duskvstweak wrote: July 19th, 2020, 8:46 pm
Flabyo wrote: July 19th, 2020, 6:07 pm
Reach is an interesting one in that it sits firmly in the period where they were assuming that people were not just playing the games but also reading all the novels and watching all the web series.
Most of it’s stronger story beats rely on you knowing a little more about the overall plot and characters than you would get just from playing 1 to 3 (and that’s before you even get into where it overlaps with Halo ODST plotwise)
Hmm. Guess I should go looking for the essential reading material, huh?
This is my biggest problem with Halo as a franchise at this point. It's something that really came to a head with Halo 5, and is a big challenge for 343 with the upcoming Infinite.
I've played every Halo game through multiple times (countless times for the first game, and at least 3-4 times for the rest), but have never touched any of the extra curricular media that surrounds the series. I did understand Reach the first time round to be fair, but things started to get confusing for me with Halo 4, and by the time we got to Halo 5 I had very little idea what on earth was going on.
That's a massive problem when someone who has played every game in a series can no longer understand what's going on in the story, and you're relying on people having consumed content in other media in order to make sense of things.
From the noises coming out of 343 since Halo 5, it did sound like they had learned their lesson and were trying to simplify things again, but then some shots of some tie-in toys leaked and apparently they're bringing in a villain that featured in Halo Wars. I mean at least that's another Halo video game rather than some off-shoot novelisation, but I've not played those games, and based on sales figures most people who play the mainline Halo games haven't either.
I'm sure Infinite is going to be very good game and I can't wait for Thursday to find out more about it. But to make people really care about Halo and its campaign again they need to deliver an accessible experience that's welcoming to gamers of all levels of Halo experience, while ensuring there are plenty of nods and easter eggs to the other stuff to keep hardcore lore fans happy.
