: I'm with Jim on the idea of game stories being high art.

: But Infinite's story doesn't look so grandiose. That's a good thing but they
: chose to have a villain and the one they created is... low effort and
: uncharismatic.

: I don't want to make him eat his words, I just want to not listen to cringe
: writing. It doesn't feel personal: it feels unpleasant. It was so hard not
: to stop watching the video at the part where he smack talked me. Luckily I
: was distracted by hunting for the 2x playback speed option so I manged to
: watch the whole thing. (Not sure: I can't remember)

: Vengence isn't my thing. As for payback? You'd need to make me care first and
: being told that we lost doesn't cut it. I actually smiled when I saw that
: the Infinity had been "killed". (I wonder if there will be a
: surprise reveal there?)

: I want wonder, I want something like the space elevator and station that we
: see here . THAT is what has my interest.

I don't think Escharum is smack-talking the Chief, which is partially why the whole "Okay, now time for your FaceTime call with the big bad" trope they deliver here feels novel. He's talking up the Chief, and basically sees him as the only real threat or challenge left to him. Hopefully we get a little more backstory for him to contextualize this stuff, but "whatever happens, it's gonna' be a matchup they remember long after we're gone" is a very different tack from something like, say, Truth.

I do think they'll have to set up the stakes of what's going on, but that's partially the spiritual reboot element. In Halo: Combat Evolved they just set you on a ship of humans and some weird guys trying to kill you. You didn't get a wider context for why anything really mattered until the third mission, and the stakes didn't really ramp up in a significant way until the sixth.

I personally doubt the Infinity is gone (if, as Schooly suggests, the whole point is to sell toys, you don't blow up your biggest one) but rather that it's a visual demonstration of the losses they suffered. The dots seem to point to individual personnel or attached ships at the largest (you see normal UNSC, ODST, and ONI badges next to some of them) so it's not telling us about the fate of the ship itself.

I did really like the space elevator/fabrication station from the trailer as well. As I mentioned on the FUD podcast, it really reminded me of classic 70s sci-fi illustration (which in turn is one of the few things I really like about Destiny's aesthetic.)