Halo: Reach Forum
This topic has moved here: Subject: Halo Reach Covenant Perspective
  • Subject: Halo Reach Covenant Perspective
Subject: Halo Reach Covenant Perspective

I love the entire Halo series, Halo 2 being my favorite of the games. I think that the universe is compelling and the story is deep, sweeping, and powerful. The hidden layers in the Halo trilogy and rich details of the backstory in the novels are something I love to be lost in, and im greatly looking forward to the story that Halo: Reach will weave. Bungie has carefully and lovingly crafted a mythic tale that will stay etched in my mind until the end.

The ones at Bungie responsible for crafting the Halo story and cinematics are very good at what they do.

However, something that I feel Halo 3 and ODST was sorely lacking was the Covenant perspective.

Halo 2 introduced a character named the Arbiter, a disgraced fleet commander who failed to protect the Forerunner Installation 04 off-screen during the events of Halo Combat Evolved, and as a result is force to don the armor of a long line of predecessors before him. While the player followed this character throughout his missions, the viewer also simultaneously followed a Spartan II soldier known as the Master Chief as he raced to stop the Prophet of Regret and unravel the plans of Tartarus and the conniving two remaining Prophets.

This was a departure from the previous Halo game, in that in Combat Evolved, the player was limited to only the Master Chief 's perspective as he cooperated with the A.I. Cortana and a monitor of Installation 04, 343 Guilty Spark.

The fanbase of the Halo franchise was more or less split between the Combat Evolved style and the Halo 2 style. One section of Halo fans believed that seeing the story through the Covenant perspective gave much need depth and weight to the Halo fiction, while others simply wanted to stay rooted in the Master Chief's boots and save the universe without knowing too much about the Covenant.

The point of this thread is to bring awareness to the situation. In Halo 3, Bungie listened to the fans of the Halo CE style by forcing the player to play as the Master Chief throughout the whole story, while the Arbiter was cast into the background. The story arc for the Arbiter was completely halted from the end of Halo 2 all the until he finally kills the Prophet of Truth near the end of Halo 3. The Arbiter had sparse dialog and little screen time in cutscenes. This severely limited the development of the Covenant point of view, intentionally done as to cater to those who did not like the Arbiter or his missions in Halo 2. Halo 2 introduced things like a hierarchy system within their city, High Charity, a glimpse at what a Covenant trial is like, tensions between different races of Covenant, a vague description of certain elements of Covenant history(such as the Grunt Rebellion, the formation of the Covenant, the purpose of the Arbiter, the position of the Elites in the Hierarchy, etc.). All of this was lost in Halo 3 and ODST, and like too many other Human vs Aliens stories, we only saw what it was like from a human perspective.

In ODST, we follow multiple storylines that develop and intersect into a solid climax that works more like a side story than an actual sweeping epic like in the original Halo trilogy. It was very well presented and from what i've studied it has much hidden intelligence to its story. But, once again, Bungie has listened to the fans that dislike the Covenant perspective and given a completely humans-only story, with absolutely no Covenant dialog at all except for random combat dialog in gameplay. For fans of Halo 2, this was yet another huge disappointment.

What I am wanting to discuss is the subject of a Covenant perspective in Halo Reach. Im not asking for anything from Bungie, because I realize that they care nothing for my opinion, they have already decided where the Halo Reach story is going and how it will unfold, and they are not going to change it less than a year away from Halo Reach's release date.

However, I have seen many intelligent posts from respectable Bungie employees here on the forums who answer to lesser posts than my own, and I have seen how they respect a well developed ideax rather than a ranting troll post with no real weight or thoughts behind it. I have seen Bungie employees respond to criticisms of the Battle Rifle, spawn points, AR starts, etc, and all I am asking is the same, only for story, not for gameplay. I have tried my best to create this thread with intelligent points and ideas so that it may lead to a well developed discussion about the artistic aspects of a game we all enjoy playing.

If anything, a cameo appearance from the Arbiter would be very pleasing in Halo Reach, since the Arbiter, before be became the Arbiter, was commander of a fleet during the destruction of Reach and was responsible for pursuing The Pillar of Autumn as it fled the chaos.

So, what do you guys think?

  • 10.18.2009 10:23 AM PDT
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yeah, this could be possible. i doubt that Bungie is going to leave us in the dark again about the covie side of the story, and i missed turning invisible as the arby in H2.

  • 10.18.2009 10:52 AM PDT

I wouldn't mind seeing Thel when he was a Supreme Commander. I would like to see the Armor ingame.

  • 10.18.2009 10:54 AM PDT

I love the entire Halo series, Halo 2 being my favorite of the games. I think that the universe is compelling and the story is deep, sweeping, and powerful. The hidden layers in the Halo trilogy and rich details of the backstory in the novels are something I love to be lost in, and im greatly looking forward to the story that Halo: Reach will weave. Bungie has carefully and lovingly crafted a mythic tale that will stay etched in my mind until the end.

Posted by: masterchef1
yeah, this could be possible. i doubt that Bungie is going to leave us in the dark again about the covie side of the story, and i missed turning invisible as the arby in H2.


Well yea that was great to play as the Arbiter, but some criticism about the Covenant perspective wasnt necessarily the Covenant itself, some people didnt not like the gameplay of the missions the Arbiter was sent on because he was just fighting Flood and Sentinels most of the time. Bungie could improve that im sure if they wanted.

  • 10.18.2009 10:58 AM PDT
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tbh i dont really want to be killing marines, i would kinda feel bad about it

  • 10.18.2009 11:02 AM PDT

I love the entire Halo series, Halo 2 being my favorite of the games. I think that the universe is compelling and the story is deep, sweeping, and powerful. The hidden layers in the Halo trilogy and rich details of the backstory in the novels are something I love to be lost in, and im greatly looking forward to the story that Halo: Reach will weave. Bungie has carefully and lovingly crafted a mythic tale that will stay etched in my mind until the end.

Posted by: nightavenger616
tbh i dont really want to be killing marines, i would kinda feel bad about it

Not everyone thinks that way, many people i know love to be evil in games that ket you do so, and im sure many wouldnt mind it, although i can understand you feeling that way. If Bungie were creative enough maybe they could tell the story from both human and covenant perspectives, while limiting the gameplay to only a human point of view. Or they could add something for Covenant to fight that was not Human if they were smart about it.

Bungie horribly needs to include some new enemy types by now anyways.

  • 10.18.2009 11:08 AM PDT

Killing marines would be awesome, the only problem is that it could be boring, but there are spartans too, and kill a spartan... that would be epic.
(In Halo 2 you only get the chance to kill 3 marines)

[Edited on 10.18.2009 11:20 AM PDT]

  • 10.18.2009 11:19 AM PDT

I like Halo, It kills all sentinel life with sufficient bio-mass... and doesn't afraid of anything.

I would enjoy another covenant point of view. Although I really can't imagine it working out in Reach.

Some DLC for Reach however could be missions of other popular Halo characters. Arbiter mission, Johnson on Harvest mission, all totally non-canon.

  • 10.18.2009 11:33 AM PDT