It's been a slow burn for me, but this latest video has put me over the edge. I think the fact that I started out hating the concept of a Halo 4 is what is coming back now to excite me so much. If that doesn't make any sense, let me explain: I don't feel stupid looking back at my (clearly amplified for comedic effect) anger and frustration of the Halo 4 announcement trailer; everything in it rubbed me the wrong way and it still does-- that's not arrogance talking, it's the truth. A new developer was going to carry on the Halo story post Halo 3, and they were going to call it Halo
4.
Naturally, I'd already be disappointed, dismayed, and annoyed, but then I saw the trailer and it just felt like a cheap sensory overload and set the tone all wrong. Some people were excited and I didn't understand why. I talked this out with Sharp Sticks on MSN, and we came to the consensus that these were primarily the audience that had come into Halo at Halo 3, along with the Xbox 360 release; I still think we were right, and we accepted that, in the context of how long we've been playing the series, we were basically the grumpy old men that didn't want to buy a smartphone to talk to their grand kids; we didn't want to text, we didn't want to Skype, we just wanted to leave our 'lives' off on a clean and tidy note-- happy for those just kicking off. I didn't have any delusion preventing me from telling I would inevitably buy the game and see how it turns out.
Fast forward half a year and the first screenshots are shown, story details are given, and a Vidoc detailing the people behind the game comes out. I knew 343 had boasted that a studio full of people who's brains are firing 'Halo' and nothing but Halo on all cylinders was going to mean something incredible for the series, and though I didn't fully believe them, the concept was pretty intriguing. Of course, knowing that this new series would go for two more after #4, I knew they had to be packing some kind of staying power that would keep old fans interested and reel in a bunch of newcomers. The designs were looking nice and the storyline was sounding like a logical progression-- I'd given up on being 'insulted' but the thought that there was more beyond "Wake me when you need me".
And then there was E3, where the storyline was put into perspective, but never given a sense of scope. Part of the perspective it took was with the daring move of adding a new enemy to the sandbox, and I'm not talking about a new addition to an existing faction, I'm talking about an entire damned force: the Prometheans. Strange beings that the folks at 343 are still to this day very hush-hush about the concept of, seemingly projected digitally with a steely carapace that can disappear just as soon as them; not indestructible, but alarmingly omnipotent in presence. They were fortifiable, varied, and shifted the Halo battlefield in ways it hasn't touched before in clever and deceptive ways, clearly worthy of forcing the player to adapt and ultimately, well, here it is: evolve.
Something as small as that word sparked something in my brain that had me realize something about Halo that I hadn't prior: the series is about evolution, and Bungie had brought it through their lifecycle and they knew it, so they left their mark on the series, from it's inception to their beautiful send off, they had created something that under the watch of future generations and within the hands of new artists looking to push forward would live on forever, and what they did wouldn't ever be forgotten by those who went through the progressive paces with it, feeling each beautiful moment and remembering them fondly.
The chill of turning around to a pounding door on the mission 343 Guilty Spark after witnessing unprecedented terrors to face them on their own. The cold silence after a blood searing mad race to space in an attempt to save the galaxy alongside your last companion. The wind of the gas giant as you dropped into the shoes of your legendary enemy and immediately felt connected to his cause. The dread of being the first casualty in a civil war that would affect the entire universe in an ultimate grand schism. The hurt of the line "The prophets have betrayed us". It all came up to Halo 3 which seemed basically like a progressive emotional rollercoaster, knowing full and well that you would end what you'd started and you'd create a legend by the game's finale. Nothing made that clearer for me that the mixture of imagery, musical score, and nearly-white-noise radio chatter as the Forward Unto Dawn touched down to unleash a slough of firepower. And there it is; The Forward Unto Dawn. It spoke out to me as the means to an end, and now it's taking the Chief to a new beginning. He'd accomplished everything an everything in Bungie's Halo trilogy, but humanity's fight is never over.
If anybody was to pick it up after them, they were going to be forced to make that new fight as compelling as the one that started it all and do it without the feeling of a self referential re-tread or a stale reason to take Chief out of cryo sleep, seemingly ruining the bitter sweet lonely beauty of Halo 3's ending. What I now see this story as being is, in a word, reinvigorating. I got this feel from Halo 2, a sequel to such a monumental story that left a major impression on me. Swelling music, a gateway to a massive expanse of narrative richness, and a more involving story, which evolved Halo yet again and would keep that base for all games to come after it, leaving the original Halo to feel like a unique, if not isolated experience. That is why Halo 4 feels like Halo 2 to me; it's the start of a new era, and it always seemed that way to me. The difference is that my pessimism spawned from the fact that it wasn't a single game behind it, but an entire saga.
Halo 4 is being shown as keeping all of that alive, and expanding it in the most beautiful ways possible, opening Halo up to possibilities that required 343's touch of one hundred-plus masters. People that have loved the series have every reason to be sold with what they've seen so far, and 343's passion is no illusion, their intentions beyond the call of duty (take or leave the pun). Though Bungie has said goodbye to move onto a brave new world, Halo never did.
Somebody I never get bored of talking about Halo with is Nightmare Asylum, who represents the audience that me and Sharp Sticks had discussed before, starting at Halo 3, going back, and living forward, thinking that way as well. Nightmare has maintained confidence in Halo 4 since it's announcement, and he's represented the part of me that would grow to love the game as well; it was bound to happen before it's release. I think he got the picture how much I loved and cared for the series when I PM'd him my thoughts on a couple of sountrack pieces in great detail, starting a great discussion of Marty O'Donnell's legendary work. He probably saw my reaction coming to Halo 4 before it even got there (hell, he'd predicted the announcement while I was still in doubt!), and he had to deal with every capitalized letter, and word of objection, but he's seen me progressively fall in love, and I can't help but feel that he knew I would from the start!
Even just a month ago I wrongly spoke on the statment that "Bungie was innovation, [and] 343 is refinement"; realizing now that, while these were meant as words of great praise to 343, I was incorrect. Bungie's innovation was the creation of the series and establishing it's foundation, while 343 is taking the foundatiion and shaking it once again into new untouched territory, free of the obligation to simply refine.
For the first time in ten years, combat has truly evolved.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0edecjML_c#
