Do you understand Halo's plot?

[Bullett00th]

Without reading essays and articles on the lore or watching extended explanations on youtube, do you have a coherent picture of what the hell is happening?

Talking to a friend who only played the first game back in the day, I was expressing my newfound love for the Halo universe (played through the MCC games for the first time ever in 2021), but realized I only comprehensively understand the story of Combat Evolved. It's tight, focused and simple in a good way.
Here's how I personally remember it:

• Halo 1: There's the mystery of an unknown space structure, the gradual discovery of its purpose and the horror of the Flood outbreak that we deal with.
  
• Halo 2: Vastly expanded the universe, awesome insight into the Covenant perspective, but other than that all I remember is there are more Halos, more Flood and more war with Covenant. Also talking to the Flood mastermind who let Master Chief go because of reasons.
  
• Halo 3: No idea what I was doing the entire time except having Cortana hallucinations who I don't even remember why she was gone.
  
• ODST: Personal squad story, pretty rad with its delivery and how it tied into Halo 2
  
• Reach: something something oh no Covenant are here let's get this AI to a ship before we all die.
  
• Halo 4: Covenant strikes again. SIC! Prometheans. Why? Something something new danger.

Maybe I'm an idiot who wasn't paying attention, but the stories feel maybe a bit convoluted for their own good? Either way I loved the lore itself and the gameplay so I guess it's not as important. But only the first game managed to paint a coherent picture of what's going on in my head.

[Kaimerah]

i feel theyre all pretty straight forward up until 5 and 4ish.

3 is mainly about taking down the covenant finally, finding cortana, and then putting an end to the grave mind from H2, and his army of flood, and the ark.

2. is more of arbiters story, finally coming to the realization he and the covenant at large have basically been lied too about the rings and their religious significance with the whole great journey thing. chiefs side of the story and UNSC as a whole was more about just fighting off the covenant, and initially was them protecting earth until the covie ship jumped through slip space and they found a new ring, which at that point their mission then became stop the covenant from activating the ring again.... and then by the end they learn there are way more rings and something called the ark exists. and the grave mind lets arby and chief live mainly because chief is trying to stop the rings from being activated and the covenant, so that obviously benefits the gravemind, arbiter is slowly becoming disillusioned with the covenant and so he's sent to go see what the "truth" which in turn cause him to turn against the covenant and makes him wanna stop them from activating the ring... which again benefits the gravemind.

Reach: is basically just showing the events pre Halo CE. just you and your team of spartans doing their best to defend the planet reach against the covenant, obviously they lose but Halsey and noble team is able to get cortana to the pillar of autumn and by extension to chief which obvi eventually leads to humanity winning the war against the covenant

Halo 4 has too much new ♥♥♥♥ that gets introduced and is way more fleshed out in media outside of the games. but i guess the simple side of the story is chief losing cortana

[Hajisudo]

yeap

[SadPlatty©]

Not seeing it mentioned here - maybe I looked too deep into it/am mis-remembering, but isn't a theme in 2/3 also the "in-house" upheaval of the Sanghilis (spelling? - The Elite race) by the Brutes?

Like - sure UNSC was gunning for them for some damn good reasons, but they are technically also fighting the internal conflict as that Brute leader basically works with the Prophets to oust the Arbiter (you can even free some later in 2 to help combat the heavy brutes), and they do in-fight a bit. 3 Though, the races seem to just "fall in line" with the new order (probably to prevent further out-casting, or because they know they can't fight both Brutes and Humans simultaneously).

[Jernas]

I'd say the overall story in the first 3 games is pretty straightforward, but some of the plot details could have been better explained. I haven't yet tried ODST, Reach or 4, so can't comment on those.

[Bullett00th]

Oprindeligt skrevet af SadPlatty©:

Not seeing it mentioned here - maybe I looked too deep into it/am mis-remembering, but isn't a theme in 2/3 also the "in-house" upheaval of the Sanghilis (spelling? - The Elite race) by the Brutes?

Like - sure UNSC was gunning for them for some damn good reasons, but they are technically also fighting the internal conflict as that Brute leader basically works with the Prophets to oust the Arbiter (you can even free some later in 2 to help combat the heavy brutes), and they do in-fight a bit. 3 Though, the races seem to just "fall in line" with the new order (probably to prevent further out-casting, or because they know they can't fight both Brutes and Humans simultaneously).

Oh yes, there's that! That's the reason why you fight mostly brutes in 3

[Sabaithal]

1, While fleeing a battle we run into an ancient artifact by accident, try to land on it, inevitably end up exploring it and run into the fungoid tyranid flood, and have to blow the whole damn thing up to keep the infestation from going intergalactic.

2. Humans trying to defend against gradual covenant invasion, end up finding another halo in the process. Elites and brutes NOT getting along, tension rises until a full blown civil war occurs, during the war with the humans. Flood end up finding MC and Arbiter by happenstance and decide to use them to prevent the main enemy (the covenant) from activating any halos. Because that would mean everyone dies, flood included. In the confusion flood also invade high charity, a potential mobile hive, and take it over as soon as they figure out the icon isn't there. Arbiter disabled the next halo... which switches on all the other halo's, which are now primed to fire. Cliffhanger.

3. Mostly fighting off the covenant for the first half. Covenant activate a portal to the Ark, which we find out later can activate ALL the halos at once. Elites+humans go through the portal, fight covenant a lot more trying to gain control over the Ark. Eventually the flood show up too, turning it into a 3 way fight. Flood figure out that Truth is about to activate the halos, and form a temporary truce with MC+Arb to stop him. As soon as this is done "MUHAHAHAHA, FLOOD FOR THE FLOOD GOD!" MC then changes his mind and decides to fire the new halo that was just made (and is not quite ready) to destroy the ark (after getting his VR girlfriend back) to keep the flood from spreading. It works, ark blown up, gravemind dead, remaining flood stranded... and so is MC.

ODST. So remember in halo 2 when the big carrier left the city and we chased after it? This game pretty much covers the immediate aftermath, and how the covenant invasion on earth got started proper. Also best damn ambiance soundtracks in the series, and the best firefight mode (fite me).

Reach. A bunch of predestined failures competing to see who can have the noblest death. That's pretty much the game.

4. "Oh ♥♥♥♥ where am I? Why are the elites trying to kill me again, weren't we friends now?! What the ♥♥♥♥ is that giant metal planet? Who is this vulture looking ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥? Also why is my VR girlfriend glitching out all of a sudden?"

[ModerNertum]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Bullett00th:

Without reading essays and articles on the lore or watching extended explanations on youtube, do you have a coherent picture of what the hell is happening?

Talking to a friend who only played the first game back in the day, I was expressing my newfound love for the Halo universe (played through the MCC games for the first time ever in 2021), but realized I only comprehensively understand the story of Combat Evolved. It's tight, focused and simple in a good way.
Here's how I personally remember it:

• Halo 1: There's the mystery of an unknown space structure, the gradual discovery of its purpose and the horror of the Flood outbreak that we deal with.
  
• Halo 2: Vastly expanded the universe, awesome insight into the Covenant perspective, but other than that all I remember is there are more Halos, more Flood and more war with Covenant. Also talking to the Flood mastermind who let Master Chief go because of reasons.
  
• Halo 3: No idea what I was doing the entire time except having Cortana hallucinations who I don't even remember why she was gone.
  
• ODST: Personal squad story, pretty rad with its delivery and how it tied into Halo 2
  
• Reach: something something oh no Covenant are here let's get this AI to a ship before we all die.
  
• Halo 4: Covenant strikes again. SIC! Prometheans. Why? Something something new danger.

Maybe I'm an idiot who wasn't paying attention, but the stories feel maybe a bit convoluted for their own good? Either way I loved the lore itself and the gameplay so I guess it's not as important. But only the first game managed to paint a coherent picture of what's going on in my head.

Halo CE: You understood correctly
Halo 2: You are partially correct. Halo 2 story is not only about expanding the universe but also Covenant politics infighting (the event known as Great Schism when the Elites are betrayed by the prophets after finding out their religion was a lie). The Gravemind part is often not understood very well but he lets Chief and Arbiter go to prevent Tartarus from firing Delta Halo. Chief goes to High Charity to attempt to find the index while the Arbiter goes to another location to complete a similar task. It ends with Tartarus death and the ring not firing as Miranda stops the sequence in time. I think thats how I can best explain it.
Halo 3: At the end of Halo 2, Chief is going to finish the fight but sadly he has to jump off his ship. You reunite with Johnson and the Arbiter (who is now your ally). After you are awoken you are told this. The game starts by explaining you that youll be fighting the Brutes as the Elites are making a truce with humanity to help them prevent the firing of all Halo rings by the remaining Prophet (Truth). From there your missions go to protect Earth from the brutes and later the Flood to finding the mysterious Ark that is the key to Truth Great Journey delusion. The parasite even allies with you for a moment to help stop the mad prophet only to betray you after you complete the task. Then you go back to the Flood infected High Charity to retrieve Cortana (left there at the end of Halo 2) and lastly go to the installation 00 control room to prevent the rings from firing, get betrayed by spark (again) and finish the fight.
Halo 3 ODST: You are mislead about a mission to "insert in a Covenant ship" by ONI operative Dare. When the pods launch the squad realizes they are way off course. After this you crash land in Mombasa streets and attempt to find your squad that is scattered (this is done by flashbacks playing back to back missions with all of them, except Dare). After you complete the 6 flashback missions you receive a distress signal from Dare coming from a Data Hive in the city. Your mission is now to fnd Dare and learn what the true mission is about: defend the superintendent and extract an Engineer (Vergil) who has combined his data with the AI superintendent data and has limited access to the Covenant battle net and does not like them any more than humanity does (brutes are mean to their species). Engineers are basically biological supercomputers and ONI was studying them but never captured one alive. You do escort Vergil to safety and complete the true mission in the game. Also you find out what happened to your squad in the end and that they are all alive.
Halo Reach: The story is about the fall of Reach, a planet invaded by the Covenant before the events of Halo CE and about the war and even that Spartans are only humans in the end. Its a sad story. You go to find out there has been some movement in Reach on your first mission with Noble team and you think its insurrectionists first. You investigate and find tortured civilians, farmers hiding and two of the missing troopers dead near those tortured civilians. You scout the area and eventually find out the Covenant are on Reach so you fight a bunch of Covenant and receive a distress signal of a squad of troopers confirming this is the case. You kill more covies and save those troopers than you head for a relay outpost to inform your superiors about what really happened. You arrive and see its occupied by Covenant. You find a girl that tries to warn one of yur squadmates that there was an Elite there but he thinks she wants to flee. You get engaged and the Elite grabs a trooper hostage, you go after the junction you need to estabilish comms to find out it has plasma damage so your tech expert does her thing and the report is send waring about the invasion and that the directive known as "winter contingency" is in effect. You are then dispatched to protect a vital ONI faciliy from Covenant invaders, then to recon how big their force really is, preemptive strike that fails to achieve results as the frigate is lost. You go to plant a bomb on the Covie ship that destroyed the frigate on the Spire. You loose your heavy weapons/demolitions man at the end as the bomb could only be armed manually so you are send back to Reach. You land and save some civilians and link up with your team again. You do a counter op, disabling some jammers that were causing interference with comms. at the end your tech specialist dies and there is glassing of the planet Reach. Next you are sent to destroy the same ONI base you were in before to prevent Covies from gaining precious Intel but thats not why you are really there. You are introduced to an "artifact", capable of changing the tides of the war in humanity favor and that she chose Six to escort her to a ship named "The Pillar of Autumn" (the one from Halo CE). Things dont go well as expected and yur CO sacrifices himself to destroy a Scarab, you fight some more Covies until you reach the ship. You deliver The Package (Cortana AI) to Keyes than your squadmate that was with you dies by getting stabbed by an elite energy sword. You take his place on helping the Autumn leave Reach with The Package then you die defending Reach one last time (btw one member of Npble survives and that is Three, as he escorts Halsey to another base safely).
Halo 4: A mess where you kill some Covies, some Prometheans, get some fan service between Cortana and Chief and even with the terminals its hard to understand this story. Basically the Didact is evil, he wants to "compose" everyone for "reasons", most characters are boring (except Laskey) and that is it. Really, oh and you fly a longsword and a Pelican and get in a Mamoth. Its really a confusing story

Hope this helps :)

[acSiegemaster]

Halo fans love to exaggerate/lie about how supposedly hard to understand 4 is. If you pay even a bit of attention, or think a bit:
- While not the best explained it's not hard to imagine that, from the carcass of an entity the size of the covenant you'd get multiple factions with different views
- Cortana is past her in-universe service life for an AI, being in service for 8 years (and compounded by isolation and whatever the gravemind did). Trying to fix this is part of what drives John-117 to action
- The Didact hates humanity, seeing them as unworthy of the Mantle. Composing them into prometheans serves the dual purpose of bolstering his forces and subjugating humanity

[kronos]

Halo plot: hot blue girl with big milkers needs green guy to do stuff for her

[Bullett00th]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Grobert Gromaks:

We have 2 plots , the Bungie is more realistic , military and mystery (the good) and the 343 is fantasy , Mass Effect and non-sense with ugly Elite (the bad).

So like say Ben Burnley, lead singer of Breaking Benjamin : 343i suck my b4lls !
https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/4wecfq/ben_burnley_lead_singer_of_breaking_benjamin/

While I definitely prefer Bungie's design, I don't think 343 did a bad job with the alternative designs in 4. Most of what I dislike about 4 comes from the Prometheans and a more straightforward level design.

[Carnageloser7]

I don't think the stories are that convuluted at all, I think they are the opposite of that and that's the problem. First game = ring world that is actually a weapon destroyed so alien religious fanatics don't use it against the galaxy. Halo 2 = invasion of earth, humans at their last stand, another halo discovererd, halo not activated put onto standby to be remotely detonated at "the ark" then cliffhanger. halo 3 = portal to the ark discovered then your on the ark then you destroy the ark. The games are pretty straight forward but they take a simple concept and make it into a whole game. Halo 3 was especially simple because it was supposed to be apart of halo 2 originally.

[Carnageloser7]

I will say as a kid I didn't really understand the Ark thing that much I had to go back and realize what the whole deal with it was. I just thought I was on earth most of the game.

[r3ach5stars1]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Bullett00th:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Grobert Gromaks:

We have 2 plots , the Bungie is more realistic , military and mystery (the good) and the 343 is fantasy , Mass Effect and non-sense with ugly Elite (the bad).

So like say Ben Burnley, lead singer of Breaking Benjamin : 343i suck my b4lls !
https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/4wecfq/ben_burnley_lead_singer_of_breaking_benjamin/

While I definitely prefer Bungie's design, I don't think 343 did a bad job with the alternative designs in 4. Most of what I dislike about 4 comes from the Prometheans and a more straightforward level design.

and cortana hot design...

[Bullett00th]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Carnageloser7:

I don't think the stories are that convuluted at all, I think they are the opposite of that and that's the problem. First game = ring world that is actually a weapon destroyed so alien religious fanatics don't use it against the galaxy. Halo 2 = invasion of earth, humans at their last stand, another halo discovererd, halo not activated put onto standby to be remotely detonated at "the ark" then cliffhanger. halo 3 = portal to the ark discovered then your on the ark then you destroy the ark. The games are pretty straight forward but they take a simple concept and make it into a whole game. Halo 3 was especially simple because it was supposed to be apart of halo 2 originally.

My issue isn't so much with the story itself but rather following how it's presented. Most of the time I felt like 'Oh ok so we're here now I guess'. Which was fine because the gameplay was fun and the setpieces were beautiful.

Oprindeligt skrevet af r3ach5stars1:

and cortana hot design...

very much out of place if you ask me.