:

: Frankie thinks that the issue that people had with Halo 5's storytelling is
: that "they loved Blue Team, they liked Osiris, but they wanted [more]
: Chief"... Surely 343 can't be that dense.

: As reddit user Ultra-Q points out: The problem with Halo 5 wasn't just 'we
: want more chief'.

: -They completely abandoned the Didact stuff that was being set up

: -They focused way too much on Locke (which they just admitted was wrong)

: -You have all these new Promethean characters like the Warden but everyone
: acts like they've been around for a long time

: -Cortana is alive and evil out of nowhere

: -UNSC completely turns on Blue Team (who have personally saved the galaxy
: several times) because Chief said 'nah, I'll go find her'

: -The marketing was incredibly misleading

: -Humans suddenly aren't the reclaimers, AI magically are now

: -Spartan Ops story was completely ignored and randomly wrapped up in a comic

: -Jul M'dama killed off without any fanfare or acknowledgement in the first
: level

: -No UNSC Marines or Soldiers(which were in Reach) who have been in every
: single game so far.

:

: Special mention in the thread is made of the surprisingly enjoyable
: "Hunt The Truth", which was ultimately a completely pointless
: story that has zero relevance to the game.

: I guess the final takeaway is that Halo 6 will at least have more than a few
: levels playing as the Master Chief, which is a weird thing to take comfort
: in...

Many years ago, I watched a UPS driver get stuck in an alley. Not too unusual, because the alley is wide enough to be mistaken for a street and the terrible placement of a telephone pole and a dumpster made it hard for anything larger than a Miata to make it around the corner. But this guy in the UPS truck, he screwed up on a level that I would not have believed to be humanly possible. When he got to the end of the alley and realized that he couldn't turn around, he tried to back up.

Crunch. Right into a business's back porch. So he tried to pull forward.
Crunch. And then Bam! as the dumpster was pushed right up against the building. So the guy tries to back up.
Crunch. Back into the porch.
Crunch. He missed the telephone pole, crushed an electrical box instead.

This must have gone on for five minutes, back and forth. He tried to do a three-point turn to get out of the alley, then he changed his mind and tried to weave around the porch, then he tried the three-point turn again. When the police finally showed up, the guy had the truck wedged at an eighty degree angle to the alley.

I don't know who thought that guy was qualified to sit behind the driver's wheel, but the combination of his stubbornness and his inability to either stick to a plan or understand the directions that people were shouting at him was breathtaking.

This is perhaps an uncharitable view of 343i's performance, but it's more charitable than some other interpretations that have occurred to me. Consider this:

They loved Blue Team, they liked Osiris, but they wanted Chief. And that has been a big learning. Chief we tend to think of as kind of a vessel for your adventure rather than necessarily this major character in the universe. He’s really just your entry into the universe.

In the promotion for both Halo 4 and Halo 5, 343i's senior management promised that this was the Chief's story. This was the Reclaimer Saga, this was about exploring who he is as a character and how he has to make tough decisions that he's never really had to and how he has to cope with the loss of Cortana. They knew that this was important to a lot of fans, and yet they're surprised that people were angry that the Chief was sidelined for all but three missions?

I mean, shit, "We tend to think of [the Chief] as a kind of a vessel for your adventure rather than necessarily this major character in the universe" is a complete fucking 180 from "Exploring who he is." Kind of like the dissonance between 343i hyping up Blue Team pre-release, only for Frankie to say that they "Never had strong characterization" when people complained at how shallow Fred, Linda, and Kelly were.

The lesson shouldn't just be "Moar Chief!" The lesson should be "Fuck spoilers. The game's promotion ought to have something to do with the actual story." If not that, then "If we're going to lie to our fans or devote half the game to a surprise character, then our game had better be good enough that the fans won't mind."

Of course, going back to my earlier analogy, sticking to a plan would help 343i immensely. Slow down. Take time to look around. They bounced between the Didact, Jul 'Mdama and Halsey and now the Created as overarching villains so fast that nobody is inclined to give a shit about the new guys. Similarly, most people didn't give a shit about the Storm Covenant because the worldbuilding in Halo 4 amounted to "A lot can happen in four years", and now they're gone.