Halo Had Emotional Punch Because It Underlined Quiet Tragedy

As a seasoned gamer who grew up with the original Xbox and its iconic title Halo: Combat Evolved, I can’t help but feel a sense of melancholy when reflecting on the Master Chief Collection’s 10-year anniversary. It’s like reminiscing about an old friend who, despite their invincibility and heroism, seems to have lost their spark in recent years.

2024 marked the 10-year anniversary of Halo: The Master Chief Collection on November 11th. Reflecting on this milestone, let’s revisit the somber undertones that ran through the main trilogy.

Combat Evolved starts with waking up and Halo 3 ends with falling asleep, with death happening in between. The series is a space-themed blockbuster first-person shooter that features a holy war between human space marines and alien zealots, both threatened by the “Flood,” or zombies. Despite its action-packed nature, there’s a certain melancholy to Halo, don’t you think? The Halo rings are essentially machines of death, but they also have natural beauty – sunrises, sunsets, wildlife, plants, ecosystems, and diverse landscapes like snowy mountains and rocky deserts. They exhibit signs of life, though this life is shaped by ancient technology that survived its creators and resonates with gunfire. The protagonist, Master Chief, navigates this grandeur, a single man experiencing both majesty and terror. The original trilogy, despite its epic scale and high stakes, is ultimately about intimate tragedy: just one man and the voice in his helmet (the ghost).

Halo: Combat Evolved initially appeared as a stark and minimalist game when it was first launched, but since then, it’s expanded into a multifaceted media phenomenon. Over the years, it has spawned several miniseries, a television show, an unfinished movie project, numerous novels, and real-time strategy spin-offs. Its universe is richly developed, with many of its storylines filled in. Although not all of its projects have been successful, in terms of their popularity or quality, the Halo universe has certainly grown beyond the original game.

As a gamer diving into Halo: Combat Evolved, I found it somewhat cryptic, even with a novel tying in just prior to launch. The alien “Covenant” and the concept of Spartans were hinted at through context, but unless you’re attentive, you might miss it. Most characters you encounter don’t make it past the game’s climactic explosion, save for Master Chief, Cortana, Sgt. Johnson, and 343 Guilty Spark who reappear in later installments. The gameplay is fast-paced and thrilling, but the narrative can be slow and heavy with explanations, leaving little room for emotional engagement.

The character Master Chief is more of a straightforward figure, falling somewhere between a quiet protagonist and a fully developed hero. He delivers one-liners, fights enemies, but lacks depth in other areas. Compared to him, Cortana is playful and intelligent, showing more emotions than Master Chief does. However, she also doesn’t possess much psychological complexity (at least not at this point). Essentially, Cortana serves as a means to help the player understand what’s going on, while Master Chief lacks the emotional depth that Cortana exhibits.

In essence, the majority of Halo’s emotional depth lies in its stellar combat and exceptional level design. However, there are periods of non-combat time, where you explore areas previously visited, which can feel less engaging. Despite this, these moments provide a sense of tranquility and melancholy. The game’s standout moments, like the expansive landscapes in “The Silent Cartographer” and the lively road trip in “Halo”, serve as breaks from the action, allowing you to immerse yourself in Halo’s unique environment. Transitions between missions and battles offer opportunities for reflection. The game design encourages you to gaze up at the sky just as often as it pushes you to chase your enemies.

Instead of a leisurely stroll through nature, Halo offers something entirely different. The climactic scene – a nerve-wracking drive along the backbone of a colossal spaceship – is abruptly halted when Cortana summons an evac transport. Sadly, it’s swiftly destroyed. A brief, mournful pause ensues as you hear the pilot’s final words before an explosion follows. Cortana somberly announces, “She’s gone,” followed by a moment of silence. Then she mentions, “Calculating alternative escape route.” This emotional twist in the escape prolongs the scene slightly, but the sense of loss lingers heavily. Once more, Master Chief must navigate this perilous situation on his own.

In Halo 3, there’s a similar dramatic scene: another high-speed getaway from an exploding spaceship. However, this time, most of Master Chief’s comrades manage to flee, leaving him behind. He and Cortana are trapped in half of the spaceship. Once more, he resorts to cryosleep. His final words are, “Awake me when needed.” With his skills, what else could be required of him other than combat? It was only a matter of time before he would awaken again. But without any sequels, this knowledge is more chilling than uplifting. The battle ended with no promise of anything but another one starting.

Narratively speaking, single-player Halo since Reach has been stuck. Halo 4, 5: Guardians, and Infinite are all soft franchise reboots. Ultimately, they have nothing close to the still-satisfying arc of the original games. Halo 4 picks up a few years after where Halo 3 left off, with Master Chief awakening once again from cryosleep. Guardians holds on to some of 4’s plot threads, but turns Cortana into a malevolent AI, setting her up to be the big bad of a sequel that never came. Infinite is a Force-Awakens-esque run at the original Halo, ending with the promise that the franchise will continue more or less how it began. In these games, the tragedies are grand and explicit. Across Infinite’s Halo ring, you’ll find audio logs with the words of the dead. Cortana cries when she dies in Halo 4 and (disturbingly) quotes Virginia Woolf’s actual suicide note when she dies again in Infinite. It’s cheap tragedy.

In Bungie’s games, except for Halo: Reach, most principal characters survive until the end. Characters like Cortana and the Arbeiter manage to make it through, but minor characters such as Miranda Keyes and Sergeant Johnson don’t fare as well. Most deaths occur in large groups, such as the Brutes’ annihilation of the Elites in Halo 2, or off-screen, like the demise of Spartans. Master Chief bears a grief that feels ancient. The surface of Reach was already obliterated, as the games refer to it as “glassed.” Although Chief ultimately wins the war, the battle had been lost before he could join the fight.

Instead of Infinite, Chief is awakened when all hope seems lost, then he charges through the battlefield, vanquishing foes no other Spartan could conquer. With this victory, he hints at winning the war as well. The story may begin in sorrow, but it concludes with a glimmer of optimism – a rare occurrence in Halo, given its history of tragic endings and unresolved climaxes. This structure isn’t necessarily flawed, but it does highlight the constraints of franchise narrative-building. Each new fight must be engaging and thrilling, even as Chief grows increasingly weary of the world. Consequently, future Halo games are unlikely to replicate the poignant conclusion of Halo 3: resting and waking up, with only death to mark the passage of time.

2024-11-13 20:09

Halo Had Emotional Punch Because It Underlined Quiet Tragedy

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