We Need To Talk About This: Halo's Biggest Problem

[@HiddenXperia]

Happy Thanksgiving gang! Pretty important topic today, let me know what you think!

[@joshstack34]

We definitely need more audio dramas. I haven't listened to Memory Agent, but I Love Bees is so underrated and Hunt the Truth is what Halo 5's story should have been.

[@mirrarezubian]

anime

[@theangryimp1345]

Halo 6 needed to happen. It didn't... until that story is told its never gonna recover

[@theangryimp1345]

Also halo 5 absolutely is a direct sequel to halo 4 it's mot a restart. If we're honest it's because it wasn't chief that people lost it. It's halo 2 all over again just with a worse story. But over half it's criticism applied to 4 and infinite yet 5 is the big bad...

[@Grrrr-q5c]

Halo NEEDS an anime series. The show flopped so hard. Anime would resonate with the audience better. Fallout did great, but i honestly don’t want a live action halo show. Its just corny and doesn’t work for halo.

[@TheLindenbeat]

Not enough Arbiter. Thats the problem.

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

I want to see arbiter in his golden halo legends armor

[@VoiceOfTheEmperor]

"Were it so easy..."

[@UnknownZealot77]

Pure facts.

[@fuzzylilpeach6591]

I'd say at least we should see other new dynamic characters with a story that we can find compelling, like Arbiter's. There really aren't any other dynamic characters in the games. One could say Cortana with her skynet phase... but that felt so contrived.

[@adamgill537]

And the flood

[@MasterCheeksOfficial]

It’ll never not amaze me how 343 actively chose to not give us any Chief & Arby interactions for the past ten years, even when they’re both in the same game.

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

They set up an human and elite unity allegiance after halo 3 and we BARELY see any of it in the games. Chief and Arby are iconic. I don't understand 343s distain towards elites it feels like prophets are making halo games now

[@ainlLeek]

@@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778 "Halo is a spartan story"

[@alteredkrimson5297]

They never really interacted all that much in Halo 3 either. Arbiter was just there.

[@davidnelson.6037]

Maybe because playing as the arbiter in the original release caused such an uproar that they removed him as a second playable character from halo 3 and on? Now yall appreciate the arbiter and his story? Where was this in 2004? It’s the fans fault Arby was sidelined

[@alteredkrimson5297]

@@davidnelson.6037 I feel like I'm one of the very few who enjoyed him from the start. Maybe I'm the real Halo fan.

[@Installation00]

For me, the Chief has reached the point in his story ark where he is now basically unbeatable. No matter what story comes out, as long as it takes from the currently established storylines, characters and enemies, we KNOW that Chief will win. He has proven himself over and over. We've watched him rise against adversity, deal with unforeseen circumstances, save humanity, defeat the greatest warriors from nearly every species and even survive things that no human has ever survived before. He is now officially invulnerable, due to his plot armor and status as the face of the franchise. It means that no matter what story they tell, Chief will prevail. Atriox dominating Chief at the start of Infinite was the first time in a long time I thought Chief might be about to meet his match, presenting Chief with a possible threat that could end him. But then he came back and within a hours completely dominated the ring and Atriox completely disappeared. Now I love the Chief and he quite rightly has to be the greatest warrior of humanity, but the stakes just aren't there anymore. It's time to explore other stories. Retell the old ones. Sure. Halo CE Remake, hell an expansive, additive remake of the entire first trilogy would be fine. But the future of Chiefs story needs to be decisively wrapped in a way that satisfies the fans. Got a video in the works on this subject. But It's time to explore other stories, and expand Halos storytelling. It's such a rich, expansive universe with so many characters worthy of having their stories told.

[@sebbiebarr3886]

Exactly why I want to make a fan game where you can explore and find and all the interesting lore that they don't put in in the games

[@theangryimp1345]

Wow so maybe adding another character might help... like oh wait you all lost you're minds in halo 5...

[@dliatsos1]

@@theangryimp1345 Problem there was adding characters that people didn't really feel much of a connection with or care about in Locke and the rest of Osiris, Buck could be worth having as a Spartan, but the way they handled him there didn't help matters. Doesn't help that a lot of the backstory of these other characters tended to only be in books that not everyone has the time or money to spend on or read about. Doesn't help that what we did get didn't really have any of them particularly stick in most people's minds long term or think all that positively about them.

[@theangryimp1345]

@dliatsos1 but fans didn't have a connection with arbiter when halo 2 introduced him because you guessed it! He was new... that's an awful argument

[@arthurmorgann177]

Give Chief one more good game, then kill him off and focus on someone else like Fred Jerome or Someone from Omega. And start a remake trilogy and we can have Master Chief there.

[@Stuntmachine14]

Hiddenxperia really be keeping the halo community alive.

[@SoCloseToCoast]

@@Stuntmachine14 idk if anyone can do that at this point

[@HiddenXperia]

I'm not alone but I'm trying lol, appreciate it homie 🫡

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

@@SoCloseToCoast I make dino mods for halo which gives halo fans new fun things to play!

[@Practitioner_of_Diogenes]

Him, LateNightGaming, and Installation 001 do a bang up job at it.

[@crusader7eth163]

@@Practitioner_of_Diogeneshalo wouldn’t be the same without them today.

[@jordan_w20]

What's so funny about the book debacle is I don't want the story told in books, but the book stories are generally way more interesting and thought out than the games. Can we get the book writers for the games?

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

it feels like they just want halo to be a book franchise that sometimes gets a game adaptation nowadays. We barely see any of the cool book things in the games and they don't hire people that want to write anything worth while in the games

[@BrentMalice]

book writers writing games is how you get Fallout 4. its a very unique trait to be able to write a compelling story then let other people make their own decisions in it. most people want to tell their own story instead of creating a world for player agency. thats why the best games have fairly bland storylines that are left to user interpretation. everyone can make up their own story as to who The Courier is and why they did wat they did.

[@LuoSon312_G8]

most of the Novelist had legally locked their stories from being made into games, the primary reason being their ego clashing against the franchise creators for their interpretations being made canon against the "vague" details and storylines from games.

[@Sahlan_Ahamed]

​@@LuoSon312_G8 I don't think Halo writers have such a rule. If you look back, 343 have changed many things drastically, especially in early books like The Fall of Reach and it's authors don't have a say. It's MICROSOFT who owns all the rights to Halo universe. Writers are like contract workers.

[@Deliveredmean42]

Eh, I argue that may not be a fair. Especially since this s Bethesda gane we are talking here. I am sure we have book writers that were very good working on video game stories shen they are given the chance and provide proper guidelines on how they usually works.​@@BrentMalice

[@nuyabuisness7526]

The problem with how the current halo story is going is that there is no coherent overarching plot. In the first three games you get the Human Covenant War that you get dropped in the middle of and then you get the shakeup of the flood. The covenant and the flood are a problem in game 1, an expanded problem in game 2, and then get resolved in game 3. Since then the only connecting thread between any of the games has been a handful of characters. Each game essentially introduces a new enemy, a new threat, and a new change to the rules, and then leaves off on a cliffhanger. Then the next game comes up, does the whole thing over again, and doesn't cleanup enough of the threads from the prior game.

[@shanetrain5373]

yes, we need more games/shows/shorts connecting the stories and conflicts, especially on some of the species' in the game, which even bungie doesn't explain greatly

[@LB-py9ig]

All this "343 has pushed transmedia too hard" thing is all cope. We know why you need to read the books to keep up with the story. It's because 343 keeps setting up and abandoning plot points every single game. The books aren't essential because that was always the plan but because that's where 343 sends their abandoned plot points to die. This is, *obviously,* what keeps happening. Halo 4 was clearly not supposed to be the Didact's last appearance. Why have him ranting and setting up the next game if he was never supposed to come back and be killed off in some random comic? 343 tries to set up an overarching villain, fails, and tries again, over and over again, for ten years. The transmedia thing is a side effect, not the main cause. If anything, 343 probably doesn't want you to engage with Halo prior to the latest release at all because the plot falls apart when you played the previous game.

[@majortellandrus2552]

​@@shanetrain5373 TL;DR Bungie doesn't really need to explain anything in their games because they didn't try to pack a bunch of pointless lore and backstory into their games only to abandon it all in the next game anyway. Bungie never NEEDED to explain anything in detail tho, because their plot was strong and simple enough that if you really needed them to spell it out for you you either weren't paying attention or you're 10. You don't NEED expanded lore on every Covenant species to appear in-game, you just need to know the general characteristics and gameplay mechanics and shoot. Simple. What you needed to know about the Covenant was all in-game, what they are what they're trying to do and why. That's it, that's all you need in a video game. What you DON'T need is the backstory and extended director's commentary on every single major character plot point or faction and you CERTAINLY don't need it to happen as a cutscene or a mission to take time away from the main plot they want you to think is important. Not every plot needs to have its roots in millennia past and some mystical mcguffin, 343 could have gone much simpler and just explored the shattered factions of the Covenant and how humanity deals with them, maybe even FINALLY given us some pro-humanity alien factions because am I seriously meant to believe that not even a handful of Elites wouldn't side with humanity for our warrior's spirit? The warrior race seriously wouldn't see that we fought to the last man for 30 years against impossible odds and decide we might be alright? We even see the Arbiter's faction of Elites perfectly willing to work with humans, are we seriously meant to believe they wouldn't fight alongside us against factions that would just as readily see them dead as us? Back to my point, 343 is continuously trying to include too much in too little space, and they can't effectively explain their plot because there's too many intricate and moving parts. Whereas Bungie's games don't explain stuff because they understood that it's far more impactful for characters to talk about things like they already know what's going on and like they have experience in the world around them, and when they learn something new the explanation is in the characters' reactions to the new information as they learn alongside us. They behave like people actually would, like "oh, in the Forerunner database it says... Oh my God. Chief, the Forerunners... They're us!" And que Cortana explaining we share Forerunner DNA or smthn after finding it in their systems rather than some mystical fuckin magic lady giving Chief a history lesson about shit we don't care about. One of these is natural and diegetic, the other is forced in and injected. Halo has always thrived on diegetic exposition that occurs as the characters experience the world, as opposed to injecting an explanation into the plot because they feel the need to spell everything out to us like we're kindergarteners.

[@Lunnzies]

I would take pause. Yes there HASN'T been a strong over arching story but Infinite may have fixed that. We don't know yet. The sequel to infinite will reveal if that's true or not.

[@primary2630]

Completely agree. Every time they've attempted to set up a plot they then cut it down offscreen. Even worse is they did it twice. Watch the next game not even feature the Endless for the trilogy of cut plots

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

Yeah the fact we never got a halo legends sequel is criminal. It’s the most underrated video game adaptation and it’s a shame it’s gone unnoticed in gaming adaption discussions for so long. It was ahead of the curve of making good adaptations and parts of it are so iconic to halo to this day. Plus it had the awesome halo 3 to halo wars art style. I just hope more people mention halo legends when talking about good adaptations. I don't like how the halo tv show is the first thing people think about now when we had this gem before that went unnoticed due to Microsoft poor advertising of it (you could only watch it on halo waypoint, a thing not many people used and it then had a dvd/blueray release after which did do well) Oh btw, I recently found out origins 2 may have been inspired by halo 2s cut ending. Which is crazy to think about now. Which makes that short much better for me

[@LaperLarden]

I've been saying this for YEARS! We can get a Terminator Anime, Cyberpunk Edge Runners, and a Secret Level episode for sodding Concord, but nothing for Halo?

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

Microsoft does nothing with halo. We have been tunnelled visioned on the arena gameplay and Spartan story for too long!

[@UnrulyRantLord]

Halo Legends v2?

[@Blanktester685]

we need a halo legends 2

[@HiddenXperia]

ngl i was lowkey annoyed as hell that fkn CONCORD of all games got a Secret Level episode and Halo was nowhere to be seen

[@imperialguardproductions]

A Halo anime focusing on Arbiter in the Blooding Years would go hard af.

[@MasterCheeksOfficial]

I cannot express how left out I felt knowing that Secret Level won’t have a Halo episode (even fucking Concord got an episode)

[@treehundred66mushrooms18]

Yo it’s Master Kek

[@tyvernoverlord5363]

It means that we're gonna need to have a Doom 2016 type revival of the Halo Franchise.

[@brock-182]

What’s Secret Level?

[@_Eric._]

​​@@brock-182 An amazon anthology series for a few games. Each episode will be a cg adaption of a game like warhammer 40k, megaman, the outer worlds and unfortunately concord... among few other games

[@exilestudios9546]

unfortunately paramount had the rights to halo shows at the time and were wasting them by thinking that some talentless woke writers knew better than halos writers

[@Don_Equilibrium]

Every time 343 create a new antagonist or intreting character, they kill them off. The didact ( killed in comic) jul mdama ( killed start of halo 5) after an interesting arc in the kilo 5 trilogy. Atriox , not dead but wasted. The rookie killed off , the rest of Alpha 9 dead? Lost in space. They've painted themselves into a corner chariterwise. The new characters' team osirus are bland and uninspired. Will take alot to inject some intrest and life back into halo :(

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

They should just retcon the rookies death. Nobody would even care.

[@Viciouslyvicious]

Unfortunately it seems they'll keep stepping on halo's legacy, just like the tv show. They had 3 main games to learn but they refuse, that's why I don't care for modern halo anymore.

[@justablindman1443]

​@@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778 no one cares about rookie, he literally has no character

[@PhoenixT70]

@@justablindman1443Dude, I cannot _describe_ the magnitude of the hornet’s nest you just kicked with that comment.

[@brock-182]

@@justablindman1443I agree. He’s literally just a blank slate to give the player the feeling it’s you. He’s literally just called “Rookie”. There could be an ODST 2 and you could still be called rookie because… you’re a rookie…

[@_HPX_]

A serious problem facing Halo is that they have failed to create a conflict as poignant and exciting as the Human-Covenant War. The Banished simply aren't as interesting as the Covenant. The Created Uprising was a clichéd shark-jumping moment, though I think it could have been executed well had they really tried. There just isn't a big, sweeping, epic conflict that's as easy to emotionally connect with as the HC war was, where all the trailers and multimedia fed into it and fleshed it out from so many angles. Are people really gonna be excited by stories about the Banished? About Spartan IV's? I'm not saying it's impossible, but I pretty consistently find myself less interested in the setting post-war. It's sort of become sanitized capeshit and lost a lot of its edge and moral complication. The best book to come out in a while was Silent Storm, which was a Covenant War prequel centered on the II's. That's kinda damning.

[@mihaifabianbica5445]

Hey man, you are one of my favourite halo KZbinrs since you started your first flood lore videos couple of years ago(juice flood lore). I wish you all the best with your youtube career 💪

[@HiddenXperia]

Ayyyy that’s very generous, thank you so much bro!! ❤️

[@killroy1117]

Two failed games and a terrible tv show is quite the damage for any franchise to recover from.

[@tyvernoverlord5363]

Even Halo 4 wasn't exactly a world's greatest hit, also remember the spartan strike and assault games. 343 really dropped the ball hard.

[@BiomechanicalBrick]

@@tyvernoverlord5363 those were good for low-budget games, with great animations and banger soundtracks

[@Lunnzies]

Games were far from failures commercially

[@jacobkoster3808]

The fact that 343 hasn’t even referenced the autojacker proves that we are living in the dark timeline

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

The most they did was the ai clubs in the tv show. Even that was a blueball.

[@CommanderShepherd-i4v]

The what now

[@xx_amongus_xx6987]

The autojacker is part of the dark timeline. It's so cringe

[@beanpeen4163]

​@@CommanderShepherd-i4vsuit do the sucky fucky

[@aliveintruth]

Wouldn't you mean the light timeline?

[@TheNukaColaMan10]

Its funny you say this, I got 3 people who weren’t even interested in Halo at all, showed them legends, and all 3 of them went to buy the Mcc.

[@curseofdarkness50450]

On the real. Anyone who references this man and his videos, are genuine OG players and fans. HiddenXperia has always been true to the community and Game.

[@HiddenXperia]

[@thewestrabbit]

I honestly think a halo reach movie is the kind of thing I’d LOVE to see. Maybe from the perspective of some of the Spartans you see dead in the final mission.

[@jayholm5851]

I loved playing as the Arbiter, so much so I played as player two on my own Xbox. Let us explore the Halo universe as a the aliens. Let me okay as a Sword of Sangheli, or as a Jiralhnae, or a Kigyar. The are so many tales we could explore

[@Normandy1998]

To this day I'm surprised halo legends didn't become continuous series as it has near endless potential and with shows like star wars visions and love death and robots, this can easily work. Another issue is limiting the books for keeping only two writers, their amazing but just means we go so long without a new book and limits what we can get.

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

Halo legends was so ahead of its time. Its a shame we never got more. It made me want to make the prototype suit mod in halo 3. So much of halo legends is important to the lore for halo that we have today. (also it had dinosaurs in halo which we all know is MEANT to be)

[@sebbiebarr3886]

​@@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778yesss we need dinos

[@AerrowXIII]

I think one thing that halo needs to be a proper game again is to ditch the T rating and go back to the M rating. The games were great when they were rated ever since they went rated T I’ve noticed they’ve gotten watered down.

[@Ractrin]

I don't even have to finish watching to highlight the most accurate statement from this whole video: The Halo show "was entirely separate and added nothing." This is precisely why I didn't watch the show. There was nothing to gain from it. No new lore, no unknown adventure Chief had embarked on, nothing from the books. It was just, nothing. So why waste my time on it?

[@SoCloseToCoast]

How about the fact that you need to consume all things halo to even understand the story now

[@PainBreton]

This. I hate transmedia storytelling.

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

Its not even just a halo problem now. EVERY TRIPLE A GAME DOES THIS NOW! Through battle pass seasons and through seasonal cutscenes. Comics and short animations that are on youtube and told outside of the games (fortnite, COD, apex, every new sonic game, Everyone does this now its lazy writing and it devalues comics are nothing but sprinkles added onto the story that you need to go and get) I remember halo 5 got panned for this, but now people just accept it and its horrible. I am so sick of games storys not even being in the games and being told in FOMO events. I am so sick of the FOMO of modern gaming.

[@terrykusanagi3849]

Everyone complains when a work of fiction (books, movies, series...) can't explain itself.... Except for when they don't. I wouldn't mind a little bit (not that much) of dialogue or cinematics in the games. A good example of this is the Halo 2 Uncut mod, where, with little of added dialogue, you can tell a lot of difference.

[@McKillahGuerilla]

Pisses me off something fierce! They've made it to where we have to do "homework" to understand our video games. Which is ironic because you'd think it would be better to let your consumers interact with the world via the game rather than read about it in a book or watch it in a movie or show.

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

@@McKillahGuerilla heres the truth, IF I have to read a book outside of the game to understand the story. Than thats bad writing and the story is lazy for doing that.

[@TheseFragsOnly]

A Halo series done like “black mirror” would go fcking crazy

[@threaders9411]

Just look at the first halo wars cutscenes Absolutely breathtaking! A sequential story in that format would be amazing

[@madboy1102]

I would love it if they done a ODST live action TV series that focused on the struggles of being in and ODST squad in the war against the covenant

[@brock-182]

Band of Brothers: Shock Troopers

[@billy-bg9rx]

For me personally, humans will always be the original forerunners and the Halo lore ends after 3. Once again, that's just me.

[@noblej7897]

Not just you. The retcon of forerunner being humanity along with how they stripped split screen by 5 killed off any investment from me going forwards. I've played bungie halo titles countless times. I played halo 4 once. And when halo 5 didn't have split screen i never finished the first mission. I honestly should have refunded the game. 😅

[@jacobhuot3056]

I think a group of UNSC survivors on Zeta Halo could make a great show like that. The Rubicon Protocol piqued my interest in that story line and seeing a group on the ring trying to survive could be cool!

[@OrbitalSnapshots2455]

I think they should drop the main focus on Chief and focus on other characters like Jerome, Arbiter, or a new character. Let us play as a species we've never played before, like a Brute or a Jackle. Doesn't even have to be a fps, could be a game where you play as a drone where you build and design vehicles and weapons for the covenant. And they use them to find forerunner artifacts, which you could use to boost other designs you come up with. Sure that examble is out there, but the point is there's so much wild stuff Halo could do.

[@TheNukaColaMan10]

WHERES MY ALPHA NINE GAME 343

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

Yeah but microsoft does NOTHING with their brands or takes advantage of it. They could of made so many spin offs by now with out sourcing. We gotten barely anything and 343s games have just tunneled vision on arena gameplay non-sense!

[@jimjam7928]

​@@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778Microsoft and Xbox have been bafflingly lazy with their game marketing for the last decade. Like how easy would it be for them to make like a named Grunt character like Yip Yap and put him front and centre for merchandising? There's always these easy hooks for them to grab on to, these easy wins with their fanbases and also roping in new audiences, and they NEVER take them.

[@codylowe1683]

Halo needs it's own version of arcane

[@PainBreton]

One of the worst issue of Halo is too many books and Halo games then relying on them too much in games to understand everything. That's the worst kind of storytelling imo. Books ruined 343's defeat in 3 or the Didact. Every major player accomplishment is ruined by books or comics. Focus on the games Halo Studios please. Only them should really matter. I really dislike the idea of transmedia storytelling.

[@cameronsims4108]

Something I would call The Oni files. Text lore dumps and audio recording from current, former, and questionable characters. Have it be a website where you feel like you found an access point and started to search files from a lone search bar. Key words, dates, and codes are the only possible ways to explore the site. Of course, the info is classified and blotted out, but given how Oni has its hands in everything, it's lore but with a new level of mystery. Halo conspiracy mystery.

[@65FASTBACKMAN-dx9ge]

I hate to say it, but I think Halo just needs to die off at this point. 343i was terrible at producing games, tv shows and just about anything else that they did. They did come out with a couple of cool trailers, and yes... the Hunt the Truth video files were pretty cool, but even those ultimately had nothing to do with the game. Halo 5: Guardians ended up being something completely different from the Hunt the Truth files, which has only added to the number of letdowns that 343i has given us. Coming back to my point, I think Halo either needs to die off, or another non Microsoft related studio needs to buy it out. After 343i put out 3 mediocre at best games, I don't think that most people care about Halo anymore, or at least they don't have any faith that there will be good games at this point. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I don't imagine that "Halo Studios" aka "former 343i" is going to do anything to right the ship. I also don't think that the story of the Master Chief really needs much more telling on, in that the original trilogy had imo a great ending to it. Anything more at this point is just done for the purposes of making money, and not for telling a great story. Of which, that's my biggest issue with newer Halo games/titles/tv series and so forth, is that those in charge of producing the content, don't understand Halo and don't know how to tell a great Halo story. I think a spin off, or something similar, in competent hands could be very successful. Something similar to an ODST/Halo Reach style of story, where it doesn't only focus on the Master Chief, I think could be quite good. I also wouldn't mind a prequel either game, tv series, anime or something similar about the Master Chief before he became a Spartan II supersoldier. I think that's what the tv series should've started off with, the abduction of the Spartan II candidates, their basic training and bootcamp, their augmentations, the washouts and those that didn't survive, etc. Something like that imo, would be quite fantastic, though again it would have to be in capable hands. And I don't think 343i/Halo Studios is going to allow anyone outside of their own control to be in charge of any Halo content. Of which, that is again the biggest problem with Halo today, incompetent creators, writers, producers and so forth that don't know what Halo actually is and that don't know how to tell a great story. In a perfect world, I think Halo could still very much be successful, but it needs to get as far away from 343i/Halo Studios as possible in order to do so.

[@internetcancer1672]

The story ended when bungee left and 343 took over if you’re looking for more lower read fanfiction it’s the same

[@monkaeyes]

There's always been a story problem ever since halo 5. Some would argue 4, but i feel like they could have at least recovered if you do think 4. Halo 5 was unrecoverable, idk how anyone expected anything good from infinite. They started trying to rebuild a house without clearing out the rubble.

[@jimmyjazz4605]

Bring back the Forward Unto Dawn. Gone but not forgotten.

[@thebrainbuiider]

I agree. After all, Star Wars Visions already has a season 2, what we need is a second legendary story of Halo’s anime.

[@jakespacepiratee3740]

343 ruined the story 😔 everyone used to love halo and make videos about how amazing it is, now people only make videos about how bad and irrelevant it is. We are Forerunners never forget that. Forget Frank o Connors lies. Nothing can be worse then the flood, Chief is still in cryogenic storage, floating in space, forever 😢

[@brotherzael7986]

Womp womp, even among bungie they weren’t sure if forerunners were going to be humans or not

[@Getz-Da-Chompy]

I was hoping that you would mention Hunt the Truth, I loved it and hope that we do get to see more audio dramas like it in the future!

[@eamonsaunderson9959]

if they do halo animated series, make it have season 7 and 11 episodes. Each season should get darker and darker, and then on hopeful note

[@DiscoverWithDeLo]

The games need to be a single main storyline, with books, movies, tv shows etc tying up minor bits (Johnson surviving halo 1) and if they introduce new characters, those characters should probably not show up in games with the expectation that people playing the games would know who they are.

[@Xeroxmyassiluv]

The novels are incredible. They have good writers available. Halo 1-2-3 are also an allegory to the Bible & other works. Christian or not, the Bible is fascinating and having a video game franchise have that as a reference makes for an incredible story.

[@gino14]

I'm a massive fan of shared cinematic universes that transcend medium and genre. Of how you can create various works that all feel different and cultivate their own fanbases and bring them together. Halo is NOT a franchise that works well with this treatment. Halo is a precision tool that does few things and does them well. It has one major theme: standing against impossible odds. It has one major aesthetic: militaristic semi realistic sci-fi.

[@JCVenomous]

5:08 HE SAID IT

[@Takuat]

It blows my mind that 343/Halo Studios haven't reached out to Tsutomu Nihei more. Between Breaking Quarantine and the fact 1000Toys, a Japanese company that makes high quality Halo figures, also heavily works with him.

[@HammeredSquash3]

Halo needs to try making a tv show, really not sure why they haven’t tried that

[@firecrakcer001]

Books are a great story medium and I lived the Halo books growing up, but 343 has to remember that Halo is a video game franchise. People who like Halo play video games as a hobby. Branching into other mediums is great for new audiences, but the current ones already have their preferred hobby.

[@chiefshep5885]

Halo had a solid story when Bungie was running things. 343 have destroyed the lore with their awful retcons

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

They literally retconned halo 3 in halo 4 and tried to backpaddle it later on, like with all their retcons. Bungies games can simply NOT exist in 343s universe as it makes no logical sense.

[@Spiroare]

I think this can work backwards too, at least in some respect. Halo 5 has always felt like the middle of a trilogy we never got. Between Hunt the Truth, Guardians, and even the events of Operation: WOLFE, we could have seen a proper "created trilogy" that would have been so much more cohesive than what 4 5 and infinite brought to the table. Throw in some of side missions Fireteam Osiris participated in, and we'd have the created trilogy's equivalent of H3:ODST.

[@hazat8123]

We deserve a Clone wars style Halo show! Imagine aHalo show where Thel Vadam (Arby) serves as the antagonist during the Human covenant war

[@xenosayain1506]

Billions dead. Seeing harvest, and watching him be the threat only described to us...I'd pay for that!!

[@hazat8123]

@xenosayain1506 just imagine at the end of like the first episode or even season Thel steps onto the Battlefield he treats the Humans with Honor but slaughters them regardless

[@LTMaverick27894]

Just hope that the potential fix for halo show doesn't get the mainstream treatment that Transformers have recently gotten. Transformers One, in particular, is AMAZING, yet despite the reception it got, most people slept on it.

[@BrentMalice]

i remember seeing neil publishing stuff on youtube then one day i saw his name on a movie poster. was so proud of him but so confused how a dude making halo action scenes didn't get picked to do tv show or movie or anything... i just wanted to give them my money

[@DarkGidora]

Because the Halo Movie went to dev hell. Hollywood didn't want to put up with Microsoft when Halo was hot (because MS had frankly ridiculous demands in terms of revenue split and creative control). Later, MS pivoted to be less obsessed over creative control, and even teamed with Steven Spielberg for a live action adaptation. Ten years later, that partnership led to the Paramount Show. Meanwhile, Blomkamp obviously wasn't going to wait a decade and a half when he had other stuff he could be doing.

[@BrentMalice]

@@DarkGidora oo i didn't know it was a rev split thing, but i knew it was all microsofts fault it died (despite those clips being sooooo good). its just one of those things where i expected it to go wrong, but i still cant believe really well paid people made such horrendous decisions for 20 years straight lmao. RvB Project Freelancer with monty oum still the bestSPARTAN storyline so far. and Rooster Teeth took down the fan comp of only those flashback scenes... cant believe RT did the same thing man. halo is just cursed at this point

[@jayman2257]

The fact that there’s a Headhunter attached to infinite and im just now finding out about is a monument to 343’s sins. They promoted The Yappening and everything else but not the cool stuff. Idk how you do HiddenXperia the current state of the verse makes me yearn for the sudden loving stop only concrete can provide as soon as I give 343 back their bomb.

[@spartan_a1176]

I really hate how they put most of the important story choices in the books more than the games it just make it more fucking confusing and i hate it

[@JamesTDG]

My biggest issue with modern Halo, is that so much of the story is left outside of the game. NONE of the 343i games directly connect together, you have to fish around to find the books and graphic novels to experience the franchise in the right order. Additionally, we need the expanded universe media to be translated to games for crying out loud! Mona Lisa is a good option, but there are many other options that could produce a great side game, such as Halo Legends' "Prototype", "Origins Part 1" (AKA a prequel set in the forerunner/flood war), or the CE-H2 books.

[@steffens260]

I just want my Halo Infinite coop like i was promised

[@brandonwaltham3746]

This guy takes me back to my childhood and unlocks memories of me and my best friend playing halo from morning till night

[@rykerbeaver7257]

me waiting on 343 or whoever is in charge to just realize they will make everyone happy by just making a legends part 2

[@CAL2ski]

Animated series of the books like a “Kilo 5” show would be really cool, Forerunner show would be cool, I would love to see Shadows of reach as a mini series, a true animated Fall of Reach, it’d be so easy to do something with those stories

[@sebastianmccray2748]

They should make a halo ghost of Onyx game. That was my favorite book.

[@zackwerth77]

Mine too! I’ve only recently started reading the books and the real story of the spartan 3s was really cool

[@zackwerth77]

Not going to spoil anything here, but I think the ending of that book could be a fantastic final mission

[@sebastianmccray2748]

I think it be cool to play a different Spartan 2 Kurt be perfect.

[@thatbr1t1shguy]

My take on a halo anime: the story of a spartan 3 and atriox. Since if you think about it the spartan 3 and atrioxs' clan were made for similar purposes.

[@LB-py9ig]

No, come on. We know what the real problem is. The focus on transmedia is all a symptom of the core problem, that being that the expanded universe keeps being relegated to cleaning up unpopular plot points 343 wants the audience to forget about. The Didact was never planned to be killed off in a one-shot comic, they wrote that because, after Halo 4 failed to connect as well as the previous 3, they wanted to make him go away and focus on Cortana. 343 obviously, *obviously* planned on making him and a resurgent Forerunner remnant the villains, obviously. Halo 5 came along and did the same with Cortana who was, obviously, *obviously* supposed to become the villain going forward only when that too failed to land they retconned and soft rebooted yet again to make in the Banished. Then, suddenly and halfway through, the Banished are simultaneously the main villains and irrelevant in the face of the Endless who are obviously, *obviously* intended to carry the series forward. So, when the Endless all die off screen between games, am I going to be told "Oh, that was always the plan, just for some reason they keep doing it between games"? Watch the Didact's monologue at the end of Halo 4 and tell me with a straight face his rant about how the Forerunner survivors must rally to stop humanity from reclaiming the mantle is, somehow, setting up the Endless.

[@davidwilliams2975]

I have thought about this for a while now, I know exactly who should make a halo adaptation, Gendy Tartakovsky. Watch primal and see what I mean, each episode our mostly silent protagonist kills his way through a dangerous environment in the most epic way possible.

[@halocollector]

Not only primal but a host of others like the first two SW clone wars, samurai Jack. Everything that man produces is gold.

[@davidwilliams2975]

@halocollector absolutely! I feel like his style would translate so well to halo and I could only imagine how epic his depiction of a spartan or the Arbiter in combat would be.

[@MedaMatchaElite]

Obviously, Halo’s huge story problem is not showing enough Master Cheeks on screen

[@trail-wolf4x4]

I really want to go back to early Halo, early in the war. I want to feel that fear of being technology out classes, an amarda of ships fighting a few cruisers. Being an ODST in a field battle watching all the carnage. I really want....to feel human in a Halo story again

[@diesal_one]

God I want them to reboot the series so badly. Keep the OG trilogy mostly the same, only adding in cut content and ideas that were cut due to time & budget constraints, and then just completely redo 5 and Infinite.

[@wysock9639]

Having a good anime would be perfect. Would love to see that done and always thought they should have made one, especially after halo legends.

[@frankieiv3637]

Just restart from where Bungie left off. (New versions of Halo 4, 5, HW2, and Infinite).

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

That is a great idea, Would fix all the lore 343 broke and all the retcons. There was nothing wrong with bungies universe before 343, taking away the stuff 343 did and reworking it to fit what bungie did would do wonders to fix the issues

[@yoshigaming9321]

It’s a fix that would only satisfy half the community, a lot of new content creators playing halo for the first time/and some fans do like 4, hw2 and infinite’s story, I also like a lot of some of there points, like the banished are something I really like, and I love the weapons character, Chief and Cortana’s character growth (4 and infinite respectively) and Lasky I’m just not the biggest fan of the forerunner story, I do think it’s cool, but I just with it was executed better.

[@monkaeyes]

​@@yoshigaming9321 you aren't in half of the community, you are in the minority.

[@yoshigaming9321]

And are minority’s not also important to any community?

[@monkaeyes]

@@yoshigaming9321 not unless you want them to make 2 lines of games at the same time no.

[@reeceemms1643]

To be fair with my Halo Tv show I do try and capture the aspects of the games but also showing bits you do not see. The darker side, like season 2 of mine for the first half literally will focus on one of the character's trauma from having to see her home world glassed at the end of season 1. I haven't actually watched Halo legends but I think it would be nice to see these small scale stories from within the Halo Universe.

[@nathanoutdoors7981]

Hey man if they make an anime of HALO I’m gonna be so happy hey I hope they make it like one piece. That would be awesome.

[@baryonyx-hl4mb]

I would love an adaptation of contact harvest. Imagine being able to see johnson fight in first battle of the war would perfection

[@HughS-kp1fv]

Tbh, we just need more games.... if 343 was pumping out games every two years, halo would still be more popular than COD.

[@okankyoto]

What- you don't like waiting 8 years for a 5 hour campaign that ends on an cliffhanger that will be resolved offscreen between games? And then ignoring story content in favor of an esports fascination? /s

[@ginkitsune6867]

Loving the take and love how you called out the TV show XD been following you for a while and any chance of you making a Halo Lore playlist? hoping to listen to it while I game. Keep up the great work!

[@steadysamurai1172]

Heavy Price Paid= instant sadness

[@agodelianshock9422]

A lot of the problem I have is that they keep pumping out books and expanded universe lore through short stories and such. Lots of the stories are really good, but we don't see that reflected in the games. Its almost as if the games have been left behind and the Halo universe kept moving forward without it. I'd like to see them move back to the model of having companion novels to the games. Knowing that name of that grunt you killed in the elevator without the game explicitly breaking the 4th wall and telling you. Expanding on what happens when you aren't in the room as chief and adding context to the game. That should always have remained the focus.

[@thedrbat9572]

i just bought my first ever gaming pc today, with an rtx 4060, the very first youtube video i watched on it was this video!! edit: sorry to spoil the mood of this comment, absolutely DO NOT want halo expanding its universe via anime series, A large portion of gen Z also dont watch anime.

[@matthewredenbaugh1110]

Make Halo M rated again

[@DogMutilator]

I can't believe you didn't mention ODST vs Helldiver. It's the pinnacle of Halo fan stories and Halo Studios should make it canon

[@AmGamer668]

💀canon is wild💀💀

[@marceletta]

making it canon is crazy lmao

[@ZepyClown]

Canon is wild

[@jimjam7928]

5:49 I'm glad you categorised specifically the "early" seasons of Game of Thrones as to the writing quality you'd want XD

[@frfcommander7811]

Halo Legends style show with Halo infinites “fracture” universes would go crazy

[@TheCCBoi]

The Matrix is the first to lean into transmedium. The Halo Legends anime’s were basically copying the AniMatrix.

[@djfingerslinger9726]

I listen to the books on audible while I’m working and I’ve “read” them all multiple times I legitimately love every single one of them.

[@andyfriederichsen]

12:43 A series of Halo CG shorts would be epic, especially if it focused heavily on things like life within the Covenant (or on High Charity), the gorilla warfare being waged against the Banished by the remaining marines on Installation 07, and, of course, the battles of the Human-Covenant War pre-2552. Hell, you could even focus on details nobody really thinks about (for example, how the Covenant and UNSC militaries develop/adopt new weapons).

[@MrKaji010]

i have 2 ideas that come to mind A halo anime that focuses on black team or an anime adaption of that one comic after the events of Halo 4 with the didact and blue team

[@jefftheturtle4734]

Thank you for not staining my eyes with footage from the show I appreciate you

[@haz-572]

Can't believe I'm going to use this as an example but League of Legends/Riot Games are very good at this. On occasion they'd release a great music video or animation that expands upon the lore or introduces a new character and that in turn helps flesh out the world even more. I'd love for Halo to something similar to this

[@jaytron9958]

I LOVE the idea of more Halo Legends! There are so many stories just from your videos that they could work with! Defender of the storm could make an amazing episode further showing the helplessness of the Forerunner's against the parasite since we kind of got some of that through terminals in games and then Halo Legends Origin part 1 but nothing else really that I can think of. It could make a great horror episode! Johnson's escape from Alpha Halo! The short snippets from the covering you did from that comic would be totally killer in another horror themed episode and further show how bad Alpha Halo was! It could also be a great opportunity to cannonize "A Fistfull of Arrows" and have either or both pre- and post- fall of reach Noble team stories! I can't remember the name, but an episode of one of or the last Sanshiun prelot? I think that's it? Going off of memory here but having his interaction with half jaw and his crew before discovering the massive betrayal of the prophet he was protecting could be amazing since the Covenant prelots aren't in any of the games to further that as the only covenant Halo Legends we got was how the Arbiter became a mark of shame (great but a shame itself the only Covenant focused one at least that I can think of). OH! A great one would be half jaw's encounter with the flood aboard the covenant supply ship near Alpha Halo! Yet another covenant themed one they could do! There are just so many options for another Halo Legends, and I'm all for it!

[@game_life_1]

We need more spinoff games like letting indie devs make a halo related games. They can't even make story to game and movie or short film.

[@WyattDucar]

Loved your video and this is the same problem I have with the franchise. Like for an example Despite having a Beginning and End in the form of Halo Contact Harvest and Halo 3 The Human Covenant War is still unexplored? Granted besides a few novels like Silent Storm and The Cole Protocol we haven't got a book set during the Human Covenant War say during 2540s or at least get to see some of the battles that were mentioned in the lore and given a full story treatment? Like What were the planets besides Harvest, Reach and Earth that were considered important in The UNSC. I've been re-reading the Clone Wars multimedia legends project from the early 2000s (the one with the original clone wars cartoon.) and I've been maybe 343 should have had a multimedia project in order to capitalize the popularity of Lucasfilm's High Republic but instead set in a golden age of peace and exploration it would similar to the old Clone Wars multimedia project. In which we get to see the full Human Covenant War especially the middle part along with battles that were mentioned but not shown in a story like the Harvest Camapign (the ground battle not the Battle with Cole or Johnson.) or The Battle for Tribute as Reach wasn't the only planet getting conquered by the Covenant they also conquered the entire Epilson Erdani system like Tribute. Another idea i would to see in the near future is an audio drama focusing on the full battle of earth (the events that we didn't see in the games and even uprising.) For an example we know that Blue Team was deployed to help defend Earth during the span of two weeks, conducted operations including numerous operations in orbit around Earth, stopping a Covenant invasion on Mount Erebus in Antarctica with a HAVOK tactical nuke, and stopping Covenant forces on the sea floor off of the Yucatan Peninsula. It would be cool to see these events in detail. Not mention you have the Covenant occupied places Arizona? There is also the URNA SW camapign in which on November 18, Jiralhanae forces spotted the UNSC Crassus and its escorts at sea and engaged it using a mixture of dropships and war-sleds. While initially successful, the boarding stalled due to the ship's hallways being smaller than their bodies. Lacking any progress, the Jiralhanae destroyed the flight tower and left, leaving the carrier afloat. With the majority of Truth's forces now bound for the Ark, some of the remaining Covenant forces on Earth fortified themselves in Arizona, URNA. On December 3, Admiral Harper of the Fifth Fleet initiated Operation: MARSH FLASH, which eradicated clusters of Jiralhanae leadership attempting to activate an artifact here. The UNSC was then finally able to repel or wipe out the remaining Covanant invader forces on the planet and the system, effectively bringing an end to the invasion. Despite suffering enormous military and civilian losses, the UNSC retained control of Earth. Marines involved in mopping up Jiralhanae holdouts employed the "Rex" VISR system. Imagined Red Dawn but in Halo, Imagined Homefront but better? Or if we are technically here more broadly the Covenant's siege on the Sol System (because let's not forget that Mars, Luna, the Jovian Colonies, they were all besieged at the same time as Earth), I would generally prefer an anthology series with multiple authors or audio drama (as we discuss before,) showcasing the different perspectives of the broader conflict. A book series with a single overarching story could be good if done well, but I think it would be a disservice to the conflict to limit it to a "single" story rather than multiple stories of the same event. An anthology series can explore everything from Castor's involvement in the Mars campaign as Ackerson fought on Mars to handle the bulwark of the Jiralhanae's efforts to a young Agryna's experiences in London. You can have a story of Blue Team fighting in Antartica as we have Spartans of Gamma Company fighting to protect civilians across Mars, Earth and Luna, all while showing the first symptoms of the Smoother issue as the Covenant's siege didn't last hours or days, but months as the battle raged from October and into December. Now in terms of a Halo Legends style animated story, I would love to see The Battle of Gamma Pavonis VII (that was mentioned in Dr Halsry’s personal journal (when it comes to discussing her daughter Miranda Keyes full career.) in this format plus It would be the perfect place to reintroduced Miranda Keyes to not just old fans from the original trilogy but also new fans that haven't heard her besides knowing icon characters like Master Chief, Cortana, Arbiter, and even Johnson.

[@marcov1147]

A new halo series needs to not focus on the master chief, we should be getting small glimpses of the chief every now and then maybe once in a season of every two seasons. There are so many characters that they can focus on like Johnson who saw the beginning and end of the war and was also constantly around chief, giving a good excuse for chief to show up in a place we know he was.

[@RedDragon-117]

With all the anime out now and the possible downfall of the Devil May Cry anime coming out soon, I really think the anime approach is a really bad idea, but I think CGI would be a better approach considering CGI is smoother and is used a lot more in Halo media.

[@tenletters5889]

I've been really enjoying all the audio short stories they've been releasing, if they keep these up they'll have me at least. Especially if they do one with my boy Thel

[@trentrobertson5308]

The problem is the threat does not seem as big like it was in the original Halo games oh and something I like to mention here I would like to know what is your all's favorite version of firefight mine is the one from Halo Reach where 4 players would spawn in with either a Rocket Launcher, Sniper Rifle, Concussion Rifle or whatever weapon the game gave you and all four players would have infinite ammo and there would be no weapon pickups on the battlefield

[@ChiefCrewin]

With the conclusion of the trilogy, there's not a lot to be done if they wanted to keep the same tone. Here's the thing though...THE HUMAN COVENANT WAR WAS 27 YEARS. In Star Wars, the Clone War was about 2 years, and look at how much media was made.

[@olympian3]

I’ve been a fan from the beginning… I think the biggest issue is that there isn’t enough elites. The series has been so focused on brutes maybe they should create a captivating elite villain

[@antimetricsystem]

I loved your point on the trilogy and structure of Halo. When I played Infinite, I was so confused on what had happened from the first cutscene to first part of gameplay. That should have been explained in a way that is not annoying to find, and that 343 did not release a story/game then go against what happened in the previous game (halo 4 and halo 5 with the resurrection of cortana)

[@joshstack34]

Glad to see a follow Odd One Out fan. Nothing fine with a little non-canon silliness every once in a while.

[@bjiornbjiorn]

I really enjoyed the short machinema segments in the recent halo infinite trailer: the one celebrating Halo 2's anniversary. I'd love for them to create a cast of characters and just do some funny skits with them. I know that's basically what the early years of Red vs Blue did but, in my defence, that stuff was really good.

[@raptor6851]

A really good Halo content creator is NotPipi. He makes REALLY good animation short films in the CE and Halo 2 graphics quality.

[@EC123z]

WE NEED A THIRD HALO WARS!!!!