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So what's the full story behind Halo 5's false advertising?

Uzumaki Goku

Uzumaki Goku

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
19,251
Like I remember, they kept saying "Hunt the Truth" and had two different promos. One with Chief beating Locke and one with Locke beating Chief. Indicating that there would be a massive boss battle between these two... instead, it was done in one cutscene that the player didn't have any control over... that was a bit of a cocktease.

From what I gather Halo 5 was quite disappointing and the backlash to the twist of Cortana being evil was... not very well received.
 

Acquiesc3

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,724
"False advertising" is the new "antI consumer"

Terms Era tosses around not knowing what they mean.
 

Deleted member 2229

User requested account closure
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Oct 25, 2017
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Uzumaki Goku said:
I mean... why was Halo 5 given so much backlash?
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bsigg said:
The Hunt The Truth campaign didn't match the tone of the campaign in the game.
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Well, this^ as well as it just continued down a number of paths that a lot of Halo fans aren't fond of. Things such as a linear levels, spartan abilities, not playing Chief, bad/boring boss fights that were repeated over and over, not effectively using fan favorite characters, continued demistifying of the Forerunners, Evil Cortana, Locke in his entirety (who you spend most of the game as) and whatever that ending was. After Halo 4 things were already on shaky ground but this took a lot of what people didn't like about 4 and just did it more.
 
TacomaSCDisaster

TacomaSCDisaster

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,969
I did think it was weird that

they ran a big campaign surrounding the death of Master Chief when not only did he survive the game, nowhere in the game did they indicate he was going to die. Like, it had absolutely nothing to do with the events of the game.
 
SaberVS7

SaberVS7

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,233
aGuyInaBearSuit said:
I did think it was weird that

they ran a big campaign surrounding the death of Master Chief when not only did he survive the game, nowhere in the game did they indicate he was going to die. Like, it had absolutely nothing to do with the events of the game.
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I mean if you're talking about Halo 3...

To everyone on Earth, The Arbiter was the Sole Survivor of the expedition to The Ark. No one else made it back, 117 included. And that was with a Halo firing as what cut the portal off.

Any sane person in-character on Earth would be certain he is dead.
 
Finaj

Finaj

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,356
SaberVS7 said:
I mean if you're talking about Halo 3...

To everyone on Earth, The Arbiter was the Sole Survivor of the expedition to The Ark. No one else made it back, 117 included. And that was with a Halo firing as what cut the portal off.

Any sane person in-character on Earth would be certain he is dead.
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He talking about Halo 5, not 3; specifically the story set up by Hunt the Truth.
 

Deleted member 2229

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SaberVS7 said:
I mean if you're talking about Halo 3...

To everyone on Earth, The Arbiter was the Sole Survivor of the expedition to The Ark. No one else made it back, 117 included. And that was with a Halo firing as what cut the portal off.

Any sane person in-character on Earth would be certain he is dead.
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They're talking about an Ad for Halo 5
But even ignoring that, during the events of 4 Chief meets back up with the UNSC and the Infinity. I'm pretty sure people would know he's alive by the events of 5, especially given:
-he's being "hunted"
he put together a crew of spartans
 
Chaos2Frozen

Chaos2Frozen

Member
Nov 3, 2017
28,021
If you're talking about why the story in Halo 5 didn't match the tone and premise and implications of the ads.... Either it's one big miscommunication, or 343 had to throw out the script at the last minute
 
efr

efr

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
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Jun 19, 2019
2,893
Arent there 343 employees here who worked on the game? Why not ask them?
 
Windu

Windu

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Oct 25, 2017
13,616
I have no idea what went on that game. Then again my main recollection of the Halo Story is a superweapon Halo ring and Cortana going from bad to good to bad or something.
 
Flibbertygiblet

Flibbertygiblet

Member
Oct 25, 2017
286
I would imagine there was a breakdown in communication between the marketing team and the game developers, because the marketing told one story and the game told another. Props to the marketing team on knocking it out of the park though!
 
Gundam

Gundam

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
12,801
My theory is that in keeping with being inspired by Bungie's Destiny in many aspects of the game, they decided to also reboot development halfway through, as a prank
 
Dead Man Typing

Dead Man Typing

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,831
fontguy said:
Does anything in particular make you think that?
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Not having the main character's voice match the actor (I think he wasnt available for reshoots). Those weird walk around sections felt like they should have been part of something larger and more open. I dunno, just kind of a feeling.

The fact the game ends on a cliff hanger and it's still unresolved 4 years later is strange. Not showing Chief meeting up with Blue team, how undercooked alot of the story elements are and the small number of Chief missions. The reclaimer trilogy was a thing when Halo 4 released but they dropped that on the run up to Halo 5. The marketing not matching the game also adds to the feeling.

Lots of little things, nothing substantial.
Halo 5s a great game technically and the multiplayer is amazing. There's just something about the campaign that doesn't add up.

I'd love to see a post mortem.
 
gnexus

gnexus

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Mar 30, 2018
2,286
As someone who didn't play the Halo games since Halo 2, and jumped into Halo 5 with some hype from the awesome commercials and pre-launch marketing... I was pretty disappointed. The multiplayer nowadays is pretty top notch, but man.. the campaign was boring af.
 
smashballTaz

smashballTaz

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Oct 29, 2017
749
I remember the story in the marketing campaign being much more gripping and intriguing than the one in the actual game.

I still enjoyed Halo 5, but was expecting much more depth from the adverts and ARG and things surrounding it.
 

Deleted member 13015

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2,266
Miscommunication, props to the marketing team for making it hype though.

The campaign was so boring in comparison.
 
funky

funky

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Oct 25, 2017
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I would guess the game just changed during development.

For better and worse, 343 isnt afraid to make big shifts in the middle of a project.
 
DidactBRHU3

DidactBRHU3

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Oct 17, 2019
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Fortaleza - Ceará
Hunt The Truth podcast made the hype for Halo 5´s story to go to unreasonable levels. I feel that they had a lot of ideas and tried them, but they fell short late in development. They had to ship something in the end , so they used what they had at the time, the best choice was apparently multiple annoying Warden fights, half baked hub worlds and too many characters to work with in the story.
 
Kalentan

Kalentan

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Oct 25, 2017
44,615
IIRC I swore there was something about them having changed the story at some point.

You can see this in both the comics and HTT wherein both were setting up a plot lines following Halo 4 but then was suddenly shifted. Like IIRC the plan was for Cortana really to die in Halo 4 and that was that and they would have really gone deep into the Forerunner stuff the books had been setting up but after people complained that the games were getting too heavily reliant on the EU material, they swerved HARD in the other direction dropping plot lines like they were flies to suddenly set up a brand new story. So with HTT they basically were told the story would be one thing when behind the scenes it was already changing.

The Didact was supposed to be a longer running villain but then was dealt with in the comics because it would get in the way of the new story.
 
Sordid Plebeian

Sordid Plebeian

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Oct 26, 2017
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My guess would be that the marketing team was not given much to go off of so created a story that created different expectations for the final product

Also, Hunt the Truth season 1 had absolutely nothing to do with anything in Halo 5, so that added to the confusion

Also, am I the only one who remembers the commercial where they said the Master Chief was dead? What was up with that loose end?
 
Prolepro

Prolepro

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Nov 6, 2017
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idk but the Keegan-Michael Key Hunt the Truth audio serialization leading up to the game was so much fucking better than it had any right to be and was far more entertaining than the Halo 5 campaign

 
Cranster

Cranster

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Oct 25, 2017
9,788
The advertising was no more misleading than Halo 2 or Halo 3's advertising. Halo 2 was advertising levels that were not even in the game anymore and Halo 3's believe campaign was based on events that were never in the game at all.

Alot of people bring up Hunt The Truth but HTT Season 1 takes place before the events of Halo 5 with Season 2 taking place during Halo 5.
 
RestEerie

RestEerie

Banned
Aug 20, 2018
13,618
Halo fans don't want to admit but the ads for the games were more hyped than the actual game campaign...and it started all the way in halo 2. Halo 1 (& maybe reach) is the only ones with a satisfying campaign.

RIP my inbox?
 
lambdaupsilon

lambdaupsilon

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Apr 17, 2018
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Kalentan said:
IIRC I swore there was something about them having changed the story at some point.

You can see this in both the comics and HTT wherein both were setting up a plot lines following Halo 4 but then was suddenly shifted. Like IIRC the plan was for Cortana really to die in Halo 4 and that was that and they would have really gone deep into the Forerunner stuff the books had been setting up but after people complained that the games were getting too heavily reliant on the EU material, they swerved HARD in the other direction dropping plot lines like they were flies to suddenly set up a brand new story. So with HTT they basically were told the story would be one thing when behind the scenes it was already changing.

The Didact was supposed to be a longer running villain but then was dealt with in the comics because it would get in the way of the new story.
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that'd be a shame because (having not kept up with recent halo much, mind) the newer forerunner lore is really cool
 
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