That is my position as to the reason for why Halo is going downhill as a franchise. Put in simple terms, that love is absent. (Or perhaps it is just misplaced.)

To begin, I wish to point out an easy target; Marvel Comics. The Sam Raimi Spider-Man films (for however you feel) are generally considered to be good comic book films, until the third. It was recently reviled in an interview that he, “didn’t really believe in all the characters.” That is, he didn’t love Venom and didn’t want him in the film. Fox’s handling of the Fantastic Four reboot and their prior handling of Daredevil show a complete lack of love for the characters. Then we have the Marvel Cinematic Universe that alters stories and changes characterization, and yet it is heralded as the one all to comic book films. I posit that it is simply love for the works that is felt in these films.

In Halo, the most important feature was fun. The game looked good for its time; the story was interesting; the books were immersive, but the forefront of the franchise was FUN. The game had fun encounters, fun dialogue, fun Easter eggs, fun physics (especially with vehicles!), fun flying levels, fun characters, and even the thrill of being terrified! (Like Haunted Houses we PAY to be scared in… Would anyone be willing to spend the night in… The Library?) At the end of Halo, the fans FELT that there was a love for fun, and that same feeling bleed into the community. People would pack their Xboxes and TVs into their cars, and drive twenty minutes to set up at a buddy’s house for an all-night LAN! The spirit of fun then bleed into something new and exciting; Machinima. “You ever wonder why we’re here?” RvB was the epitome of the Halo mentality. Fun first!

That’s not to say that the love of fun was the only thing Halo had! One can see the love of the environmental artists. Hear the love of music from Marty the (Great) Elder. Hear the love from sound designer’s unique and distinctive sounds. The Nylund novels established a world in which we feel love for, not only, our Master Chief but the world he inhabits. A rich universe awaited us and we met our mother Doctor Halsey. Mother, because that’s what the Spartans felt she was. They wanted to impress her as one does their mother, and they wanted to share in their victories with her, and she wanted the best for her children. She wanted them safe from the war into which she HAD to send them. We felt the love of/from this woman who so callously kidnapped children and left their families with dying embodiments of their children. The Flood was lacking that love. We have interesting story moments in learning where the marines set up base, and what happened between key moments in the game. We learned what it’s like for the Flood to infest one’s mind. We even have a fun encounter with Chief finding weapons he must hide because he cannot carry everything he wants. Even with a lack of love for the characters and world, there is a love of story-telling.

Halo 2 gave us 30 seconds of fun. A love for the Elite species was formalized in becoming one and a beginning of comparisons to Japanese culture and diplomacy post-WWII had begun. New covenant species were introduced for the sake of gameplay. Their stories were retconned fairly well, as the love of story-telling grew, but also remained tangible to those not familiar with the story. What was that Unruly Elephant your friend kept going on about from that book? It didn’t matter; the books and games were separate. Going forward to Reach, our fan services of MEETING Halsey and calling her Mum! (It’s a cleaver double meaning and I WON’T change my mind!) As well as the cannon breaking Pillar of Autumn. Back to the love of fun first and foremost, we didn’t see the POA and think, “WHAT?! She can’t be here!” For 30 seconds of fun, we relished in the childlike giddiness of seeing her again, of FINALLY meeting up with the old crew we KNEW to be on this planet! Those not familiar were just watching an amazing giant ship!

Then Came…

Greg Bear gives us a hard science fiction trilogy that feels as out of place to Halo as introducing the Power Rangers would. The Mythology of the Forerunners is finally explained as being almost a polar opposite to every hint we’ve ever been given about them. “You are Forerunner” Yea no… Apparently we were just their enemy and beat by them, and regressed through convoluted evolutionary explanations where Forerunner are a type of Pokemon and no longer mysteries but that’s okay because before them were the *drumroll* Precursors! Don’t worry; when we get the books explaining away all of the Precursor hints and mystique, we’ll meet the Alphaprogressions who will then be explained away throught the Primecenturions…

The Kilo-5 Trilogy are well written books with a fairly interesting story premise, except that they take one of my lost sisters and turn her into this psychopathic outcast who hates mom. Oh yea, and don’t forget the three novels are all aimed at making us hate that mother. The one who was saving the human race from itself, and in turn saved us from an outside force. While we’re at it… The most respected and trusted of the race of Elites who would follow their leader into the gates of hell… Let’s create a power vacuum and let the humans be the ones who supply weapons to both sides… because fun and humanity being the good guys is just too much to handle right now… Kay-Thanks

Halo 4 introduced Chief’s new Armour. More than an art direction, it was completely redesigned to look horrible for “reasons”… Cortana’s youthful figure suddenly went through a few childbirths in the hips and got her teeth chiseled apart to look more … why? With 5 unexplored Halos (The series namesake) and Installation 05 not being touched since Halo 2 (Oh what’s that, a Hologram in Halo 3 shows its surface barren? Good thing I looked that close… Oh there was a hidden text Eleventh Hour in Halo Waypoint [That isn’t at all annoying and inefficient at being a one stop Halo hub]. Great thing that wasn’t an important plot point that anyone just playing the games might kind of like to know!) So, with no Covenant worlds to explore, or any more Namesakes who’s locations were undoubtedly given to us by the Great Oracle who came to Earth with knowledge and maps of every installations location… We get sucked into a gravity well and boarded by covenant… Yea ok… whatever… it’s a game…

Better shoot these baddies… *pew pew* Man this gun sounds weak… Probably because I’m in space… That might be neat… As long as the Warthog still sounds like a big bad machine and not a whiney overworked vespa… How do I take out those Covenant Ships?.. Too bad the In Amber Clad is such a small ship (Thanks Mr. Loftus! You’re AMAZING! :D LOVE YOUR WORK!) with relatively little armaments that could be used… oh wow… It’s grown… and changed design also… Good thing Jackals still look like… OMGOSH! Where did baby ’98 Godzillas come from!? Let’s just stop here… Seriously… The LOVE is obviously not here… Let’s jump into some multiplayer…

Wow… This is moving fast… It plays almost like every generic shooter instead of Halo. Hum… The weapons still sound bad… Nearly all of them… Like they’re weak versions of real weapons being fired in a vacuum. Wonder what happened to the iconic sounds that were obviously Halo… created by people who LOVED sound design? Seriously… Take a moment… Imagine a Halo weapon sound… The iconic reverberation or BOOM… Just imagine it… Now shoot something in Halo 4 with your eyes closed… Tell me it couldn’t easily be something from the newest Gun of Person shooter.
The love is obviously here… It’s the love of shooters. The love of ultra-fast paced run and gun generic shooter… NOT Halo. COD is moving from random soldier in larger than life real world conflict to super soldier with special powers that plays like Halo, while Halo is moving to play like COD… They’ve met in the middle it seems. Each losing what made them unique… And the butchering to beloved gametypes… And seriously the MANTIS? This feels like it actually belongs in the Halo world? It’s a natural progression of the Cyclops that fans hated… And wanted removed from the game…. But ultimately accepted as bulky unwieldy MJOLNIR prototype loading equipment. So if Alien 3 had introduced… Gundams to fight the Aliens… That would be ok.. because… powerloader yo!...

TL;DR

The direction of Halo since 343i has taken over is simply terrifying. It’s like the franchise was this well-tended fireplace that was stoked occasionally and given new logs of lore. 343i is just throwing everything in the house in the fireplace because they don’t know what really burns and in the process the entire house catches fire burning brighter than ever being seen by more people than anyone could possibly imagine… but not in a good way. Can the house still be saved? If someone can strategically put out the fires. But without careful tending love, the franchise has gotten too large and out of control (ie Too many people want it to be too many things and each gets their way… sort of). Halo post Bungie is very accurately being compared to Star Wars Episodes I-III; a very apt description. No love or attention to what made the franchise good; pretty at times, stale at others and mostly not good. The Clone Wars cartoon was a bright spot in the new trilogy, just as 343i has The MCC cutscenes and Forward Unto Dawn. I love Halo. I don’t love the new direction it seems to be taking. Doctor Who survived 50 years with poor continuity because the love of the series kept showing up. If the people working on Halo don’t love HALO and the characters of HALO, then the continuation of this beloved franchise into Call of Halo: Advanced Duty will stop any plans of reaching their 30 year goal (though being bankrolled by Microsoft, duds can probably easily make it to 20 years no matter how terrible the next few games are … )