just want a fun story and great battles in the next co-op campaign, maybe at E3 we will learn more.

As I've said here all along since completing the campaign shortly after launch; H5 is the weakest and less enjoyable Halo campaign of the bunch.

Master Chief & Cortana is Halo, let's get it right and somehow back to the roots with Halo 6 MS/343. Go out with a bang since this should be the last main Halo game for quite some time.

Wonder what 343 will do after H6? Dunno but I can't wait to see & hear about a new IP by 343 a few years from now.

I don't care about any Halo, campaigns really, I only really care about multiplayer. And on that. Halo 5 is stellar.

@charizard1605:

I strongly agree that Halo 5's problem with its campaign mainly was the fact that it wasn't enough Chief. To me, 343i saying that Master Chief is just a vessel for the entry of the series and not it's most major character just undermines everything that he is. Master Chief IS HALO! That's like saying that Mario is not the most important character in the Mario games.

I hope that they do learn from this mistake but it still sounds like they don't fully understand the amount of influence the Chief has to the franchise and to the FPS genre as a whole.

Halo has never had a solid campaign​, both 1 and 2 were meh at best and ugh at worst. Master Chief is a badass character and the lore of that universe pulled me in but what Bungie did with the first two games storywise was pretty bad. I have 3 laying around (picked it up for $5) but I don't expect much out of it. And if the new studio isn't up to those low standards...Ouch.

Not a huge Halo fan and to be honest Halo 4 was the first Halo i bought and played. Gears of War was my go to shooter last gen most of my time was on there.

I have to buy the master chief collection and play those games on Scorpio.

I really like Halo Wars 2 though and its new baddies Atriox and Dominus..

@xhawk27: And how is that relevant?

Didnt get a chance to play halo 5 but thanks for ruining it for me!

Halo 5 has a bad story badly told and thanks to no split screen campaign, it is, by far, the worst campaign in any Halo ever.