: Well, we sort of did. The novels covered a decent amount of those details
: you listed specifically. The mistake was leaning hard on those details and
: trying their best to fill them in while leaning on them. The period of
: time between Halo 3 and Halo 4 was long and eventful enough that the games
: barely ever stood a chance at trying to incorporate it coherently for
: anyone who only plays the games. That's not even mentioning the Didact and
: mess that I felt that was.

I read those novels. Some of them were good, but most of them didn't deal with the things I was looking for. And when they did (Envoy, Last Light) they were rapidly highjacked by Forerunner plotlines, and then the stories were all about Forerunner AI or Forerunner superweapons.

The Kilo 5 trilogy gave us Jul 'Mdama, and he had a really tragic and compelling backstory. The same can't be said of his faction. I'd say that 343i struggled to make Jul Mdama's Covenant anything more than just an excuse to have the same old Covenant around, but I don't think they tried very hard. It just wasn't a priority for them at all.

It's rather disappointing. Halo is rife with potential, and the Covenant is a civilization that's as old as Judaism. Between the UNSC's struggles and the Covenant's own expanse, there was room for the kind of scope that Battletech had.

That said, I don't think the problem with 343i was that they tried to incorporate too much from the books. I think they were very lousy at communicating. Storytelling is all about communicating ideas. If you can't communicate the ideas you have, or if your ideas are muddled and unclear, you won't write a good story.

But with Infinite, I think 343i is finally getting traction.

: What I like about this story is that while it definitely dabbled in the
: mysteries of Zeta Halo, it wasn't particularly overt, but the data pads
: had some interesting teases to mull over. Having the character focused
: story allows the audience to actually have a chance to connect more
: clearly to the protagonists. I think the plot could've been a bit denser
: and maybe it was before they realized they were unrealistically scoped. I
: don't mind the plot taking a backseat for a character focus this time
: around. That also allowed them to pull back on the density of details
: necessary to progress the plot, lowering the audience slowly into the
: setting.

Yeah. There was probably a few characters cut, but the story was so fluid, I can't tell where they were removed. Now that the characters are established, I hope future installments dig more into the plot of things. And maybe we can see some spinoffs that aren't centered on the Master Chief, or Spartans in general.

: I actually see quite a bit of God of War (2018) influence here. Having a new
: character naive (Atreus/The Weapon) to the history of their caretaker
: (Kratos/Chief) allows newer players a perspective where they can learn
: along with the naive character. Both of the caretakers are withholding key
: information about their past. Both stories center around learning to trust
: one another. I think God of War did a better job, but GoW was also a much
: longer game...so it has an unfair advantage. XD

Wow. Well spotted. I never would have noticed that in a hundred years.

: What I think they've done well enough is establish a new character arc for
: the Chief that, while rooted in the past arcs, may no longer need to rely
: as heavily on the specific details of those arcs.

: I've not been this invigorated in my interest in Halo's story in a long
: while. It feels good to feel sort of..."back," if you know what
: I mean.

Yeah. We're nowhere near where I would have taken Halo, but I'm interested to see where it's going. It's a weird feeling.