Sorry it took so long to get a new vid up guys. December had a lot of stuff going on that I'd rather not get into publicly. Nothing bad though! Much love ♥️

That police officer is kinda hilarious to me, like what did he expect trying to boss around and kill an ODST?

"Veterans are gonna get misty eyed about your actions" *cut to a clip of master chief defiling several covenant corpses with his tea bags*

Fascinating

"The reason they make him into a Jesus allegory is clever because Master Chief is that badass" has to be one of the most unintentionally funny things I've heard.

To add to the religious layers. The music in the live action trailer for Halo ODST is a old poem in my people's language (Welsh). It's mainly about defying death and 'jumping feet first' into 'Annwn' 'Annwn' is my people's pre-christian equivalent of Heaven or Hell, depending on who you ask. Great video, I didn't recognise the religious references until now.

I remember getting an Xbox and *almost* all the halo games for Christmas and playing the hell out of them and having a blast. But I noticed that there was one that I didn’t have, ODST. So I asked my grandma for it for Christmas and after going to her house for breakfast I went back home and before I put the disc in the Xbox I thought “hmm should probably turn off the lights.” And something kinda beautiful happened. I played what would become my favorite game and would lead me to become a musician and love that too. ODST is the most out there game in the series, and it’s great.

15:07 "I'll talk about these runes in a moment" >proceeds to not mention the runes again

Guess this just adds another meaning to the ODSTs' nickname "Helljumpers"

Props to Bungie for making two of the most memorable, atmospheric, and well told stories in FPS history back to back

My god this game, this was the first game that I felt was just “yes this is a great game and it is my favourite” before that I was just kinda “I like all these”. One of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard too second only to night in the woods.

Holy shit, Bungie was really ahead of their time when making this game. Easily the most interesting, unique, in-depth analysis I've heard anyone do for ODST. Until watching this, I never would've even realized that the game had such a deep story like this.

ODST is easily my favorite of any Halo game, it came to me at just the right time and I sat through the entire game in one session, starting from the late night and going to the early dawn. I wholeheartedly believe it has the best soundtrack of any Halo game, just hearing Deference for Darkness come on is enough to bring me to tears, something that happened many times throughout my time playing the game. The game is just so fucking good at establishing a mood and an atmosphere that embraces you and never lets go. Beyond happy that you are talking about it all these years later, not enough people mention it when talking about the Halo series.

to add to the point that we needed to be reminded how dangerous and overpowering the covenant was, I feel like reach really nailed that feeling in perfectly. the whole campaign was basically showing us that even with spartans the covenant could crush humans into dust, and that the best we could do was small scale guerilla missions. when you go back to the original trilogy you get reminded of how badass master chief really is.

Literally my only issue with the video is that ODST's aren't higher ranks, they're basically special forces. Other than that, honestly this video is a masterpiece.

"I'll say something about his game that nobody else did" this summed up my reason of subscription. keep thems good content coming. i love new perspectives.

loved that there were moments that you could ambust the enemies as they sleeped, heck the sleeping enemies were a great detail to both humanize the comeant and to show just how much of a losing battle that occupating alien troopers were camping out in the city.

I’d never heard ODST connected with Dante’s Inferno before, but as soon as you said it I knew exactly what you were talking about.

Seeing something related to ODST makes me feel sad and angry at 343, they shouldn't have done dirty to the player character Rookie, true we didn't had a clear connection with him or had enough time to for one compared to the other faceless but beloved player character, noble six, but still it was our avatar, our vessel on that phase of the game story

The ODST audio logs where the first time in a game I was desperate to find all the logs. The story was so gripping and how you could see it's effects in the game, really made for good content.

When I played through ODST again recently, I thought a lot about how ballsy it was for Bungie to make it's story unfulfilling for most people. If you don't get (and listen to) every audio log, which I didn't manage despite searching hard for them, you're left with a noir detective story where the detective fails. You move on, just another grunt, with loads of questions and the distinct feeling that something's missing. It fits the tone of the game perfectly, and I respect the hell out of Bungie for doing it, but I get why a lot of people felt a bit cheated.

dude i’ve been obsessed with ODST recently so the timing of this video is impeccable

I've played all original Xbox and 360 games back to back twice in the last few months. I think ODST is one of the best, and as evidenced by the player's search for their companions, and Dare's search for the Engineer to help win the war, and Buck's search for meaning in the fallout of his relationship and the search for anything to revive in said relationship, the game's theme was about the hunt for one another in the face of overwhelming loneliness and horror. You can say the theme was togetherness, resilience, comfort, safety, etc., but the word I would use is hope.

One of the potential angles of reading the Halo series from a religious perspective is the potential for realizing the manufactured nature of a lot of the present religious elements. Yes, John-117 is being a savior, but John was also a child that was taken from his family and made into that being which can be a savior. And we can see similar things in the Covenant too: ever notice how all the bits of their religion we know about basically all return to the idea of "Serve the Prophets"? What we get to see in this exchange of religious symbols vs religious symbols as the marines and elites duke it out is a peek into the mechanisms of social control in these various societies. We learn that Earth as a side is willing to destroy people to create its heroes to push its colonialist efforts (mind you not saying that Earth is genocidal but they definitely are pushing into the rest of the galaxy and that behavior has a whole fuckin history behind it). We also learn that The Covenant is a faction so removed from logic on a larger level that their societal forces all push someone towards wanting to serve the Prophets in their ever-expansionist and explicitly genocidal-if-they-don't-join-us plots. So in the end, we learn that Humanity and The Covenant are really not all that different.

NGL the thumbnail is utterly beautiful, please make sure to thank whoever made it (unless it’s you) because it’s probably the best one yet.

8:00 Intresting thought I had: from the perspective of the covenenant this whole dantes inferno completly checks out as they are the ones glassing this sinfilled city and they should just trust their god (the prophet) that he knows best and to not feel bad about the humans they are torturing.

Halo odst and it's atmosphere is soo good it really makes you feel small and alone as you use the bare minimum to survive and just like reach hope is all our main characters have in the end considering that the covenant won with sheer numbers alone

Title: "What was Halo: ODST trying to say?" First line of CC: "we are dropping into hell bloopers time to go up here"

ODST and Reach will always be my top 2 Halo games mainly because of the tone, atmosphere and setting. It truly felt like you were fighting a losing war against the Covenant. Even though it was shown and explained that humanity was losing in the other games I never felt like we were. Though that was probably because we were playing as Master Chief.

My favorite Halo game. Since I was a kid and saw my first ODST fighting alongside Chief, I always wanted to be one of them. This game gave me that and so much more.

I've been waiting for someone to cover ODST's deeper themes in a proper video essay format. Good job, you've earned a sub!

I just love Rookie, he's my favorite character in the Halo universe (and i say that as a guy who actually read some of the books). This faceless nobody who slinks around a dying city, investigating and picking up clues like an honest-to-God noir detective, complete with rain-slicked darkened streets and a saxophone in the background. Not only does he track down his squad, he goes out of his way to solve a completely unrelated case along the way, bring a corrupt cop to justice, and make friends with an alien who wordlessly helps him throughout the whole quest by tapping into the City's AI, leading him around with car alarms and holographic street signs.

The dates inferno themes around sadies story is so good.

You know what would further reinforce how badass Chief is and how powerful his enemies are? A sequel to ODST where you fight the Flood when they invade earth in H3

Probably one of the most immersive halo campaigns in the series. The sounds and the environment while sneaking through the streets of new mambasa was a great experience. Suggest playing on Legendary for the full experience.

I just want to say that you're videos have been helping struggling through depression. You're transition and being who you really are is inspiring. Love your voice even more now!

Ima correct you, ODST isn’t a rank, it’s a special forces group like if the navy seals was their own thing. Any branch can submit their personal to be a ODST IF they make the cut, which is extremely difficult

finished halo 3 odst a few days ago, missed a few of the audio transcripts but otherwise i tried my best to not miss a thing man was it a great experience. everything of that game is so well done and the gameplay is really fun gonna edit once i finish the vid as many people do lol edit: i forgor……….

I always really enjoyed the struggle of the rookie in order as compared to the chief. In a weird way I felt like I had more consequences to my actions. With ammo and armor scarcity, my choices for plan-of-attack felt more focused. The ai was intelligent enough to know (or not know my actions) and made me feel like everything I did had a bigger consequence than mainline games. I always felt there was more of a story for odst but I did skip all the logs. Thanks for this video! It helped me understand why it's easily one of my favorite games of all time.

always appreciate the distinct voice in your writing. your essays are unique

This is one of my favorite video essays, on Halo, just in general. I aspire one day to make art that has people picking apart its themes and all that.

If only rookie became the legend in the making, would have honestly love to see him being so close to hell, rising out of its ashes like a phoenix

ODST had a dramatic shift in the themes, characters, setting, dialogue, atmosphere, level design, and enemies, yet it's still distinctly a Halo game. The fact that such a wild spinoff stands as a masterpiece in its own right speaks volumes about Bungie's talent back then.

Thank you for bringing me even more love to one of my favorite games of all time. I will never forget the excitement leading up to release - my walls were plastered with the pull-out posters from the XBOX magazine special issue on ODST! and it is incredible that over ten years later this six-to-eight hour game still surprises us. One of the most under-rated channels for video game essays, great work as always!

Just a small nitpick, the actual work of Dante Alighieri isn’t called “Dante’s Inferno”, it’s called “The Divine Comedy”. The inferno bit is just a small portion of the work.

fun fact:the cutscene changes when you meet vergil if you found all the logs if you do it at first with no logs, its just a told to stand down or something do it with the audio logs, and you just whistle them over

14:26 Sometimes the death animations are just laughable in the Halo 3 engine. But that one? That was perfect.

Dead on, finding all the logs was an experience. I'm grateful to the devs for one hell of a game franchise.

That soundtrack always gets me in the feels

Jumping into hell isnt your job. Making sure it's crowded when you get there is.

your voice sounds so good, glad you've made this much progress

I started playing these games for the first time recently and ODST was so refreshing after going through the first trilogy

I'm very very glad you focused on Vergil. I've always wanted there to be a video that just focused on all the things he can do throughout the game to try and indirectly communicate with you

"Kinsler gave me real specific instructions, make sure the doc's dead and make double sure no one knows about it" and he rams a table while saying it at 14:15 lol XD

The part about people just doing "fan-service for Christianity" is way too true

Glad to see ODST is getting more recognition over time. Honestly my favorite game ever since it came out, I played the shit out of this before getting internet and being introduced to online halo multiplayer

game came out on my birthday... knew from the trailers I would love it... my brother got me loving the odst since h2, and It's still cemented as my favourite halo game to date.

That piano chord always brings tears to my eyes after not hearing it for awhile

This is my favorite game in the franchise. However, the marketing set completely different expectations compared to what we got. If you were to go off of the marketing, you would expect each flashback to show a less than heroic death of each of your squad mates, with you being the last to die or the only one to make it out. Instead we get a decent story, but not carrying the tension the marketing suggested. My guess for why they didn't do that is because Halo reach was coming out a year later and had a story similar to what I just described and they didn't want the two to feel too similar.

I love your use of the theatre mode to add in clips, especially after Oni alpha site showing the rookie sneaking through the tunnel. I've played this game to death and you nail how it feels to play and I just love everything about this :3 As a big halo fan I'll be hoping for a video on Reach, but we will see o.o

I was just a kid when I played this and kids always make things more atmospheric and I genuinely felt I could see New Manbasa in my house

Holy shit your voice is so pretty! Thanks for the awesome Halo video

I love this game so much, everything about it is great for me, the audiologs, combat and music in the city

The drop cutscene in the begging of the game is probably the best cutscene in the whole series.

I played this game recently with the MCC on PC. I did not put much thought into the game when playing, collected a few logs and went on to 3. Really puts the game into a interesting perspective I would've otherwise missed

Wake up babe, new leadhead video dropped

I never played halo 3 or odst.. didn't actually know what odst was till now But near the end of the video you mentioned about seeing master chief from another point of view That makes me think about raiden, how you are seeing how cool solid snake is from afar

I hadn't seen the Halo 3 vid, so when you asked me to go watch it I did. Your voice has changed a lot over the last year. Well done, I can't imagine that's easy.

Your voice is getting better :)

I think the "Hell" in Halo's situation is just the Covenant. Not so much the wars they bring or whatever, just them themselves, they represent the Hubris of those who worship all others than Him. Dunno, sounds possibly right

My god, this Game was my childhood. It had a beautiful dark ambience when roaming the cities at night. I miss you bungie.

Thank you! I never got all this during my playthrough. I only recently played ODST for the first time and I fell in love with it, especially the Rookie part. Given, it was claustrofobic in a way and scary to me, but it was so different from Halo in general that I loved it, despite pooping my pants. It is definetly a game I will go back to after I finish Halo 4. I didn't find all the audio logs on my playthrough, but I will do my best to try and find them on the 2nd run. Now I'm off to watch your Halo 3 video. (A quick sidenote on Halo 4, I really loved the beginning of it; you're alone, have no idea where and what's going on. It really drove home the feeling of desolace, and in a way I wished it would've stayed that way. It became pretty basic Halo game after you encounter the other humans. Given, I haven't finished it yet, but something just was lost when MC wasn't alone anymore. I'm still curious how the story will turn out though.)

missed you, lead! looking forward to more

This is why I love your channel! Great in-depth research and I love knowing these!

Man this was a good ass video, your halo videos are easily my favorite i hope you do more

Hey man. Phenomenal Video! I really like your addition and development on the Inferno theory. I hate to be the "That was me" guy, but I genuinely thought I had cracked some massive easter egg when I first coined this theory with Scatcycle of the SGP. (You can actually see my original post regarding this at 5:14 on Gruntspyjamas. We knew that Sadie's Story was an allegory, but finding out that there was something of substance within the actual levels was awesome. After we had developed this, I had intended to get down to breaking into the WHY. Why was ODST an allegory? What purpose did it serve. I don't think I could have done that anywhere NEAR as well as you have done - I think it could be developed further, but I think at this point it is out of my hands.

Hey your voice sounds good. I know it can be hard to change your voice, but you're doing great.

Halo 3: ODST: we are hell on earth Doom eternal: oh really?

Halo and The Divine Comedy : two of my favorites things

I loved this and love your videos. Thanks so much for making this! Adding it to my favorites

I have heard some of this but it's good that you put it in your own words and share it with other fans, good work I know it took long.

drop into hell what the ODST would say is actually just in reference to the fire that would generate underneath their feet from dropping feet first into orbit but it plays nicely into the rest of the actual references to religous symbolism

ur vids r so bingeable one of the best game video essay channels out there

Great video, but did I miss the part where you explained those glyphs being “relevant to virgil”? I was pretty sold on rocket sloths recent breakdown on the deeper meaning of them mostly being nonexistent, where they instead acted as “stars” in player generated head cannon/lore “constellations”

Babe wake up new leadhead video

Thanks for making me remember, why I love Halo and why it became my favorite game. You gave me tears and good emotions.

as an italian it really feels like anyone who hasn't studied dante's comedy and talks about it just doesn't grasp just how important that piece of literacy is, it is an amazing text that has so many layers that overlap in so many ways

20:05 the fall damage give your first look at the landscape covered in red. It was right there the whole time. Amazing game.

Fun fact, if you DONT get all the audio logs, after the cop dies to the drones and you walk up to that same door you can hear Sadie behind the door. It's one line of dialogue and i don't remember what it says exactly

Your voice is so gentle, I could listen to you talk for hours

Out of all the times I've played odst, I never knew about the rogue cop...

I finished ODST for the 1st time 2 days ago...What a perfect timing!! Amazing videos and work!

imagine after you leave the hell that is New Mombassa behind a portal opens and DOOMGUY steps through TO RIP AND TEAR UNTIL IT IS DONE!

My one of my grips with the game is how Bungie handled stealth. For the longest of times Bungie wanted to implement stealth into the Halo series, and ODST was the perfect game to have proper stealth mechanics. But enemy behavior still acts the same, they always know where you are unless you are cloaked. Plus weapons like the sniper isnt silence. Not much of a big deal unless you want to be quiet.

Oh my god your voice sounds much more feminine you are killing it with your voice training

ok, ive finished watching the video now, and wow, that ending quote hit hard. great vid, friend

Wow, now I have so much more respect for ODST + Halo 3

i really like the progress you're making with your voice, you sound so good !!

By far my favorite Halo game just because of the themes. Been waiting for this one!

It surprised me years later learning all the interesting references in this game to Dante's Inferno. I mean the fact that the main Engineer you chase around is Nicknamed Virgil was such a slap to a forehead thing