Thinking on it more, Halo Infinite is more like just the level Halo from Halo CE stretched out into an 8 hour campaign. The Pillar of Autumn level (the fall of Infinity), happened in a cutscene. Do you think thats what 343 had planned, release 8 hour campaign remakes of the individual levels of CE? The next campaign DLC would have been 8 hours spent boarding a Banished ship to go and get Lasky (Truth and Reconciliation remake).

Infinite was meant to be a live service. We were meant to get dlc that would tell the story further. Now we are not. Zeta halo was an excellent marketing tactic. The entire community was hyped. Then the ball was dropped and we were all left under whelmed.

One of my biggest issues with infinite and 343 by extension is their constant behaviour of undoing their past story. Each game feels like a completely new story - each writer decided to ignore the script of the previous game. Halo 4 finally introduced the forerunners! Great! Spartan ops introduced parg vol and a variety of cool characters. Halo 5 kills parg vol in a cutscene, and the didact in some offscreen book. Introduces the created! Somewhat cool, okay let’s go with it… Halo 6 kills Cortana offscreen in a cutscene. Essentially kills all the guardians and all other created enemies. Kills the infinity despite being an important part of halo 4s promotion Kills the guardians despite being an important part of halo 5s promotion. Once again brings us back to halo ce style by suddenly getting rid of blue team and team Osiris. Then introduces a new threat, again… Like bruh, make up your minds and stick with it.

I finished the game thinking i was halfway done. I thought "Okay here we go!" Then the credits started to roll

When Cortana said “we both know there are worse things than the flood on this ring” I threw my controller down

When I finished the campaign I thought to myself “what the hell even happened? Did we even do anything? Did anything actually happen?” Big disappointment we basically ran around killed some bad guys and nothing really progressed

Honestly it was a perfectly good "first act" campaign imo, I really liked it. The failure came when it became clear we aren't getting a continuation.

343 has killed my enthusiasm for Halo… tbh I’m not even excited for the new novels, I’ll still read them just to find out what they’re gonna do with the Didact and Arbiter, but if there’s a 5-6 year gap again (if there’s even ever gonna be a continuation of the story) I don’t think I’ll even bother getting excited or hopeful. Like what an utterly pathetic showing out of FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS

I was always surprised how much everyone loved this campaign. When I finished it I was like, okay that was fun but what now? There really was no point and no beginning middle end at all...

Halo Infinite was supposed to be like being handed the keys to the castle, but what we found out is that the keys to the castle didn't open the gate out front. So all we can do is sit a look at the castle from the road.

nothing upset me more than the fact that we are on Zeta Halo and had the Flood name dropped multiple times, only for the Flood to not show up at all. I was ready when the campaign ended I was like "all right here comes the part where it hits the fan and someone unleashes the Flood" but then to my surprise the credits rolled instead.

Ladies and gentlemen.. this is what heartbreak and passion sounds and feels like. I wish we could see a resurgence in HALO, but if they're going to keep trying to milk a dead cow, I'd rather see it put to rest. Excellent video. We can only hope things turn around.

We learned that out of anything, 343 Industries and Micro$oft are certainly capable of that in-game store and microtransactions both working *DAY ONE* and making sure it's constantly getting updated with monetary BS. 😇

I feel that the Teen rating has also been a factor in the decline of Halo. The universe is inherently full of mature elements and themes. The developers are now limited in the extent that they can explore and express them. It’s such a shame.

Honestly, no one can blame you for feeling this way because we're all feeling it too.

I've tried giving 343 a chance, all they proved is that they're criminally incompetent in handling the Halo IP. Infinite was meh, at best. Sure, some gameplay aspects were pretty fun but that was just about it. Story-wise, bearly anything happens. And given you are using Zeta Halo as your location, THE Zeta Halo, you cannot afford to bungle up the story, not on this location and the monumental happenings here in the wider lore. Like you said, all we were given are the Endless and 343 has the gall to call them a threat bigger than the Flood while giving us next to nothing on them. One of the biggest mistakes 343 makes lore-wise is to move it forward with mediums other than the games. Remember how they treated the Didact's character: his 'real' death was in a comic and now he returns via a new novel. Halo was and should be first and foremost driven by the games. Sure, you can expand the universe and the lore with other mediums, but the games MUST remain the main vehicle for the stories. At this point, I've lost all faith with 343 giving us something half-decent. It's time to either give the IP to another studio fully or grant rights to other studios and let them have a go at it with the francize.

I still get unreasonably sad when i think about all of the amazing lore that was skipped out on with Zeta Halo. We could have had so, so much. And we were given non of it.

Looking at the Halo franchise now is like looking at a cancer-ridden, one-foot-in-the-grave, suffering dog. I just want it to be put out of its misery and let it rest in peace while reflecting on the good times we had together. I'll miss it sure, but at least the memories are alive in my heart.

They showed Atriox, didn't explain how he got off of the Ark, and then said he died, only to undo that in the post credits as if it made the campaign any better.

I was always so annoyed with people saying the campaign was perfect when it was so devoid of storytelling. Im honestly glad to see people finally speaking up about it

I miss the days when humans were the forunners and the flood were still just an unknown eldritch horror from beyond the galaxy. I miss the days when human AI were genuinely steadfast friends on the same side. I miss the days when, while you were fighting a war against impossible odds, you actually accomplished something by the end of game.

My biggest lore gripe with Infinite is how little time was actually dedicated to fleshing out the *named* enemies we fought throughout the game. We got a small list of bullet points to build a personality, and a very recent history around at *best* for a small handful of them. But the majority? They either just popped up for a boss fight, or were the assassination targets and we were given like one fact about them. What Halo Infinite needed the most was a text codex feature, with several outlets we could fill the codex up on. From interactive human, banished, and forerunner terminals, to simple biographies provided upon being introduced to, and then killing an HVT or a boss. Imagine you begin the Tower mission, and upon being greeted by the Elite on the holomessenger, the Weapon updates your codex with known information about him. Then within the tower you interact with a few Banished terminals that update his codex page, when you receive your new equipment from the Spartan IV armor inside you also download their personal log entries which update it further. And upon killing him you are awarded *even more* lore about him. Combine these with the audio logs in that mission and by the time you reach him, anyone taking the time to read the lore will have a solid idea of who they are fighting aside from just "Guy tortures people". And he's one of the *better* fleshed out enemies as it is. Text codexes like this helped make Mass Effect such an intriguing world to explore, and ever DESTINY, a game slammed on release for being a bone dry story, had a really cool lore codex in its unlockable webpage grimoire.

The issue with 343 is simple. ‘Bigger’ is the issue. The forerunners- bigger than the previous threat. … Bigger? Uh… The created! … Bigger? Zeta halo? Oh, primordial, the flood, maybe actual ancient humans? No, bigger! Bigger than the flood? Yes! What could that be? … bigger than the flood! That’s what we will do. Halo 1 was the biggest threat in the series because the rings would have been activated if not for Cortana. Halo 2 the threat was they would activate 1. Halo 3: they would activate all of the halos. … Halo wars; the threat was the covies would collect a forerunner fleet. Halo reach: the issue was fighting a losing fight. Halo ODST: what is being hidden? What is the prisoner and the engineers? ODST, Wars and Reach were the best route post halo 3. Also we have a issue of the names. The covies are a pact they agreed to even by force. The flood is what it is described as. The Spartans are what the Spartans represent, great warriors and sadly warriors mostly focused on being boogie men to slaves and fighting slaves, this is what Spartans were big on for us- and this can apply to the Innies. The forerunners were before us and created the stuff we find. We have… The created who… are created? We have the banished who… have been banished. We have the endless who… who… what? Control time so technically they can never die?

Imagine if they took inspiration from System shock. Cortana is/controls every aspect of the ring. She would be a constant threat, unleashing old and new horrors on you and disrupting your progress. Our long time companion would have became the ultimate villain. Constantly mocking you with your history or something. She could have reminded people how many insurgents the Chief had killed or sum. Or how the chief couldn’t have done anything without her. Could have been super memorable

Having played 1-3, reach and ODST a million times each growing up, even reading alot of the books too it makes me so upset to see this story now, "Look what they did to my boy"

Halo Infinite? more like "Halo Incomplete"

You know, watching this video, I'm reminded of my first playthrough of Black Mesa. It was a fan remake of Half-Life 1 in the Source Engine, _sixteen_ years in the making. I was a child when it was first announced, and I still remember being quite excited for it and hoping it would come out soon so I could play it, but now, I know that such things take a long time. Younger me may have been profoundly disappointed it took seemingly forever, but the me today? I'm profoundly grateful they did, because it fixed HL1's flaws and embodied the very best elements of Valvian design philosophy and storytelling. It really was worth the wait. The first well-designed singleplayer FPS experience I'd had in...God, I don't even remember. Halo is experiencing a horrendous content drought, but I can't help but wonder...what if instead of six years, it was eight? What if Microsoft and 343i's upper management adopted a Valvian "It'll be done when it's done" mindset and hammered out a more complete story? Would the fanbase be experiencing a renaissance now? Or would it go the way of Duke Nukem Forever? I should note that Valve gave Crowbar Collective permission to _sell their fan project_ on Steam via Greenlight, on one condition: That they be allowed to play it first. Dario Casali, a senior dev who has worked on every Valve-made Half-Life title ever made, even later admitted that, while going through the Half-Life series in order to prepare for developing Half-Life: Alyx, he gave up on HL1, his own work, after five hours, and played Black Mesa instead, openly admitting it was a far more enjoyable experience. Valve has a long history of doing things like this. It understands that the fanbase knows more about what it wants even than the devs themselves, oftentimes. And Valve is, itself, comprised of gamers and enthusiasts, including many former members of the modding community birthed by their work and their _beautiful_ commitment to allowing player-generated content, something Halo is _also_ historically known for. Valve has made a policy of only being satisfied with a game when _they_ enjoy playing it enough. They don't check boxes, they go for what's most _fun,_ what's most immersive. Halo used to be the same way. I never hated 343i, at least not the average dev there. They really did do their best and often had a lot of passion and talent, but upper management screwed them. Every. Time. Microsoft in particular. Microsoft also screwed _Bungie_ when they were still the ones working on Halo games. Halo 3 was made from content originally planned to be the last third of Halo _2._ This is also why Halo 2 had so many bugs and such bad balancing and level design on Legendary difficulty. It was, effectively, a _ten-month_ project. It's a gods-sent _miracle_ it, or really any other Bungie Halo title, was as good as it was, and a testament to the talents of the Bungie of old. But then...that Bungie got split in two. Half stayed with 343i, at least for a while. Half left with Bungie. Neither half has ever been quite right since. 343i's upper management rightly bear the blame, but Microsoft bears perhaps even more of it than they do. After the disappointment of Infinite, I'm convinced that Halo will never reach the same heights it did again, not even close, until the IP is sold to a more responsible owner. Microsoft has repeatedly demonstrated that they will not loosen their grip on the reins. For me, the most morbidly, bitterly ironic thing about this video, and the thing I felt since the very start, since reading the _title_ of the video before clicking on it, is that...yes, Halo Infinite is, in fact, basically Halo CE. Those "innovations" you mentioned? They were planned by Bungie for Halo CE, but cut out due to time constraints imposed by Microsoft. They're not _new_ ideas, they're _old_ ideas made new again, finally given a chance to shine...only to be robbed of that chance by the very same thing which killed them in the first place.

I'm sorry to hear all that, 00. Can hear your frustration in this video. I too wish things were better. I hope, perhaps, one day Halo will be in a better place again. Hope you're gonna be OK, 00. ❤ Zeta was criminally wasted. Such a wasted opportunity. The most mysterious ring and they made it feel like it's a random Halo ring. I tried to care about this game. I tried to love it. But to give us sudden new lore crumbs (that, like you said on paper may be interesting) while dismissing and throwing away so much established lore, characters events... it sacrificed too much. And I can't forgive them for that. They made me invested over those characters, events and lore in all those past years only to see it dismissed as if none of it ever happened. If they can't commit and so easily are eager to throw it away, why should I get invested? CE worked because it was fresh new game. New IP. Sure we had Fall of Reach for additional lore but even in the game we learned so much more about the Flood and everything else. I understand and I agree that Infinite feels like they tried to recreate CE. But they failed so badly its heartbreaking. Comparing this game to CE feels like Infinite is a sad abomination of CE. Banished feels like Covenant 2.0 and not THE Banished from Halo Wars 2. Only thing that keeps me interested in Xalanyn is if and how are they connected to the Precursors. Worst thing is that all this is finite. Everything they did with the lore here, it's canon. I was too hoping DLCs could somehow save this campaign. Infinite feels so disconnected that it as well could have taken place in another alternate universe like they do with their weird Fracture events. I'm glad you still enjoy at least playing Infinite. I tried but after religiously playing H5 multiplayer, Infinite feels like a step backwards and much less fun. Someone likes to play Infinite? Good for them. I just don't care anymore and that is fine too. I'm at peace. It still feels surreal. After 20 years withHalo, they broke my heart. Halo has been such important part of majority of my life and I've been very happy with what 343 has been doing with Halo throughout the years - they weren't perfect but I was happy. And now? Right now I can hardly care... only thing I'm still looking forward are the books. It's just... heartbreaking and sad. I wish things were better. Halo deserves so much more. It's potential is endless.

I feel the same. The big dissappointment for me was that 343 reset to zero a third time. Halo 4 had a free pass because it focused on the forerunners and didact and set up for the 343 story. Halo 5's greatest sin was making 4 irrelavant. Everything that 4 set up was ignored. Didact killed off in a small comic (played through 5 waiting for him to show up only to hear from a friend he was already dead, never adressed in game), Cortana's sacrifice voided by her return, Chief's growth sidelined for Lock. Third times NOT the charm with Infinite doing the same to 5. Killing Cortana off screen and reseting to zero. 343 had a big stick up its ass on being bigger and badder than anything Bungie made. Trying to make their enemies worse than the Flood. They cant because the Flood won. The Forerunners had to wipe the galaxy to stop it. I believe 343 purposely left Infinite unsupported (campaign and multiplayer) was because they had to go back to Bungie's art style and CE. They need to stick with an idea and go.

If you think about it, halo 4 is also the same story as CE and infinite. Chief wakes up, he’s headed toward a alien installation while fighting aliens who want to end humanity and then mid way through you discover an ancient threat (Prometheans and the didact).

This is like my 7th grade teacher telling us how frustrated he was with us in class.

You know what I would love to see. I want to see the Flood infect a certain part of the ring. I want to see the Created & the damage they’ve done. I want to see the other biomes of the ring. I want to learn more about the Forerunners & even search for the ones that survived. I want to see members of the covenant fringe such as the Dazreme serving in the Banished & other covenant factions. I want to know where the San’Shyuum Flotilla is. I want to see the Prelates(Covenant’s Spartans). I want to see covenant technology humanity didn’t encounter in the war.

I feel like 343 never truly understood what makes Halo….Halo. Halo 4/5/Infinite all have aspects that heavily mirror the bungie trilogy, which makes it seem like they were playing it safe by replicating what once was. But they weren’t confident enough to make a move forward in the story that would be big enough to demonstrate considerable plot progress, and still be fitting for the halo universe. Now yeah, they nailed the gameplay and multiplayer. Or they’re getting close to nailing it. But if you ask me, we’re lying to ourselves if multiplayer and gameplay are enough to push halo far.

Comparing Infinite to CE does a great disservice to CE itself. Remember, going into the first game, we knew nothing, but learned a basic rundown of the adversaries and the ringworld's function. And it was all put together in admittedly janky, but still diverse environments; with a weapons sandbox balanced so well, that to this day, it has not been surpassed.

I WANT A STORY! We have enough open ended concepts and ideas. No need to introduce anymore. Most people are still hung up on Halo 4. I just want a through plot and depth. "Didact is alive! Cortana sacrificed herself to help kill him! Oh wait he's alive. But now he's actually dead. Oh wait she's alive but now actually dead." That's the ONLY plot line that we've gotten from beginning to end and chunks of it are in comics 😮‍💨

The best way to think about Infinite is that its a commercial. It's purpose is to neither engage nor expand story elements, its there to just show you a new toy and all the cool features this toy has. CE and the OG games told stories and engaged the player in its story.

I feel you man, compare all the lore vids that has been made for every halo game, for this game you can basicly only do few short explanation vids.

Never really thought about it but you are actually super spot on about it. They essentially pulled a Disney when they did with Force Awakens where its just the exact same as A New Hope.

After 6 years of development and $330M in cost I’m left amazed at how you can spend so much time and money with so many different people and still make absolutely nothing with it. I guess the 10-Year Plan for Infinite was to release it with almost no content, and by the 10th year have it almost comparable to other titles on their release.

another similarity between CE and Infinite is relying on a single Pelican flown by someone whose name starts with F

It's the "The Force Awakens" of the Halo world. They knew what they were doing and purposely rehashed CE to tug at the nostalgia heart strings.

I've always wondered why the Halo Infinite Campaign feels lackluster. You explained it perfectly. 343i played it too safe on the story and gave us a campaign that made little effect to the overall universe/lore

Bro I feel you. It's frustrating. Especially knowing there's NOTHING in the works. It really sucks. Still love your content! Maybe time to branch off, as painful as that is

Even the novels are starting to get scarce. The few that we have gotten lately are still much better lore wise then the last two games

I’m a huge fan of Halo’s lore and they did Zeta halo dirty: No Palace of Pain, no Flood, no Forerunners, no ancient human structures, no mention of Mendicant Bias, Offensive Bias, Faber, Didact, primordial, (not even through terminals). The only thing we get is Offensive Bias’ name mentioned in a Legendary cutscene at the end of the campaign. That’s literally it! Honestly if they had did this to any of the lesser known halos, I wouldn’t have felt that bad about it. But they did this to ZETA HALO of all places and that’s just insulting.

We have gone 6 years now without any substantial lore from a halo game. 6 years. And what makes that even worse is the fact that it might be another half a decade before that changes (as 343 isn't even thinking about future campaign stuff at all atm). How in god's name does that happen??

I honestly think community/creator made Halo projects are what is carrying this franchise right now. It’s sad that Halo does not get the attention and funding it deserves. I don’t even want to play Infinite anymore, I’ve been spending more time playing OTHER games with what Halo mods I can install to make it the Halo experience I want. I think that’s where the communities focus should shift to. We can make our own experiences and better ones than what we’ve been given by 343/Microsoft.

My biggest issue with halo infinite is how distant the story felt to the other games, for example you only interact with 1 living character from the entire fps franchise which is spartan griffin, we dont see arbiter, or lasky or palmer or anyone that makes halo feel so big as a universe, they kill off a significant character, the game just doesn't feel like halo. also not being able to kill marines takes away the fun of protecting them.

The endless being immune to the Halo rings sounds like bad fanfiction to create something "that is scarier than the flood" when in reality you can't make something scarier than the flood smh

Man, dude, I remember back in 2018, or 2019, that I happened upon your channel through your eckhart's ladder collab. It made me an instant fan and I've been watching you, ever since. You make fantastic content, and always love your incredibly in depth break downs. All I can say, its no wonder that a vast, vast majority of Halo Channels are either going dark, or moving away from Halo content entirely. More or less, we've been in a content/lore drought for around 8 years now. 8. Years. Bro, like... I think the Halo community is just surrounded this wave of depression... and apathy at this point. When you look at other franchises, like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Sonic, (arguably) and COD, (Definitely Debatable) and even DOOM.... like... it just feels like Halo has just lost it's way and been trying to find its footing, while everyone else has just... grown up in positive ways, and left this once shining beacon behind, to dim and fade away. I'm still a halo fan, but man, its like i truly have to step away, and put halo in box for now. I think Halo needs a DOOM (2016) style reboot. Just put Halo on ice like ot should've been in the first place, create an actual need for the return of Halo and the Chief, gather up and create a team of passionate fans that fundamentally understands Halo, and well... I'd say those results would speak for themselves, should that ever come to pass. Anyway, thats just what i think. Thanks for reading if you made it this far. I hope at some point Halo can be in a mucj better standing than what it is now.

I was genuinely surprised at how yours was the only halo channel I had not seen a video like this from. It's good to let al the frustration out so I am glad you did. Your content is great as always.

Halo Infinite truly is one of the games of all time.

They had so many options and interesting stories. Cortana’s fall from power and her message to John was so powerful, and my favorite aspect of the campaign. However, it’s just in flashbacks and holograms. Atriox’s attack on the Infinity? 3 minute Cutscene. The dead spartans we saw throughout the campaign? There stories being expanded or deepened? Nope. The Banished and Created’s conflict? Flashbacks, Holograms, Cutscenes. The Created and Promethean’s? Barely mentioned, never seen. I didn’t even hate the whole Created idea. Could’ve made for an interesting new foe. While I love how they sent Cortana out (hopefully for the last time) I hated how that made her whole faction just disappear. So many cool ideas and options, just forgotten about.

You got me so excited with that intro because like you said, we haven’t gotten anything else after all this time. They really introduced some cool lore but I didn’t get to learn hardly anything

Nowhere go but up from rock bottom. We need some kind of shake up with the writing team, or just a team that sticks with a direction. Didact, Created, Banished, Endless; every game has introduced “a new threat” without dealing with the one we’re in (unless it’s in a comic!). We had two in the old games: Covies and Flood. It took a trilogy to tell that story; any one of the threats they’ve introduced could have had an entire trilogy on its own, but they can’t seem to stick with one. -Didact is getting wrapped up in a book, after being beaten by Blue Team in a comic (IMAGINE IF THAT WAS HALO 5) -Banished are the new Covenant (Something that betrays their initial inception) -Created are still out there without Cortana (Which might be interesting with Weapon in play, but all of Cortana’s dictator shenanigans were hand waved away in Infinite’s flashback cutscenes) -Endless are a thing (hopefully they make sense) We’ve still got Flood running around on the Ark, Guilty Spark running around with a shield world, ONI being still being sketch, Insurrectionists on the rise, Prophets on the sidelines, Ancient Humanity being discovered by 26th century humanity…. We needed focus and instead we’ve got more kids in the sandbox. If the plan was to break the galaxy 40k style, with things happening everywhere all at once, they’ve succeeded, but now if someone wants to tell a side story like where Blue Team was during Infinite, we have to keep the stakes low to avoid a Guardian showing up and ruining the fun. Shadows of Reach showed it can be done (should have been the template for Infinite, IMO) but I’m not sure how the books are handled compared to the games. I don’t know man. Halo’s not dead, it just needs a win. An objective, unbiased, polished, complete win

I find it funny how older Halo fans than me have so much love and nostalgia for Halo: CE, because Halo Infinite's Campaign feeling like Halo: CE, with repetitive in location and vague story, was my biggest problem with that game.

Welcome to the dark ages of Halo. It has a unique charm that cannot be replicated. Seeing it like this is heart breaking. On top of that all these other gamming franchises, Gears, COD, Battlefield tanking as well, just feels like the dark ages of gaming to. All we can do is cherish the memories and move on.

Love this video and you for making it. I swear I had no idea you sort of blew up because this was like my favorite sub 5k halo channel for a while yo - you deserve it your videos alone are better then actual halo in the current year.

I think you'll be waiting a really, really long time before you get another Halo game, let alone new Lore.

Just a few days ago I saw a Facebook post from the Halo page. It was about an intercepted communique from the Created. It was from the point of view of one of the AIs within the Created lamenting the now damaged relationship between them and their creators. I was very happy to see something lore based from Halo again. It wasn’t until watching this video that I understood why I loved that post so much. It was a gulp of water in the desert.

I remember trying to figure out what was happening in the cover art. Thought it was maybe the ring trying to repair itself and Chief was looking down at it about to jump. The Series X teaser also showed an all out war happening. All the concept art showed they had so much more planned. This had so much potential to be an epic campaign. They were ready to bring Offensive Bias and totally botched that with no DLC coming. I don’t know what they’re going to do, but with the next game I sure hope they keep the art style.

For all the problems with Halo 4 and 5, at least the stories they told gave us: 1. The continuation of Master Chiefs story. 2. Cortana’s rampancy. 3. The state of the Covenant post Halo 3. 4. The Didact and additional Forerunner lore. 5. Additional insight into the definition of Reclaimer. 6. Ancient human lore. 7. The Composer. 8. Actual full scale battles between different factions on a forerunner installation. 9. The UNSC Infinity. Halo 5 gave us: 1. The resolution of the Covenant loyalist story line. 2. What Cortana has been up to since Halo 4. 3. New ancient forerunner weapons of mass destruction. 4. A new threat described in much detail in The Created. 5. The Elite homeworld and the current state of the Arbiter. 6. Massive battles with massive implications in the Halo universe. Halo Infinite gave us: 1. Opening cutscene with the destruction of the Infinity. 2. A dude in a green suit being flown around to different forest locations to press buttons on terminals. 3. Some banished characters. 4. The endless.

You’re an absolute G for sticking to the bit for so long at the beginning haha

I got a chance to talk to Eric Nylund the writer of The Ghost of Onix and a few other Halo books. I asked him about how what is written in the books matches up with the actual games. He said Mircosoft allows the books to be written but at no point are they obligated to use that material. For the story mode, 343 / Microsoft made it up as they went along, 343 were just a lot worst at doing it. So all that info about ancient humans, Medincant Bias all that stuff. They are most likely not paying much attention to it. They will throw a few tid bits our way to get the faithful excited but they is only to establish initial game sales.

Alpha Halo gave us the the Covenant, the flood, and so much mystery and wonder. Delta Halo gave us the horrific realization of how dangerous the flood can be while a civil war is started. Zeta Halo which was one of the most important rings in the franchise with so much history and secrets to uncover (and possibly accidentally release again) got turned into a placeholder with little to no information added to it despite being under the control of Mendicant Fucking Bias and the Primordial, instead given a "new threat" which comes off as a scraped Covenant unit instead of a big bad... i get that it's difficult to work on something that wasn't yours to begin with but this is just insulting

Props to you for saying it. It really did need to be said! The most agreeable thing you said in this entire video to me? "We can take a more mature story. We can take more deep narrative. We can take deep mystery." These were things I loved about halo even when I hated the rest of it for being what the game was not meant to be. If that is going to keep being watered down for the sake of keeping a lower maturity rating, and making it so the less inclined people understand the story with their monkey brains? I just don't want it anymore.

i can feel the emotion in your words man. i'm sorry that this is what's become of the halo franchise, i wish it were different even as a reach kid. please keep your head up though and always be looking for the next opportunity

I am writing my own script for halo 7 and I am begging the community, we need to either demand 343 pick it up, or the rest of the community write our own and tell them, take this and make it for goodness sake. 343, you don’t know what you’re doing, and you don’t want to pay writers. You can have my script for free, as long as you stick to it and make a game out of it that has as much work put into every aspect of the game.

You’re an amazing content creator and I always love your videos. You’ve even inspired me to work in my own suit of armor. Keep it up.

Hurts me that a side game like Halo wars did more to advance the narrative of the series then a mainline halo game.

Here is a crazy lore idea for the endless. They are the result of the precursors. The race was originally going to take the mantle of responsibility and was undergoing training till the forerunner/Precursor wars. It would explain why they survived the Halo ring firing and why they can interact with the Halo rings sub-system so well. As we can assume a lot of forerunner tech is precursor based. The other idea is that they are the flood after being given enough time. After the flood takes over and consumes all information in an area. The grave mind will evolve and begin to create higher-form beings. The Endless is basically the flood if given 1000s of years to evolve on a single world. Screw it the Endless are precursors that have regenerated but don’t have the memory of there full past. As they began to access the domain there race started to wake up to there past and wanted to take revenge on the universe I'm spitballing here people just something to fill the lore gaps. Not saying everything in halo needs an answer, the mystery of the forerunners is lost now. I used to love thinking about what the forerunners were, and how they built everything.

All those years people were looking for the Halo Killer Game... but the real Halo Killer was inside Microsoft all along

I can agree with that. Unfortunately, a lot of people in the fanbase don't even look at the lore so they make badly crafted arguments with no supporting information.

right as I finish my own Halo rant with my friend that this comes up. Such perfect timing.

For the open-world part of Infinite. I think it would've been better if 343 did something more of what Metro: Exodus has done for their world, where each level is it's own open world space and brings in features, mechanics, objecives, and visuals unique to that area. Basically an overhauled version of Bungie's Halo levels.

Ive played reach over and over always hoping against hope. Not so with infinite, theres only disappointment.

Preach man. I am equally very, very frustrated with the state of modern Halo lore. I really enjoyed Infinite and was so excited for the advertised expansion content and when it was gutted and that entire branch of 343 was shown the door it broke my heart. I hope some of the upcoming novels address some of these issues. Halo’s soul is in its campaign, those stories and characters are what have always given it purpose, what dictated it be the game that it is. That it is being neglected for a microtransaction store masquerading as a free to play multiplayer game is galling. I don’t blame you in the slightest for the content of this video, it echoes so many of my own thoughts and feelings. Would still like to hear your musings that would have followed in the rest of the original script at some point in the future, even it would ultimately mean that Infinte’s well had truly run dry at that point. Keep up the amazing work.

Im a MEGA halo fan, and your channel is one of my all time favourites, HOWEVER im so done with halo at this point, ive suffered a decade of dissapointment and mediocrity and would be 1000% down to see you cover interesting lore of other franchises as well. I love this style of content, and new halo lore isnt written by the same people, and hence really isn't all that interesting anymore. Its not the same, literally.

I feel like the best thing for 343 to do for the moment since there's clearly not going to be singleplayer content for a while is let people make singleplayer content in forge mode. It would be something at least. Let people make their own campaigns, since 343 isn't doing it.

Halo CE, 2, 3, and 4 were great. I'm still hoping one day they make a sequel to those.

I was really looking forward to Halo Infinite from watching your videos months before its release. You got me so thrilled for new Halo lore and im ashamed we all have to sit with what we got.

only original halo content i've seen in a while. thanks for posting.

I call it lazy writing on their part

If you put out a video about underwater basket weaving, I will watch it

I feel you dude. I love halo. It’s the whole reason I got into gaming 22:43 and sci-fi. I loved Halo infinite but as time goes on I’m realizing the missing potential in both story and gameplay. Their idea of a simple and non redundant sandbox was handled poorly. Engineers could have easily been in the game due to from both a lore and gameplay point it would make sense. They are in the banished which we know from halo wars 2 and they’re an enemy support faction. Or sentinel enforcers serving as an almost mini boss monster that roams infinite. Not to mention the impact of the silenced smg and pistol from odst being brought back in a functional manner

You have no idea how happy it makes me to finally hear this from you. I knew if I was disappointed by the game from a lore standpoint you must be at least as disappointed as I was.

Halo has finally lost me. 😢

Im glad youre speaking out, I hope more people see this video because its really upsetting what 343 has done.

This one gave me serious "Byf and Lightfall" vibes.

Halo was my very 1st game when I was 4 and my brother had just gotten Halo Reach. I can still remember how invested I got. I would watch my brother play and eventually my brothers would let me play. It's been my favorite franchise since that day, shit I even have a whole yt channel for my Halo Mega Construx dioramas. I have the biggest love for Halo and Its forever gonna be a part of me and my childhood, but knowing how it got now just breaks the heart of that kid in me. It just feels so disappointing what happened to the franchise and how much potential there IS. I miss the days when I had friends to play Halo with and talk Abt Halo and all the lore. The thrill of it all growing up where everyone knew Halo and most people were playing it, was dope. Now it's not big like that, but it has all the potential to be. Sucks that we won't see a good Halo game or fuck even a New Halo game for at least half a decade.

As I said before I think the endless r precursor in orgin and it makes sense I really hope we don't half to wait to long for the next campaign story I just want more campaign and ik most halo fans do come on 343 give us some dlcs or wat ever the next game ends up being please don't ditch infinite that game has so much untapped potential it would be a shame to see it be abandoned they need to add the flood in the next campaign please 343 don't abandon the campaigns for halo it really saddens me to see a world where single player games r thriving right now wit games like dead space remake star wars jedi survivor Diablo 4 and all these amazing games that 343 doesn't take advantage and release dlcs halo deserves so much more I love this franchise and maybe that is my problem all I want to do is see this game series thrive I feel like they should take advantage of the campaigns just as much as they do with multi-player especially when there is a big market for it right now single player is so important right now come on 343 give us some campaign dlcs for this game u will make the money no problem caz the whole halo community will pay for it if u released expansions halo deserves so much more

"Endless Disappointment". Couldn't say it better myself. There was a time when you could depend, DEPEND on a Halo game/story being good. It might not give you everything, but you KNEW it would be good. 343s Halo games have been good in many ways, but wrong on so many vital ones. The top management just made bad decision after bad decision until they ran the franchise into the ground and left in disgrace. Now we are left with a salvaged husk of a game held-up by new bosses. Once the shop stops making enough money to justify continuing the game, will there still be a 343 Industries?

Brother is spitting heat 🔥 the whole video. Point after point, each point hit the nail on the head. God 343 halo is so upsetting to me

The one thing that describes Halo Infinite: wasted potential 😢

It amazes me that the people defending 343 (STILL) seem to allways forget the fact that at first, when Bungie stepped down and fans of the series got told, 343 was going to continue halo, the majority of fans was thrilled! 343 took great part in halo wars etc. but then halo 4 came out and it's campaign was... mediocre, halo 5... oof... and then infinite. it came out as nothing. Halo's story ended with Halo 3 for me. 343 just starts some new shit every game and not even mentions it the very next game, as if it never happened! read a book about how it turned out or something... yea, that's the way to build a video game... if anyone who enjoys 343's installments feels insulted, sorry. I don't have anything against your oppinion. have fun. to me halo is dead. and I can only enjoy the memories of the old times.

This is really the state in which us lore fans are in right now. I have loved the Halo universe from the onset. As a Marathon fan, that Bungie did a sort of spiritual successor excited me and the narrative beats of the original game still resonate with me. The original trilogy was amazing, ODST was amazing, the advertising was incredible and the books were for the most part really good. I loved the setting and all the potential it had. Halo 4 may have disappointed people but I liked what it offered, and exploring John in a more human fashion was interesting. Halo 5's radio dramas were incredible and I was so excited for it. Then... well, it happened. But I kept hope the lore could be fixed and new exciting things could happen. Heck, I even made a series of Lego microscale ships to celebrate Infinity's debut. But the drought of lore continued. As much as I love Halo, it truly feels stuck in the past. No truly new lore is being properly added, only mistery boxes that lead nowhere. I loved the universe and the games for the lore. Without it... I have more lively settings to engage with. And I feel sad for that wasted potential.

This explains a lot. Honestly. I see now why I have only beaten the first "world boss" in Halo Infinite's campaign (the Elite in the tower), and haven't ever really continued. I could already see it. I could already see the nothing before me. Thank you for explaining why I have never felt the desire to go finish this Halo's campaign. When on the ship, escaping the banished, there was a clear goal, a clear objective, and it's an exciting roller coaster all the way to the end of the "level". However, when you get into the world? It just... dissipates.

I really hate how the 343 Halos haven't settled on a single story. Halo 4 saw the end of Cortana and introduction of a revived Forerunner threat while somewhat retconning them. That was apparently met with backlash (I'm not one of them), so 343 unceremoniously brought back Cortana, wrote the Didact off in comics, wrote Spark out in the books, and went Terminator with the new antagonists. That bombed (campaign wise) and we got Infinite as a result. Personally, since I've read some of the books in 343's time, I thought the Hunt the Truth campaign was going to be so much better than it was. The giant Guardian to me was possibly Mendicant Bias being revived somehow and joining forces with the Didact. I knew Guilty Spark was drifting through space in the UNSC Rubicon and thought maybe they'd reintroduce him with Chief in some way. In my head cannon, I imagined them coming together not unlike the Arbiter to take down the Didact in game. I had imagined the 2 of them reconciling and becoming partners in some way and bring closure to Cortana's sacrifice for Chief. The 3rd game of this Didact Trilogy could have had a cool customization/upgrade mechanic not unlike what we got in Infinite as a result of obtaining Spark as a new AI in the 2nd game. But no. We got Infinite. Anyway, that's my campaign rant.

Im hoping The Endless are kind of a larvae state for a Precursor of sort. They are not Precursors themself but they are almost a one Precursor. They seem insectoids and could be drones working for the queen goddess which would be the actual Precursor. Since it seems they have some form a time manipulation technology they may be working towards reaching into past and bring their powerful master to rule over the galaxy or something like that.

It seems like for around a decade develops have seem to be using Lora as excuses to put less effort into their writing. Expecting the idea of alluding to stuff(that in reality we never really experience) as super important. Meaning that the story is more of us being spoon fed ideas that their is interesting stuff out their rather then letting us experience that interesting stuff.