: Characters sell toys. Important characters sell more. Both the Didact and Pvt
: Chips Dubbo are characters in the Halo franchise, but one of them will
: sell a lot more toys than the other. This should be in your mind when the
: Big Bad Brute is front and center in the marketing. Halo 1 technically had
: a main villain, but it was a gradual revelation (343GS didn't appear until
: halfway in) aided by a plot twist. The game's story was still more about
: your desperate attempts to survive in an unknown world: part fact-finding,
: part shooting, and part surviving.

: Halo 2 had the Prophets, Gravemind, and Tartarus. But again, these enemies
: were revealed organically as the story unfolded.

: Halo Infinite puts the Big Bad front and center. This is not "helpful
: floating orb on mysterious ring eventually turns out to be a very big
: threat." This is He-Man and Skeletor, Lion-O and Mumra, red panda
: and pumpkin . It's cheesy and low-effort but it's going to sell action
: figures from Day 0.

The gradual revelation won't work. 343i blew their credibility so hard with Halo 5 and everything around Halo 5 that the fans won't buy a vague teaser with promises of a grand story to unlock. If 343i tried to tease a story, everyone would have flashbacks to Poncho Chief and the Didact. If 343i tried to play coy, everyone would just assume that Halo: Infinite is going to be a slog against the Created.

343i's only option is to lay their cards down on the table. Don't play coy, don't try to be clever. 343i has a long-standing problem of letting their mouths write checks that their asses can't cash. If they keep things simple and put the villain up front in the marketing material, then people can judge the direction that Infinite's story will go for themselves.