The good: Gunplay was the best of new 343’s Halo games. They made the Prometheans fun to fight. Warzone was the only good thing to come out of 343’s multiplayers. The lootboxes which could be earned was better than infinite’s paid season passes and expensive armor cores. They also had probably the only good iconic anything from the 343 games in the Guardians. On top of that, they had the best villain of the 343 games (evil Cortana).
The bad: They brought back Cortana after a amazing send off. The Didact never appears again despite having a teaser at the end of 4. Half the story is you playing a random Spartan chasing John for being “suspicious”. The team dynamic isn’t great and is leaned into. Warden Eternal SUCKS. And then he sucks again. And again. NO SPLIT SCREEN, AT ALL! No real Firefight, but none of 343’s games have had real Firefight.
Anyways, infinite sucks and I wish it didn’t exist. I’d rather have had a Halo 6 close out the Promethean story and do more with the Guardians.
setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think the original trilogy (plus Reach and ODST) work because while there’s a ton of lore, the really convoluted stuff is kind of at the background to the moment to moment feel of the game. The most forward facing content is a pastiche of other easily digestible scifi that’s all mixed together in a fun, interesting way. You’ve got conventional humans who feel like a straight expansion of the colonial marines from Aliens up against a diverse and interesting array of aliens. The Covenant are a refinement from Pathways Into Darkness and then the Marathon games. You’ve got the flood as a space zombie change of pace.
It all mixes together well and the more detailed lore can be built on top of it. There are many intentional gaps and hooks which can suggest things without having to be addressed explicitly, leaving room for some mystery.
After those games, the series kind of imploded under the weight of its own lore since the developers/writers chose to bring all of those mysterious elements to the forefront. It gave less interesting enemies to fight, and less motivation to care. I doubt many people have moments from those games burned into their memories the same way moments from the original trilogy are.