The hunt aspect might not be directly misleading, but it’s knowingly pointless; we spend the majority of the game tracking down the person, the iconic hero, who’s experiencing the most interesting turn of events that are moving the franchise forward. The more interesting story (y’know, all the boxes you checked?) are happening with John, the Master Chief, the face of the franchise, the character on the box art of every iterative Halo since the early 2000s.
And feel however you want about ODST, but it never purported to be as substantive an installment of the franchise as Halo 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5; it was sold as an additional, in-universe story (it was actually going to be sold as Halo 3 DLC, but they decided there was enough there that a standalone release could be merited. And let’s not forget, it sold new for $30 when you compare it to the $60 games.) Yes, it IS a sidestory, and it never claimed to be anything else. Judging it by the standards of major installments is akin to judging your fries by the standards of your burger.
So don’t act “surprised” when people are upset that they spend the least of the game continuing John’s journey. Relegating him to the least of the game and putting the player in control of some new guy chasing down him and the more interesting events in the game and calling it “the next major Halo” sounds like 343 is milking the tale, like someone who found a million dollars in a briefcase (AMAZING!!), but spends the first three-quarters of their story telling you what they had for breakfast that morning (who gives a shit?)
I, for one, had no problem SHARING Halo 2 with the Arbiter; at least substantive events were happening in his portion of the game; it’s how we learned, intimately, the beliefs and structure of the then ominous Covenant. What of any significance did we learn as Osiris that couldn’t have been learned during John’s tale? What SIGNIFICANT contribution did Osiris’ tale make to the Halo universe that it deserved the mantle (lol) of Halo “5”?
So I'm going to clear some things up before I start.
I'm not a massive Halo fanboy. I remember playing the first Halo: Combat Evolved at my friend's house when I was a kid. And I'm thinking "Dude, I love first person shooters! How many guns are in this game"
My friend went "Plenty! But you can only hold 2. It's realistic!"
I looked at him. "Realisitic? We're playing a giant green robot man who respawns after he's killed. Why the hell do I care about realism?!"
That was a lot of people's first impression with limited carrying capability. I didn't like it at the time. It soured me.
So I watched him beat that. He told me that you get to carry more guns in Halo 2, but he meant dual wielding, so I got tricked into watching him beat that (Pizza was good).
And I can't tell you why. Maybe because I played and liked Gears of War which got me over limited carrying capability (like I had a choice back then). But I got Halo 3. It was told to me that we were finally finishing the fight. That it all lead up to this. And since I knew Halo up to this point... yeah, yeah, I could finish the fight.
I didn't hate it. I beat it. It was a decent story. I played more of Halo 3. But I had some satisfaction knowing that I completed the Halo Story as they said we were go...
Halo 4? What? What's left? We stopped the covenant. Oh. An entire new race of bad guys who aren't technically new for 117 to own. Ok. Fine.
Halo 5? Something's wrong with everyone. Umm. Cool. Let's see what that's about.
Again. I'm not a die hard fan of the series. Never was. I got turned off by the game play in the first game, tricked to watching the second game, reasonably enjoyed being part of the finaAnother game created because Master Chief prints money, and then here's another.
This next part isn't directed at you. But for every complaint I've heard that Spartan Locke and Osiris are nothing... Jesus Christ, the only Spartans that were anything were Noble Six. They had more personality in their one game that any character other than Cortana and Johnson had for the entire series. Especially Blue Team. Who were just "We're the heroes". Sierra 117 is beloved because he was a mostly empty space for a power fantasy.
Locke might have not been Neku, but he at least was present... emoted more than 117 ever did. And yes, that's a part of Spartan training to not explore or value your emotions. I get it. But the issue that comparing a well knowing boring guy vs a guy you don't know who is showing any multitude of emotions while going against his own personal feelings ("You're not the only one he's saved"), and then saying the new guy isn't interesting based on the fact that he isn't the boring guy we already knew? That's disingenuous.
I think the team realized that, yeah, it's getting a little tired that these four Spartans are killing civilizations. They wanted to branch out, because Spartans themselves are awesome IPs. Their mistake was to involve the Master Chief. It could have been far into the future, a time slip that put them into another dimension, or whatever. Or if they wanted to really do the route they did, they could have just hinted that the characters you were dealing with were talking to the antagonist in secret, and revealed it all at the end, and THEN bring out Master Chief out of the blue.
I don't know. It's hard for me to judge because I'm not a Halo fan. I found Locke more interesting than John because Locke was actually human, but again, I get how fans of the series feel.
