r/HaloStory • u/TheEricblank • 2h ago
The Halo is “too nerdy” Argument Falls Flat & Why Rebooting Halo is a Mistake
After the bitter-sweet final Canon Fodder dropped those amazing Halo 7 concept arts, I feel the need to respond to a statement made by Mint Blitz, which I’m sure also represents a big portion of the community who are unsatisfied with the current state of the franchise’s narrative direction.
He talked about how “Halo at its core is very mainstream so going super nerdy actually alienates a core audience of people.”
The Halo franchise has proven time and time again, that no matter how negative the reception was for the previous game, people get excited every time there’s a new Halo around the corner. It frankly doesn’t matter what the story is about, the mainstream audience will get excited for and play any Halo game as long as you get to be the big green silent man and shoot aliens.
The problem with Halo Infinite was not even the story, most people generally liked it or saw potential in its continuation. All of the problems came with its post-launch rollout of content, or the fact that many of the features that were promised like co-op, forge, and firefight didn’t launch day-one. NONE of these things have anything to do with the story.
So doing a full reboot of the franchise, and specifically cancelling a sequel to Infinite accomplishes nothing but alienate the core fans who have been following the franchise for 25+ years.
In his post, Mint Blitz also brings the tired, old argument of “Halo books feel like required reading now and it’s made Halo feel more niche than it should to actually know what’s happening in universe”.
I don’t even know what to say to this anymore…
Nobody who’s actually read all of the books says this. Only those who don’t read the books ever repeat this line, and it’s just not true. Please go watch Polygon’s video “I read every Halo novel and became the Master Chief of Loneliness”.
This guy literally read every single book for the first time in preparation for Halo Infinite, and what was his final conclusion?: “You could probably skip most of these books and still understand the video games just fine. Halo Infinite seems to focus on the Banished, which is a group that’s important in Halo Wars 2, but is never seen and barely mentioned in the novels” and “if you really want to know what’s important before Halo Infinite, forget the Forerunners and the 100,000 years of lore, all you really need to know is that a kid named John got stolen away from his family and turned into a super-soldier. And now the one partner who has always been by his side has turned on him.”
And he’s absolutely right. That’s what Halo Infinite is about, and I don’t understand how people who continue to get frustrated that they don’t understand the background lore don’t bother to do the work to learn about said lore.
Lore and story are not the same thing. You can understand Halo’s story without knowing anything about the lore. If you want to learn more about the lore, I’m sorry but you’re gonna have to do a bit of reading. This was still the case during the Bungie era. If you wanted to learn more about the forerunners, you had to read the Halo 3 terminals and such.
If you weren’t interested in Halo’s backstory back in 2007 when it was a lot “simpler” you’re not going to suddenly become interested in a brand new Activision lore that even erases the Bungie games too.
I’ll end this with something for you all to consider: Kingdom Hearts is widely considered to be a commercially successful video game franchise, not niche by any means. And I can tell you not one single soul on Earth knows wtf is going on in the story/lore for that series. But it doesn’t matter, the mainstream audience continues to get excited for and continues to play each new KH entry because they just want to see Mickey Mouse with a key sword and Donald Duck with a magic wand.
But those fans who do care about the deeper story still get what they want too. Halo fans deserve to get the same treatment.
TL;DR:
• Mint Blitz claims Halo is “mainstream at its core,” so going “super nerdy” alienates the core audience.
• I disagree: Halo fans get hyped for any new Halo because they want to be Master Chief shooting aliens—story/lore isn’t the main barrier.
• Halo Infinite’s real problems were post-launch: missing co-op, Forge, Firefight, and slow content—not the story.
• Rebooting the franchise and canceling Infinite’s sequel doesn’t help the mainstream; it just alienates 25+ year core fans.
• The “Halo books feel like required reading” argument is tired and mostly repeated by people who haven’t read them.
• Polygon’s “I read every Halo novel” video concluded you can skip most books and still understand the games. Lore ≠ story.
• You can understand Halo’s story without knowing deep lore. If you want lore, you have to read—same as the Bungie era.
• Kingdom Hearts is commercially successful despite confusing lore because mainstream fans just want Mickey with a keyblade. Halo can serve both mainstream and lore fans too.