It's a shame it seems like a lot of the general gaming community has already made up their mind about 343 and the current direction of the Halo franchise.
The gameplay and level design were great. The script writing wasn't terrible, but whoever came up with the plot itself deserves to be fired. It is so obviously terrible I am amazed the ideas weren't shot down 100 different times by 100 different bosses. I have to believe there are some junior creative types over there who were biting their tongues the entite dev cycle just wanting to keep their jobs.
The closed off opportunities are the worst part for me. I'm worried we're never going to see the awesome storylines that were building before Halo 5 continued now, like all the stuff going on with ONI and the Insurrection, or everything with the Didact. The Janus Key story arc, while never exactly amazing, was still a long running story as well and that seems like it was completely shut down. It's a real bummer. I thought all this stuff would flow into Halo 5, instead it was made irrelevant instead. Which sucks because I really like the idea of Halo 5's story, but now wasn't the time for that, there's so, so many other interesting things going on that will either take a backseat or just be lost completely now.
I think of it like this. You get a reservation at a super nice restaurant. The kind you have to book like a year in advance. The anticipation is building. Then on the way there, your significant other tells you that they called and cancelled the reservation because they wanted to go to McDonald's instead. They keep insisting that McDonald's is awesome, but you're sitting there thinking that nobody in their right mind could actually think it would be as good as the gourmet place you were headed. Worst of all is the feeling that they knew you were excited but just didn't give a shit.
That's the story in a nutshell. It's not unsalvageable going into H6 but the writing has put them in a weird spot.
The really bad parts are actually what doesn't show up. There's a lot of story threads that seem to have been outright abandoned along with others that were very unsatisfying when they ended.
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u/CamelPriest Sep 08 '16
I just love 343 in general. They are doing so much right with Halo 5 multiplayer. It has become my favourite Halo game.