HALO 5: GUARDIANS - CAMPAIGN

jackcooper98
Nov 5, 2015
7 min read

How far we’ve come…

Fourteen years ago we first stepped onto the mysterious ring-world known as Halo. And now, we’re hunting the hero who has saved humanity countless times. Halo has evolved more than any other gaming series I know of. It’s avoided the Call of Duty curse from day one. Yes, Halo 4 certainly did feel like COD in places, but on the whole, it’s stayed well away.

In the olden days we had forward, back, shoot and grenade. Now…I’m not even going to try and count all the moves. That’s what sets Halo 5 out from the rest of the series the most. Whilst Halo 4’s only major contribution was sprint, Halo 5 goes above and beyond. Ground pounds, Thruster packs and Spartan Charge just to name a few. And it’s surprising how much of a difference these new moves make.

The last change is Revive, which comes as a side order with the squad, but isn’t included in Multiplayer. It’s always nice to get back up instead of restarting the last checkpoint, but beware, your allies go down as easily as you do.

Onto the actual campaign then. In recent years, Halo’s campaign has had both good and bad moments. Halo 4 was a good overall idea, but the execution wasn’t to the same level as Halo 3’s. Then again, that’s a hard target to beat. Halo 5’s campaign focuses on the hunt for the Master Chief after he goes against orders. In order to do this we don’t follow just Chief like we used to. In Halo 5, we take command of Fireteam Osiris, led by the no-nonsense and no fun Jameson Locke. On Locke’s team we have fan favourite Edward Buck, played by the fantastic Nathan Fillion, and two new Spartans by the names of Vale and Tanaka.

On Chief’s side, we have the rest of Blue Team, who whilst absent from any of the previous games, are featured heavily in the books set during the Human-Covenant war. They are Fred, Kelly and Linda. What’s great about how Halo 5’s campaign plays is that you can control your squad. They aren’t just bumbling marines like previous instalments. And, for the most part, they actually listen to you. Although there is the old hiccup here and there.

Halo 5’s story doesn’t only focus on the hunt for a hero. Around the galaxy colony after colony is falling witness to the same ‘event’. As the story unravels, it becomes clear these ‘events’ are the doing of the Guardians, ancient Forerunner bird looking things, who tend to leave huge craters in the ground, and wipe out whole civilizations. They are Forerunners, after all.

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW. IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS, SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH.

So, in a not-so-brief summary, the plot of Halo 5 is as follows. We start as Fireteam Osiris on a rescue mission to, well, rescue Halsey. This mission pretty much picks up where Halo 4’s Spartan Ops finished. They rescue Halsey, and kill the Covenant leader Jul Mdama as well. Meanwhile, Blue Team are blowing up old UNSC ships in outer space so the Covies can’t get hold of them. Chief has a funny five minutes, and sees a hallucination of Cortana. Going against orders, he and Blue Team head to the planet Meridian, we he thinks she is.

Given the task of bringing them home/hunting them down, Osiris follow Blue Team to Meridian, and after fighting through more Forerunner cannon fodder, finally catch up with Chief. Locke tries to subdue Chief, which leads to them having a brief but awesome fistfight. Chief escapes on the Guardian, whilst Osiris get off planet before the Guardian destroys it.

Blue Team are transported to Genesis, a Forerunner planet, much like Requiem but a lot prettier. That’s when they realise something. The Guardians are being controlled by something. More accurately, someone. None other than Cortana. Not only is she alive, we then also learn she has become part of/made contact with the Forerunner Domain, an inter-galatic net-thing that makes AIs immortal. As Blue Team move closer to Cortana after fighting the ridiculously difficult to kill Warden Eternal, Locke and Osiris travel to the Elite home-world and link up with a familiar face: The Arbiter. Who, unlike Halo 3, is un-killable in combat.

After fighting through the Covenant’s final stronghold, Osiris and Arbiter face The Warden Eternal. Having defeated him again, Osiris make their way onto the Guardian emerging from the ocean. They land, and are transported to Genesis, the Forerunner planet currently housing Cortana and Blue Team. After running down the side of the Guardian and jumping to the surface, Osiris make contact with Genesis’ monitor. She leads them to Blue Team.

Just before Chief and Locke make up and become best buds, Blue Team are taken. They land in the Domain, and are forced to fight their way through hordes of Forerunners to get to Cortana. Coincidently, this mission is where that fantastic old theme starts playing. *Cue drums* Having defeated all the foes in their path, Blue Team face their hardest challenge yet. They are again tasked with bringing down the Warden Eternal. Only this time, there’s three of him. Let me tell you, that fight on Legendary was nigh-on impossible. Having defeated the three stooges, Blue Team finally reach Cortana’s lair.

Having a short face-off with multiple Wardens, Cortana emerges and evaporates them. After a less than friendly conversation, it becomes clear Cortana has changed. Both in appearance- she doesn’t look like a hologram anymore, and in mind-set. Now pretty much in control of the universe, it becomes clear she’s in no mood to give up her power.

She takes Blue Team hostage until ‘her work is done’. On Genesis, Osiris attempt to track down Blue Team. Having discovered Cortana has Blue Team hostage, they move towards the target. After fighting through seemingly endless Forerunners, (Luckily no Warden) Fireteam Osiris finally reach their destination.

After stopping Cortana taking Blue Team into the far reaches of space, they force Cortana into slip-space. With Blue Team rescued, the two best buds head back to the Elite home world for a reunion party with Arbiter and Halsey, who is pretty happy to see Chief after all these years.

Back on Earth, Cortana lands on Infinity, and prepares to attack. It escapes via random slip-space jumps to fight another day. With Cortana wiping out most of Earth’s defences, humanity’s future isn’t looking so good. As she says, “The Mantle belongs to the created.” For those of us who finished it on Legendary, we got one more scene after the credits. It shows a functional Halo ring, with someone humming in the background. Halo 6 here we come.

Phew. Glad that’s over.

What worried me most about the campaign before I played it, other than the wretched thought that 343 was ousting Master Chief as the main hero of the franchise, was how the hell are they going to balance these two stories. Yes, they feed off each other, but, in my mind, it seemed almost impossible to pull off. Somehow, despite they fall downs that littered Halo 4, 343 pull it off. They balance the two stories brilliantly, and even when you’re focused on one, the other is looming just round the corner. Like in the 2014 Godzilla movie, you’re always aware that something bad is waiting for you.

There is one surprise waiting for you in the campaign. It isn't anything like the trailers built it up to be. That whole Locke hunting Chief thing never really happens. It's not the 'greatest hunt in gaming history'. There really is no hunting. The whole ad campaign is off. None of it happens, and nothing like it happens. Weird. If there is any hunting at all, it's gone after about one mission. It's not so much a hunt as it is a 'bring them home', which evolves into 'save their lives from the glowing robots of death'.

The other thing that is most different from 343’s last outing is the Promethean weapons. Whilst there are plenty of shake ups in the Human/Covenant inventory, the Promethean weapons are hit the hardest, and mostly for the better. The Boltshot can no longer be changed into an over-powered crossbow-shotgun, the Suppressor now tracks enemies when used at a certain range, the Incineration Cannon now fires two less powerful explosives instead of one nuclear blast waiting to happen, unless you charge it up, in which case it enters Halo 4 mode. Finally the Pulse grenade now doesn’t look like an orange vortex when exploding. Phew.

The other change up in weapon systems is the ability of ‘Smart Zoom’. Otherwise known as looking down the barrel. This applies to all weapons, although makes very little difference to the Assault Rifle and like weapons. And, when you’re in the heat of battle, you’ll forget it even exists.

The enemies stay pretty much the same, with the exception that Knights have been replaced by Soldiers as the main cannon fodder, giving Knights the roles of Commanders. They’re also a lot harder to kill these days, especially on the ridiculously difficult ‘legendary’ difficulty. The Plasma Pistol/precision weapon combo won’t help you anymore. You’ll have to make use of your squad mates and your own ingenuity to survive that. And believe me, it’ll take time to do.

So, on the whole, Halo 5 is a return to form for the series. Halo 3 may have held the title for most beautiful game in the series since release, but I think that’s about to be challenged. Halo 5’s graphics are outstanding, and they never waver. The textures are brilliant and the cutscenes look better than ever. Especially the faces of Fireteam Osiris, which makes the absolute most of new motion capture technology.

My only other nit-pick is that Locke’s team has much more game time than Chief’s. It’s around 80-20 percentage wise. This does mean Locke’s team gets its story built up more, but also takes away from the huge fun of playing as the unstoppable green killing machine. And it can get tiring playing as Locke for mission after mission.

It appears 343 have learnt from Halo 4’s mistakes, much like they said they would. It might get confusing, and Blue Team are just sort of thrown in there without any warning, something I know might confuse those not familiar with the books. It might not be as good as the original or the ever-excellent third, but it’s definitely the best instalment in a long time. Plus, unlike the Master Chief Collection, it actually worked on release. That’s always nice.

8/10

All pictures are from my own gameplay experience: