"Halo 4: I Get a Woman!" - Sgt. Mjr. A.J. Johnson, RIP

[Arteen]

If you want to completely miss the point, then sure, you can ignore how it had the rest of the covenant, marines, and all of the usual weapons and vehicles.

Halo 4 starts out with Master Chief and Cortana, alone on a sheared-in-half spaceship, above some forgotten Forerunner planet. No covenant, no covie weapons, no covie vehicles, no marines. Given the condition of the Forward Unto Dawn, there's not much MC can do to salvage any of the remaining weapons and vehicles on board, nor is there any way for him to restock once he gets to the planet's surface.

So it's pretty much just Master Chief, Cortana, and Forerunner artifacts, with no obvious story reasons to include any of the standard Halo enemies, allies, weapons or vehicles (other than maybe sentinels and flood infection forms). Potentially an entirely different sandbox. Now do I actually expect 343i to make a game called Halo 4 and not include grunts or ghosts or warthogs or plasma pistols? Not really.

[TeeKup]

tie in to Halo1 (fuck ":CE")

FUCKING THANK YOU. All my friends after reach started calling Halo 1 "Halo CE" when in hindsight NO ONE EVER CALLED IT THAT. I was just HALO. Halo CE is for custom edition you fucks. I don't give a damn about the "combat evolved" in the fucking title. Piss off.

Also this game better have an excess of Forerunner and Halos or I'm going to be pissed. Halo 3 was supposed to be the epic ending to the first trilogy and you were on halo for only one goddamn mission.

EDIT: Taking into account Arteens argument, we could potentially see more personal Forerunner equipment, like firearms, vehicles. I'd be extremely happy to see more AI constructs. I'd actually be perfectly okay with the main plot consisting of a rampant forerunner "super AI" like mendicant bias. Some reason it goes rampant, detects the small outbreaks of the flood in the previous games and determines the rings need to be deactivated again or some shit. Hell maybe it could be Offensive Bias? Just a thought.

[Hotrod]

FUCKING THANK YOU. All my friends after reach started calling Halo 1 "Halo CE" when in hindsight NO ONE EVER CALLED IT THAT. I was just HALO. Halo CE is for custom edition you fucks. I don't give a damn about the "combat evolved" in the fucking title. Piss off.

Also this game better have an excess of Forerunner and Halos or I'm going to be pissed. Halo 3 was supposed to be the epic ending to the first trilogy and you were on halo for only one goddamn mission.

EDIT: Taking into account Arteens argument, we could potentially see more personal Forerunner equipment, like firearms, vehicles. I'd be extremely happy to see more AI constructs. I'd actually be perfectly okay with the main plot consisting of a rampant forerunner "super AI" like mendicant bias. Some reason it goes rampant, detects the small outbreaks of the flood in the previous games and determines the rings need to be deactivated again or some shit. Hell maybe it could be Offensive Bias? Just a thought.

I agree with all of this, especially the Halo CE part.

[DarkHalo003]

To me Halo, includes every element of the series. The UNSC, Covenant, The Flood, Spartans, Elites, etc all make it Halo as I see. And of course I can't forget the mysterious Forerunner Architecture and the TRUE history behind the Forerunners (Not Greg Bear's copypasta nonsense).

If Halo 4 has bad music, I don't know, I might actually play it once for the campaign or multiplayer and shelve it. If a game doesn't have good music and audio, then it's not worth playing beyond the "I played it" reason. Marty O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori did an awesome job with Halo 2, 3, ODST, and Reach. I expect it not to be as good as theirs, but I still expect it to be good.

[Warsaw]

Well, to be fair, Battlefield has the best audio of any game series, ever. If you are expecting that level, you should prepare to be disappointed.

[Pooky]

To me Halo, includes every element of the series. The UNSC, Covenant, The Flood, Spartans, Elites, etc all make it Halo as I see. And of course I can't forget the mysterious Forerunner Architecture and the TRUE history behind the Forerunners (Not Greg Bear's copypasta nonsense).

If Halo 4 has bad music, I don't know, I might actually play it once for the campaign or multiplayer and shelve it. If a game doesn't have good music and audio, then it's not worth playing beyond the "I played it" reason. Marty O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori did an awesome job with Halo 2, 3, ODST, and Reach. I expect it not to be as good as theirs, but I still expect it to be good.

Marty's soundtrack was the only good reason to play Reach single player IMHO.

[DarkHalo003]

Marty's soundtrack was the only good reason to play Reach single player IMHO.

It helped tremendously for me. I probably wouldn't have played it more than a few times (because I like to beat Heroic and Legendary) if it hadn't been for Martin O'Donnell's freaking awesome music. I play SP almost everytime I log in Reach now, just for those moments where the music is too awesome.

[Warsaw]

Why is the first level of every Halo game always the mot fun? In Halo 1, other levels can compare, but they never exceed the fun of "Pillar of Autumn." In ALL of the other games, the first level is the most fun and none of the other ones come remotely close.

I always play the first level of Reach because it amuses me to do so every time. The other levels: not so much.

[ejburke]

Can I just say, "Fuck Trilogies"? I often wonder if these companies are aware of how trite a concept it is, but they use it anyway, because they think we're all idiots that buy into that nonsense.

Were Halo 1-3 really better off for being a "Trilogy"? If anything, I think Halo 2 and 3 weren't what they could have been because of too much narrative dead weight. Here's an idea: make a good game with a satisfying conclusion. Then make another. If all goes well with that and you're still on the right side of the diminishing returns curve, do another. Hey, whaddayaknow, you have a series of 3 satisfying games that dorks will dub a trilogy, and all you had to worry about was making good standalone experiences. Go figure.

Then make a 4th great standalone game, just to fuck with those assholes.

I just want Halo 4 to be standalone. Going in with the bullshit "Trilogy" mindset is a recipe for disappointment. Take a cue from the Uncharted guys. They just announced that they have no such trilogic designs on their franchise. They'll stop when they stop.

[thehoodedsmack]

The thing about a trilogy is that now we can expect disappointing cliffhangers.