Halo

[Space Sweeper]

Newp, it was definitely just a creative descision. Just like how Grunts in Halo CE were the only ones speaking English and so on. Everybody could understand them in Halo 2 & 3, so a translation was never an issue in the games.

[SpaceMarines]

That's number 1 on my list of things they've gotta change for the sequels; english-speaking Covenant. Or at least, do away with that god-awful Trek-sounding fake language. It stands out like a white guy in Harlem.

[Nightmare Asylum]

Yeah, I wasn't the biggest fan of the Covenant language either.

Now, to make up for it, give me an ODST sized Arbiter spin-off to make the wait for Halo 5 easier...

[Ghost Rider]

That's number 1 on my list of things they've gotta change for the sequels; english-speaking Covenant. Or at least, do away with that god-awful Trek-sounding fake language. It stands out like a white guy in Harlem.

Quite the contrary, I rather enjoyed the Covenant not speaking English. Seemed more natural to me.

[Nightlord]

The newest book line, the Kilo-5 trilogy just outright spits in the face of Halo 3, the entire arc Bungie took the elites through is all torn to pieces just so we could fight them again in Halo 4.

I disagree completely. The arc Bungie took the Elite's through is anything but torn to pieces. In fact, I feel like it's been expanded on further.

Halo 3 would have had us believe "Oh sure Elites and Humans are now all buddy-buddy peace and shit", but there really was no way a peace like that could last.

The Elites made a truce with Humans only because The Prophets ordered the extermination of their race. They still hated the Humans, they just couldn't afford to keep fighting them at the time.


The problem with truces like that, is while some may be content to keep that peace, most won't.

Which is what we've seen with Jul 'Mdama and the Storm Covenant. They don't speak for all of the Sangheili. They're just a fraction of the species.

Then we have ONI who have basically become the Cerberus of Halo, they want to start another war for no other reason than the fun of it.

Again, I must completely disagree. ONI's goal wasn't "lol let's start a war", nor was it "lol let's kill the Elites cause why not". It was "These guys were the military sword for The Covenant. We need to make sure they can't threaten us ever again".

Humanity was nearly extinct by the end of the war, with very few worlds left. They really couldn't afford another war, at least not so soon. Sure, The Arbiter wanted peace with The Humans. Obviously, though, he doesn't speak for the entire species. Hell, there was a damn Civil War over it on their planet.

While I do think ONI were kinda scumbaggish about it, it really was the best time to put the Sangheili down.

Then when we finally meet back up with the UNSC, the captain of Infinity, Andrew del Rio is a character just for the sake of insulting Chief, because we totally need to have an opposing view all the time right.

While I do agree Del Rio was essentially a dick, he did have some valid points. Master Chief wanted to go take the Didact Out right after The Infinity pushed him back. Del Rio, though, had to take his ship and crew into consideration. Honestly, had I been him, knowing only what he did at that time, I probably would have gone for a tactical retreat too.

I wouldn't mind as much if their viewpoint was one of many but it's pretty much the only one we're shown, any other view is squashed quickly by how stupid the elites are acting, only Arbiter seems to have any sense at all and he is in the minority, but then I remember the Halo 3 so-op elite N'tho 'Sraom and how his backstory describes him as one of a growing number of elite sympathisers among the elites, where the hell did they go I wonder.

Also elites mostly didn't hate humanity, many of them respected them, that halo 2 booklet conversations from the universe showed that by giving us elites viewpoints of humanity and them questioning why humans haven't been offered a place in the Covenant yet, this is also random chatter in halo 3.

Onto ONI, "These guys were the military sword for The Covenant. We need to make sure they can't threaten us ever again", 'were' being the key word, the elites were the UNSC's main allies at the wars close with the brutes having taking the elites main place in the Covenant, I still can't understand why they want to attack their allies instead of the actual brutes that should still be a big player in universe, but then they have just completely dissappeared for some reason.

About Del Rio I agree with what you are saying completely, he just seems a bit forced even though his reasons are legit and even then hes dumped for them afterwards, poor bastard.

the soul seems to have been ripped from all the AI chatter

While I understand where you're coming from with all of this, what I've quoted above is all I can agree with in terms of what has been detrimental to the game(s).

I was seriously underwhelmed with the AI chatter in Halo 4; I even swapped weapons with various Spartans/Marines various times just to see if they'd say more than three or four things or anything that was supposed to be funny, but yeilded no results. On the topic of the Covenant, I'm severely disappointed that they took steps backward and made the Elites and Grunts speak alien tongues. It doesn't add anything, but takes away. It was pretty obvious why they did that for Reach (to make them truly stand out as alien invaders), but having them flip back in Halo 4 just seems to break continuity after 3 & 2.

I seriously hope they change back to English speaking Covenant in Halo 5, mostly because I want a true Covenant story with characters, a playable character, and the return of the Arbiter; god knows they can't have Keith David speaking gibberish in the sound booth. Fighting English speaking Covenant and playing as an Elite character again in the second entry of a trilogy... no bias.

Make it so, 343.

Course, it's all opinion at the end of the day.
Agree about making a sole elite game though, it's been asked for since Halo 2, since then the amount of people asking has only grown, the thing would sell no doubt.

[SpaceMarines]

That's number 1 on my list of things they've gotta change for the sequels; english-speaking Covenant. Or at least, do away with that god-awful Trek-sounding fake language. It stands out like a white guy in Harlem.

Quite the contrary, I rather enjoyed the Covenant not speaking English. Seemed more natural to me.

I didn't mind it in Reach, or CE. Hell, I wouldn't even mind it in 4 if they didn't use the godawful Trek language. It just sounds horrible. Coupled with the subtitled conversations, it's... gah.

[Prime113]

I always thought the Covenant were speaking their own language, but your suit had a translator built in, or Cortana was doing it, or something.

[KNIGHT]

My headcanon about it, specifically in Halo 4, was more or less "Unless it's translation, why would they be speaking in English to each other", which is probably why I'm not as annoyed as most other people regarding the Sanheili language with subtitles.

Onto ONI, "These guys were the military sword for The Covenant. We need to make sure they can't threaten us ever again", 'were' being the key word, the elites were the UNSC's main allies at the wars close with the brutes having taking the elites main place in the Covenant, I still can't understand why they want to attack their allies instead of the actual brutes that should still be a big player in universe, but then they have just completely disappeared for some reason.

They really  weren't allies yet. Since the third book in the Kilo-five trilogy hasn't been released yet, and it hasn't been mentioned in the games yet, it's possible some of those plans ONI was going through with were cancelled.

In fact, I'm almost certain they were. Some dialogue in Spartan Ops, specifically that one odd Sangheili Terrorist who tried to detonate a Havoc Nuke in a city. Perhaps an alliance with Sangheilios went through, and some Sangheili now live on Earth, and vice versa for Humans on Sangheilios? At least, I would assume a Sangheili getting into a city on Earth would be nearly impossible otherwise.



As for the Brutes, they weren't actually on level to do any damage to Humans, at least not for a while. They were more equivalent to what Humans are modern day, right now, before the Covenant adopted them into their ranks. Once the normal Covenant fell apart, they likely had more trouble than even the Elites at recovering.




Until its confirmed in canon later, though, it's currently all speculation. Still a good couple of years till the next game, so we'll just have to wait and see.

[Space Sweeper]

All Covenant except for the Jackals spoke English in Halo 2, amongst themselves, to humans, to the Gravemind... same goes for Halo 3. It's just how it was, but in Halo 4 it was just totally reverted.

[ShadowPred]

All Covenant except for the Jackals spoke English in Halo 2, amongst themselves, to humans, to the Gravemind... same goes for Halo 3. It's just how it was, but in Halo 4 it was just totally reverted.

Is it possible for it be a different dialect of the same language? Like...these Covenant are more "fanatical",  so I guess maybe it's possible that they're using an older dialect that hasn't been used? Maybe?

[SpaceMarines]

I just think the language sounds stupid. I much preferred the noises from CE and Reach. Sounded like alien noises, not like actors reading a made up language which then had some effects put on top of it.

[Space Sweeper]

All Covenant except for the Jackals spoke English in Halo 2, amongst themselves, to humans, to the Gravemind... same goes for Halo 3. It's just how it was, but in Halo 4 it was just totally reverted.

Is it possible for it be a different dialect of the same language? Like...these Covenant are more "fanatical",  so I guess maybe it's possible that they're using an older dialect that hasn't been used? Maybe?

That's one way to look at it. Before the game came out I boiled it down to a Insurrectionist Ramnent/Human type deal in which the Storm Covenant was just an entire faction intent on keeping Humans out of any form of Galactic Society due to their reckless/destructive/selfish nature. Of course, I still haven't read Glasslands, and I know there's a lot more to it than that (luckily for me). As for the language, it was kind of like they were just speaking their races old tongues to keep from associating with humans, though English, or as I like to call it in these kind of Galactic Community deals, "Interspeak" is the commonly adopted language.

I wish they would just give an explanation or change it back to prevent the need for theories.

[Nightlord]

It's pretty strange alright that the covenant are back to speaking their own language, even stranger that they didn't just add to the Reach language http://downloads.bungie.net/audio/speech.wav < that sounds unknown and alienish to me, the new one sounds kinda japanese, but I'm fairly indifferent either way, hell half the time I can't even hear them because everything is so loud.

My headcanon about it, specifically in Halo 4, was more or less "Unless it's translation, why would they be speaking in English to each other", which is probably why I'm not as annoyed as most other people regarding the Sanheili language with subtitles.

Onto ONI, "These guys were the military sword for The Covenant. We need to make sure they can't threaten us ever again", 'were' being the key word, the elites were the UNSC's main allies at the wars close with the brutes having taking the elites main place in the Covenant, I still can't understand why they want to attack their allies instead of the actual brutes that should still be a big player in universe, but then they have just completely disappeared for some reason.

They really  weren't allies yet. Since the third book in the Kilo-five trilogy hasn't been released yet, and it hasn't been mentioned in the games yet, it's possible some of those plans ONI was going through with were cancelled.

In fact, I'm almost certain they were. Some dialogue in Spartan Ops, specifically that one odd Sangheili Terrorist who tried to detonate a Havoc Nuke in a city. Perhaps an alliance with Sangheilios went through, and some Sangheili now live on Earth, and vice versa for Humans on Sangheilios? At least, I would assume a Sangheili getting into a city on Earth would be nearly impossible otherwise.



As for the Brutes, they weren't actually on level to do any damage to Humans, at least not for a while. They were more equivalent to what Humans are modern day, right now, before the Covenant adopted them into their ranks. Once the normal Covenant fell apart, they likely had more trouble than even the Elites at recovering.




Until its confirmed in canon later, though, it's currently all speculation. Still a good couple of years till the next game, so we'll just have to wait and see.

You're right, we will have to wait and see if the human, elite alliance pulled through, but it could still go either way and I don't doubt an elite could get onto earth if he wanted, the entire covie invasion force on reach springs to mind, better question is where he got the nuke, probably ONI lol.

Plus from the way we've been shown the covenant in Halo 4 it seems like it has been pretty much reformed, what with them throwing a cruiser against 4 spartans and all the hundreds of covenant killed per spartan ops mission and about two thousand in campaign theres no way a little rouge faction could have that much troops, so if the alliance did go through it mustn't have been popular.

The way the brutes have been handled is so derpy, they were shown to be good engineers, since before the schism they were basically given second hand ships by the elites, the brutes had to know how to keep them running themselves unlike the elites so them just dissappearing like they have makes no sense, they should still have ships.
Brutes also were as fanatical if not more so than the elites about the forerunners and the great journey hell they joined the covenant without a fight, you'd think they would be a bit interested in visiting requiem after news gets out a fricking forerunner was there.

[SpaceMarines]

I think it's safe to assume Brutes will be back. At least, I hope so.

[Nightmare Asylum]

343 Industries looking to hire people with MMO experience:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/343-Industries-MMO-Halo,19251.html

I wonder how likely (or how good) a Halo MMO could be... The one Ensemble was making a few years back seemed cool enough (and had beautiful concept art), but some of the random new aliens and weapons that were going into it just seemed odd and un-Halo like.