Tuesday, June 25

Halo Reclaimer Trilogy is now simply a saga and Halo 5 is probably called Halo 5: The Second Search for Cortana or How the Chief got his groove back?


Halo 5: The Second Search for Cortana or How the Chief got his groove back? 

There seems to be some changes in the wind regarding how Halo is framed or presented or portrayed in the market place.

The new Halo game was announced at E3 by way of an introduction video which showed a battered and tired Master Chief trudging through the desert to come face to face with a winged mechanical monster that some have suggested is the legendary mendicant Bias. At the end of the video trumpets and Angels declare there's a new Halo coming. 

It doesn't have a name or a number. This is clearly a deliberate thing. You don't make expensive videos and forget to add the '5'. It just doesn't happen (Recon v. ODST issues aside) so what's going on?

This article shares some insight from Phil Spencer, a big shot at Microsoft. Spencer said :"While we originally said trilogy, we've actually expanded this to more of a saga, so we don't want to limit the Reclaimer story within a trilogy.

So the current Halo series is no longer called the Reclaimer trilogy. It's a saga (like Star Wars?) That much is clear but where this announced Halo game fits is unclear. Is it simply the natural successor to Halo 4 or is it a side quest? Was the true name of halo 5 to embarrassing - that being Halo 5: The Second Search for Cortana or How the Chief got his groove back, that they had to hide it?

I'm probably stepping off the ledge a bit. I do wonder that this change up is due to what some might say was a less than stellar sales performance of Halo 4. I thought it was a great campaign and it looked amaze balls - certainly it was better than Reach but it was no Halo 3 so perhaps sales adjusted accordingly. It just didn't capture the hearts of a lot of casual gamers to reach a mass tipping point of success (sales wise that was H3).

Not so many people appear to be playing  multiplayer - I hardly play that mode these days (which is probably due to being a new father more than anything) but I gather its more widespread - Spartan Ops was awesome but again, I understand it didn't perform as expected.

So I'm thinking given that while Halo 4 was a good game, it wasn't the GREAT AND ULTIMATE Halo game 343 wanted to make and have others perceive as such - so I think they may have gone back to the drawing board in an effort to make the next Halo game able to be conceived as a GREAT AND ULTIMATE Halo game rather than simply being Halo 5, the sequel to the good but not GREAT and ULTIMATE Halo 4.


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