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Halo Infinite | Story and Lore (Spoilers)
- Thread starter Trey
- Start date
Plus this Cylix was in a completely separate room. (Behind barriers)
Am I crazy or did this beautiful track not actually play a single time in the game? Escharum's speech only used a quiet drum version that just repeated the beginning beats over and over. That speech hit so much harder in the demo thanks to this track being behind it that it ain't even funny. I felt utterly robbed.
What I mean is that I'm not sure it's an infection form because the Cylix is so big. If it is Flood then it could be that they are generically represented by infection forms but whatever is in that Cylix is actually a large combat form or pure form.
Anyone else having trouble with boarding an enemy wraith? It won't let me melee the wraith to destroy it no matter what.
Controls are messed up, if you haven't messed with vehicle controls try hitting B regardless of what the prompt says.
I think they did a shockingly good job digging themselves out of the Halo 5 hole. I appreciated the redemption of Cortana and the final moments and cutscene of the game was great. It's unfortunate that a lot of the story is tied with Halo 5 but overall I'm really surprised at how much I enjoyed this. I think there's a very good case for it being the best or atleast Top 3 Halo campaigns.
Remember that dude that was captured and interrogated by Jega and the Harbinger in some of the audio logs? In one of them he lost his mind with the knowledge he got from the harbinger presumably. Then in another one he recites a bunch of numbers in the logs. Any speculation about what that was all about? I dont think him knowing what the forerunners did to the endless would make him lose it like that. Some kind of gravemind connection?
The Gravemind was able to shatter people's sanity, if the Endless are Precursors it could be a hint to that (Harbinger also said multiple Gravemind quotes throughout the game). They talk about him learning the truth, which I don't think is the truth of what the Forerunners did, but more a Lovecraftian "truth of the universe" type deal. What the Harbinger was trying to achieve with her experiment I couldn't even begin to guess.
Thought this was the best place to ask, but I've deliberately not read the thread for spoilers, but is the story in Infinite good?
Does it satisfyingly tie up Halo 5, and fill in the gap between 5 and Infinite?
Or is it another example of 343's dreadful storytelling that relies way too much on outside game content, a la Halo 4 and 5?
Does it satisfyingly tie up Halo 5, and fill in the gap between 5 and Infinite?
Or is it another example of 343's dreadful storytelling that relies way too much on outside game content, a la Halo 4 and 5?
Im not particularly sure what Cortana did. How did she get caught with her pants down by Atriox if she has a fleet of Planet destroying Guardians and no Physical body holding her in one place. When she blew up the ring, how did she even do it? I assume it was her Guardians but where were they when Atriox attacked?
Im over the moon that she is gone, just didnt really understand what was going on there. Why even sit on this Halo ring?
I loved how the handled it. It tells it in quite a non linear fashion where you are finding out what happened over the course of the campaign. If you liked the Halo 5 characters maybe you will be dissapointed. But I didnt like any of them so I was fine with it.
I honestly don't know anything at all about Halo lore. From purely playing the games (and not remembering Halo 5 at all) the story seemed pretty consistent to me. Considering that no one likes Halo 5, trying to continue this story is rediculously difficult and I think they did a great job. I think asking for lots of plot consistency here is hard, as I doubt it would've made for a better story. I think they did the best they could. The final Cortana cutscene I thought was pretty heartfelt
Definately not, infact I think the intention is to go into it without knowing much about 5 at all. Probably the reason why they never put 5 into MCC.
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I enjoyed it, it's definitely much better than 5. I think they did a really good job of digging themselves out of the hole 5 left them in while still being satisfying. The actual character writing is really good, they absolutely nailed Chief's character in this game and I really like the new characters.
The Harbinger is an Endless and the Skimmers seem to be a lower form of them.
It's an enjoyable ride but it's certainly flawed - definitely better than Halo 5 but I'd put the likes of Halo 4 and Halo 2 above it.
I would say it does not tie up 5 in a satisfying way because it basically just brushes 95% of it under the rug and hopes the player doesn't ask any questions.
It reminded me of what happened when ancient humans asked the Primordial about the Flood and some of them committed suicide after hearing what he had to say. Pretty nuts. I wanna know what could be so horrifying that it made people take their own lives. The Flood have been absent from the last few games so I'm excited to see a possible connection to them going forward.
The numbers are his service number/ID number, he is reciting them like a prisoner of war would (just like Keyes does in the CEA terminals when interrogated by the Gravemind).
I seem to be in the minority but I think they did an absolutely awful job. Enough to pretty much kill my interest in anything they do going forward.
Based off of the context, the way the Harbinger is talking and the way the prisoner is talking I'm not entirely sure that's the case. Also if I'm not mistaken the prisoner was only saying numbers (I could be remembering wrong), while a service number also includes a person's initials. Either was he sounded very disturbed in that audio log.
We know from Halo Wars 2 and the Halo CEA terminals that sections of each Halo ring are controllable/ejectable from the control center/ control systems. Perhaps theres also self destruct systems for the individual segments of the ring.
She was already "locked down" by the time Atriox showed up, so she no longer had control of her Guardians. The only thing I'm not totally sure of is how she was able to destroy part of the ring while locked down. My best guess is that she was only blocked from controlling her forces and still had control of the ring's functions.
I'd imagine "locked down" implies she lost her ability to control the guardians but not the stuff she could already do as a standard AI plugged into the Ring
If you go to the database and select the audio log where he lists the numbers, look to the right where the description and details are and you will see the numbers he gives are the same as his service ID (if I remember correctly).
EDIT- I double checked, he rattles off 0-2-2-1-4... his service ID is 02214LB (the LB stands for "Lucas Browning").
I think he was doing his best to fend off against the physical torture, and I agree he was suffering from some sort of mental distress as well. The very next audio log, Harbinger hits him with "I shall talk, and you shall listen". I think we're definitely meant to harken back to the Gravemind. Maybe the Endless created the Logic Plague?
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Yeah, its not in the game, which sucks since it hits a perfect balance between classic halo + banished low sounds and i might even say the piano feels very Halo Wars.
Beat it on Heroic and Harbinger fight ended with us trading blows (those awful hover orbs that home). So a bunch of achievements popped up but it made me redo the fight, heh.
Anyone else weirded out by Cortana's love confessions at the end? Just seems way over the top to say all these things to a guy who is an emotional brick.
Anyone else weirded out by Cortana's love confessions at the end? Just seems way over the top to say all these things to a guy who is an emotional brick.
I felt robbed I didn't get to hear this track (A Walk in the Woods) during my playthrough .
It was only one of 3 songs on Spotify this past year from the Inifnite soundtrack and I played it all the time , was really looking forward to finally wandering over the landscape with it on the background but it never happened .
Fairly short campaign, i dunno i guess its a refreshing change to do this kind of open sandbox thing instead of a linear one, tho there isnt that much to do in the open portions it is nice to swing around, all the points of interest felt repetitive by the end, i couldnt believe it when i got a notification for doing all FOBs, like thats it?
The story felt like one of these kinds of stories, i dont much care for this constant push and pull on what the big bad AI is doing and how John and the new AI feel about it, in the span of an hour were horrified she destroyed a spartan training facility and then few moments later its all cool, or something
Its like the writing team cant make up their minds on the big mcguffin were after, but still we have to have a happy ending, well relatively happy i guess
A lot better than the last one i played, 4, but i dunno how theyre stretching this thing for 10 years, i guess the Endless will have to be something special because its really spinning in its wheels otherwise
Which leads me to the biggest letdown of the campaign, they cant show the next big baddies in the beginning of this chapter of the franchise in the opening game, and that final tease on Weapons name, which is obviously Cortana, but they cant say it aloud, just why, its not like theres too much content story wise here
Paid 1e for GamePass so i dont think i got screwed here, but im glad i didnt pay full price because theyre going to ask more money for future campaign stuff and what this campaign has feels kinda thin for 60e
The story felt like one of these kinds of stories, i dont much care for this constant push and pull on what the big bad AI is doing and how John and the new AI feel about it, in the span of an hour were horrified she destroyed a spartan training facility and then few moments later its all cool, or something
Its like the writing team cant make up their minds on the big mcguffin were after, but still we have to have a happy ending, well relatively happy i guess
A lot better than the last one i played, 4, but i dunno how theyre stretching this thing for 10 years, i guess the Endless will have to be something special because its really spinning in its wheels otherwise
Which leads me to the biggest letdown of the campaign, they cant show the next big baddies in the beginning of this chapter of the franchise in the opening game, and that final tease on Weapons name, which is obviously Cortana, but they cant say it aloud, just why, its not like theres too much content story wise here
Paid 1e for GamePass so i dont think i got screwed here, but im glad i didnt pay full price because theyre going to ask more money for future campaign stuff and what this campaign has feels kinda thin for 60e
I still think this games story pays a heavy price for the awful narrative direction of 5.
Anyone else think this game is absolutely not a good jumping on point for new players ? Again it has to spend so much time cleaning up 5's mess.
Also does this mean that the Cortana in 5 wasn't some corrupted version of her , she was entirely herself and the exact same Cortana from all the previous games , and still decided to take over the galaxy ?
Anyone else think this game is absolutely not a good jumping on point for new players ? Again it has to spend so much time cleaning up 5's mess.
Also does this mean that the Cortana in 5 wasn't some corrupted version of her , she was entirely herself and the exact same Cortana from all the previous games , and still decided to take over the galaxy ?
It's not a great jumping in point for the story because you have no context to who Cortana is and who Atriox is and all that, yeah. Would've needed a longer set up intro.
Cortana in 5 was still Cortana but something about connecting to the Domain and curing her rampancy made her snap I guess? The story of Infinite does what it can, trying to clean slate and be fan servicey, but it's also hard to reeeally connect with Cortana in her final moment recaps when she blew up planets and Spartans and cities on Earth lol
Infinite doesn't clean up 5's mess very well though. Cortana basically became the Halo version of Grand Moff Tarkin destroying planets Alderaan style like a space Nazi. Infinite somehow still wants you to care for her by the end by giving her a redemption arc of sorts. It's just bad writing all around.
Yep, but 343 have been going hard on this since 4. Its weird. I dont know why someone on the writing staff didnt stop them. Its like amatuer theatre where they think the only way to create drama or interest in to have as much emotion as possible.
Its why I hope the cleaning the slate now. And with Joe Staten on board.
Then again Halo 3 had a weird moment when Johnson dies and tells Chief to 'never let her go'.
God I miss Johnson. He was the best Halo character.
So, Kovan and Horvath are still alive on the ring somewhere it seems. Horvath's last audio log was 2 days before Infinite begins so I wonder if we'll see them in post launch content. Would be neat
I feel they did a very good job in holding back on the "go to the Halo wiki" problem that Halo 4 and 5 suffered from.
In Halo 4 I was doing that for almost every cutscene, in Halo Infinite I only did it once after the credits rolled.
I'm doing The Sequence mission, cleared 3 out of 4 towers, how long to beat the game? I have pretty much completed all the side activities, killed 15 targets, claimed all fobs, cleared each fortress, I only need to free one Marine squad, find a couple of cores and the speaker towers, which I predume I won't clear because they are not visible on the map.
No, and it doesn't even really try. It treats what happens between 5 and Infinite as a big mystery to slowly unravel, but never fully explains the events. This is especially frustrating because what went down between the games is clearly important to the story Infinite is trying to tell about the Master Chief.
I'm right there with you. The story felt very J.J. Abrams-esque. It hopes a constant series of mysteries can act as a replacement for a good story and clear character arcs and routinely pushes characters where it wants them to go regardless of how little sense it makes.
Enh, I dunno, it still left piles of questions that people have had to come into this thread and ask about, assuming it must be answered in some wiki and it just turns out there isn't any answers at all. What are the Endless, is Harbinger an Endless, are all the ancillary characters alive or dead, why did the Banished want to fire the ring, where is the Spirit of Fire, how did Atriox beat Cortana, how did Cortana fire the ring, how did Atriox survive, why is Cortana so dang fickle, what super pivotal name did "the Weapon" pick for herself, etc. etc. Some of those questions are maybe not things you'd really expect lore to answer but the story really just edges constantly with unanswered questions and presents it in a way that makes you feel like you must be missing something.
Is that the Halo Wars ship? Eh I dunno. I don't care about that and it wasn't mentioned once in the game.
Not sure why you feel it's Infinite's job to explain that.
Re: The Endless - https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-has-filed-for-halo-the-endless-trademark
I guess we're getting an expansion? Bleh.
They really should make a story expansion where Chief looks for more direct answers about what happened in is time away, and you get a chance to play the memories of other Spartans 6 months prior, akin to ODST.
It would be a great way to also build to living characters for MC to find, help us understand the banished, have a more direct line on the Cortana and the Created, and understand the Endless stuff more.
It would be a great way to also build to living characters for MC to find, help us understand the banished, have a more direct line on the Cortana and the Created, and understand the Endless stuff more.
Last we saw Atriox he was still locked in combat with the Spirit of Fire on the Ark, so it's semi-relevant to at least know how that broke off. They litter all these audio logs around that could give you small tidbits to help fill in those blanks but so many of them seem like pure fluff, it's disappointing.
For me, the story seems like an epilogue to a Halo 6 that we have to imagine. I don't like the storytelling vehicle of watching recordings, because it means most of the story until the very end is going from place to place to power up elevators so that you can get to the next recording of people who don't actually appear onscreen in the game. But aside from that, my questions were:
1. Why would anyone turn down Cortana's demands? Her offer is basically "stop fighting or I'll blow you up, and there's nothing you can do to stop me." And both Atriox and humanity seem to have told her "we would never stop fighting" so she blows them up.
2. Why would Cortana leave a whole population's fate up to one person like Atriox? Could she not just kill him and get some other Brutes to agree to stop fighting? I assume a whole planet of Brutes has its own internal politics and someone there would agree to disarm. And we know she can do more targeted strikes, because she just blew up the Spartan IV center as opposed to Earth as a whole.
3. Everything with what happened on the ring seems like a way more interesting story than the months-later part we're playing, so why not make that the story of the game?
1. Why would anyone turn down Cortana's demands? Her offer is basically "stop fighting or I'll blow you up, and there's nothing you can do to stop me." And both Atriox and humanity seem to have told her "we would never stop fighting" so she blows them up.
2. Why would Cortana leave a whole population's fate up to one person like Atriox? Could she not just kill him and get some other Brutes to agree to stop fighting? I assume a whole planet of Brutes has its own internal politics and someone there would agree to disarm. And we know she can do more targeted strikes, because she just blew up the Spartan IV center as opposed to Earth as a whole.
3. Everything with what happened on the ring seems like a way more interesting story than the months-later part we're playing, so why not make that the story of the game?
Same! I was looking forward to those songs. I also wanted to hear Spire and Under Cover but they also didn't appear in my playthrough. I was so disappointed. Legit expected Through The Trees to be the first thing to play after you first land on Zeta Halo.
Yeah why should the next Halo game explain something that happened before it, that should be tying directly into the events of the game...
90% of the answer to these questions is "development was not smooth"
10% is "because Halo needs to leave things open for the next Odd Proper Noun"
I haven't played Halo Wars 2. I know nothing of Atriox or the Spirit of Fire, and I don't know how big (or small) a role they play in the game.
I don't feel I missed out on anything about them in Halo Infinite. And honestly, I'd say most Halo Infinite players haven't played Halo Wars 2.
You guys wanting an explanation of what happened after Halo Wars 2 is legitimate, but shoe horning it into Infinite is not the way to do it.
Yeah cause Infinite's story is ass and just either ignores things that came before it or deals with them off-screen or through audio logs and holograms.
Just because you didn't play Wars 2 or know what happens in it doesn't mean it should be ignored.