https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/forums/f9237adeaf1742c09de144d7bf3f7507/topics/brian-reed-is-no-longer-with-343-industries/7fab2983-896f-4e30-ac9d-58265476cfef/posts

Well, apparently, 343 agrees with us. Your story was a shitty departure from the series we love and your ego was so big that it annoyed the piss out of everyone. Enjoy fading into obscurity...

6075446
This is some relatively old news, but still good.

Now it's up to the new staff to repair the damage he's wrought.

6075446
It wasn't sooo bad. Just meh. I'm glad he's gone, but at least he didnt royally fuck halo.

6075736
He kind of did, and doubled down with at least one book before he was booted.

Thankfully this is why retcons exist. For example, the ending and behavior of the characters makes so little sense that they could justify it as Warden Eternal screwing with their neural implants and more than half the game not actually happening.

6075736
6075738
To say that Halo 5 Guardians' story was terrible is an understatement. I have no idea why anyone at 343 thought that this idiot would be the next Joseph Staten, knowing fully well that not even Marvel could tolerate Brian's crap anymore. No one, and I mean NO ONE, liked ANY story that he has or ever will write, purely because of how terrible they are and how shitty the author of them reacts to legitimate criticism, stating that his stories are "too deep or complex" for their minds to handle. He believes himself to be high above in terms of writing, on the level of Steven King or Tolkien, the thick headed bastard.

I write fan fiction for a website based on ponies from a girls' cartoon, and I'm pretty sure that I can do a way better job doing that than Brian Reed will EVER hope to accomplish writing stories for Halo. That goes for others here as well.

As for this;

Thankfully this is why retcons exist. For example, the ending and behavior of the characters makes so little sense that they could justify it as Warden Eternal screwing with their neural implants and more than half the game not actually happening.

I highly doubt that 343 will ever retcon Halo 5, and if they do so, it will face negative media on all angles. It's a risky move that could most likely backfire on them, WITHOUT the right head of writers. They already pretty much retconned one story with Spartan Assault (I'd count Fall of Reach, except part of me feels like Halo Reach was already a side story anyways. And the animated movie they did for it doesn't help change things either so...), and retconning another would do nothing except annoy and even infuriate those who bought Halo 5.

It's the right thing to do, don't get me wrong, since the plot is beyond salvaging in that game anyways, but it would definitely prove that 343 is disorganized. And to excuse the entire game's plot as "The Warden Eternal just fucking with all their heads" is a stretch, and in my opinion, a bad one at that. I don't have an answer to excuse it yet, nor can I think of one off the top of my head, but give me a few days or so, and I can think of ways to excuse it, or retcon it in a way that doesn't completely feel cheap... no offense.

Alright, well I guess I just share a different opinion. Oh well.

6075768
I understand it if you share a different opinion. But the fact of the matter is that this game's campaign just doesn't make the cut. The Halo franchise is about discovery, not just of matter but of mind. It's a depiction of the story of Revelations from the Bible, often times outright comparing the characters to different entities of the Bible, or even taking lines of text and translating them into their own image to make some of the most iconic storylines and narratives I've ever experienced in an FPS.

This game did nothing except bastardize those themes. If you can at least recognize that, but still accept this as a guilty pleasure, then I can excuse it.

6075793
It's not that I like the game. I played the campaign and put it away. I just don't think that demonizing is in my means of disliking something.

6075816
It's not the fact that this story is bad, or the fact that the writer acted shitty when confronted with legitimate criticism in response, that we demonize it. It's the fact that we were lied to by the extravagant commercials, which promised a much darker and better story than the one we got. Instead of the story played up about the Master Chief going AWOL or Rouge, betraying everyone and everything for some unknown reason, we got a basic as sin, annoying, unthought-out plot that would make Stephanie Meyer blush.

We were lied to, that's what most are angry about.

6075762
Preaching to the choir. I refuse to even acknowledge it as part of canon until they repair the damage that's been done.

Eh, no offense taken. That was spur of the moment.
A more realistic suggestion would be that the Cortana we see in game is a fragment that merged with some digitized Didact or is just a rampant fragment with other parts/the true Cortana being elsewhere in the galaxy waiting to be found or trying to get back home.
Plus that way you could salvage some of the official lines claiming that Cortana isn't the villain.

Mind you, there's no repairing the trust after they threw away the perfect set up to a UNSC/ONI Civil War that could have been fun and explored the universe more in favor of a generic as all hell AI Uprising even though Reach established that the AI were already effectively in control and were loyal to the core to Humanity.
I mean hell, we could have had an adventure akin to Star Trek III with the addition of being constantly hunted by Osiris.

6075828
You're totally right. I think im just a little soft.

6075893
I think the problem is that since the majority of Halo as a franchise was set in a sci-fi imagining of the book of Revelations, and since Halo 3 ended that theme with Chief going into hibernation, trying to tell another great Halo story revolving around the Master Chief and Cortana was going to be tough from the start. After all, how do you make a sequel to the end of the Bible?

I like the idea of Cortana in Halo 5 being a construct that the Didact made as a way of mentally screwing with Master Chief, but unless Halo 6 does this and show just how much it hurts Chief, it won't work. The idea of Master Chief in general is to put us front and center in front of his conflict. Make the audience suffer as much as Chief would after learning the truth, that Cortana is dead and the Didact is behind all of this. In that sense, the Didact would take the role of the Devil or the Anti Christ, bringing Halo back to its narrative roots (sorry for all the comparisons to Halo and the Bible, by the way. Don't blame me, though, blame Bungie! XD)

The idea of another Halo ring kinda makes a little sense as well using that idea. The Didact is supposed to know how most, if not then how all, Forerunner tech works, right? Who better to reactivate the Halo ring than a Forerunner with the help of all the UNSC AI's. Cortana's wealth of knowledge could essentially help as well, and maybe even serve as a building block for another Cortana construct. Or one similar...

As for Locke? Replace him. This character is not capable whatsoever of taking the role of the Master Chief, and the reason why is because they did something with this character that they never did with Chief; Reveal his face. By doing that, you essentially tell the audience that this character isn't you, but a character in of his own right. He's not an extension of the player in the same way as Chief is, he's just a bland Spartan that could NEVER take on the same mantle as Chief. He has no interesting back story aside from one throw away line in the game with some past between him and Arbiter, he doesn't have a recognizable voice talent or voice to make him stand out (in my opinion) the same way Chief does, and overall, he's just boring.

6075895
You saying that to get out of this or do you mean that?

Hey, someone apparently didn't appreciate what I said there... apparently 2 of them... oh well, I don't believe I said anything here that can't be supported or backed up in some way, shape or form.

Maybe the last statement I posted but, hey, what can you do?

6076310
Just so you know, I'm not the one who disliked it. It's not a copout. I'm usually a lot harsher about the shit pile that is "Halo" 5's campaign. Disregard what I said earlier.

6076489
I just posted that as a sign of acknowledgement. I could honestly care less for those who did dislike it...

6076713
Just to clear my name.