[Locked] Why the heck does everyone hate halo 5's campaign?

Now, I don’t mean to dismiss the people who dislike it. There are quite a few valid arguments. But please don’t dismiss Halo 5’s campaign because 343 made it, and please hear me out.


Everywhere I look, I see people complaining about the Halo 5 campaign.

“The levels aren't long enough!"-There are more than enough levels, despite how short the first couple were, and the other levels were long enough to be insanely fun. I really enjoyed the first two missions anyways.

“I hate 343i!” If you hate 343, then I don't know what to tell you. We’re stuck with them, because Bungie abandoned us. However, they haven’t done much bad. Despite all the dislike towards it, Halo 4 was a solid game.

"The story was shallow”-I’m sorry, what? It’s about Locke hunting down Chief, and Cortana being alive, and had an amazing story. It really explored the halo universe in a way no other game has.

“The campaign was too short”-There were a ton of levels, and the only campaign I enjoyed more was Halo 3 #ArbyFTW

What's your opinion, guys? Please tell me what you think, but please be polite to everyone, and please DO NOT TROLL!

I didn't mind it. Lack of Chief missions and inflated propaganda were disappointing, but I didn't hate it.

The story was pathetic and unoriginal, it was way too short, nine missions as Locke, three as the Chief, three where you walk around and talk, no splitscreen so no playing it locally with friends, false advertising, complete disregard for Halo 4's ending, Hunt the Truth, Escalation, and the Kilo-Five trilogy, it ruined Cortana's death AND her character, and you fight the Warden Eternal OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER again.

And seriously, machines vs organics AGAIN? We have that in countless video games, movies, and novels, when they could have expanded the Halo Universe by adding in a new deadly species, exploring the Forerunners even more, giving hints about the return of the Precursors, or something new and unheard of, but no, instead we get humans vs. machines again.

JLtheStoneWall wrote:

Legendary difficulty felt cheaper than Halo 2.

What? Halo 5 Legendary is monumentally easier than Halo 2 Legendary.

Monitor Meds wrote:

False advertisement and unmet expectations. They said Halo 5 would be the darkest campaign to date and none of the commercials or marketing materials leading up to release related to H5 campaign.

These are my main reasons. The others would be I don't like the Cortana direction and the Guardians didn't really do anything but accidentally kill people when awakened. Chief didn't have that human feel that 343 nailed in H4. They regressed there.

Definitely not the darkest halo to date. That was one of the many problems I have with the campaign. It's such an excellent campaign if set aside anything that leads up to it. It however is a huge failure in living up to expectations both external and internal which have led to it being disliked by so many.

The campaign was short, it was shorter than any other halo. In addition three of the mission were non-combat, which could have been interesting, but failed to be. Several of the missions likely would have been combined into a single mission in previous halo games. Compare the length of any mission in halo 5 versus "Regret" "The covenant" or "Assault on the control room."

The story wasn't about the Locke hunting the chief, that's what it was advertised as, but that didn't really happen did it? The bait and switch didn't help much. Compare that to the Arbiter in halo 2. When we played as the Arbiter we were shown that the covenant was far more complex than we were shown in CE. We followed the arbiter as he realized that everything he believed was a lie. What did we learn by playing as Locke? That Buck was cool? Oh wait we knew that. Maybe it would have been worth it if the "Chief has gone rogue" idea actually was used to its fullest, but at no point are we allowed to doubt the Chief.

What actually happened? Not much. The Chief's pursuit of Cortana amounted to nothing. All halo 5 story did was introduce the Guardians as a MacGuffin to rival the halo rings.

Halo 4 ended with the Chief pondering his place in the universe. Who is he as a person? H5 should have answered those questions, instead they were tossed to the wayside for Team Osiris.

Spartan ops ended with Halsey betraying the UNSC and that amounted too...nothing.

Halo 5 expected you to read novels and watch a bad movie to have any idea who the characters were. When I was finishing my first playthrough of the campaign, there is a point towards the end where Cortana starts to take the piss out of the team. She taunts Vale with her father's approval and her genius level intellect. I spoke aloud at this point, "Wait she is supposed to be smart? How come she didn't do anything during the campaign." She taunts Tanaka about her planet being glassed and I responded, "Why didn't thy explore that, especially when we were on the glassed planet?" Then she taunts Buck about being old and Locke about being a former assassin. At what point in the campaign did Locke being a former assassin matter?

This is why.

Personally, I enjoyed playing it the first time and then replaying it to get the achievements and beat it on Legendary. The campaign doesn't have much replayability though... It was disappointing not getting the Locke vs Chief showdown and barely getting to play as the Master Chief, though.

1. False ads, had they kept the game to them or at least said "hey, the ads won't carry over, it's just to get your attention" then maybe the downfall wouldn't have been as bad.
2. H4 is completely irrelevant. What's the point of cortanas "dieing?" Where did Chiefs new abilities from the librarian come into play? How did chief deal with cortanas loss? He can't if she's brought right back lol, so much for him finding his humanity. Why does Palmer make no mention of Halsey? She was on a path to just kill her as soon as she could, she didn't give a -Yoink- who was there, she had the mindset that Halsey had to die no matter what/when/where/how/why
3. Short campaign (even though they said it'd be the longest to date if I do so remember correctly.
4. While it's not a huge deal to me, they killed off kill mdnama right away, in a cutscene.
5. It's not friendly to new players, it didn't explain who blue team is, how they're associated with chief, they didn't really explain why Osiris was made, why they had to chase chief, why is cortanas evil?
6. Chief and Locke fight was just........bad. It was led to believe that Locke would kill chief because he's a bounty hunter, chief was supposedly AWOL, and the fight was so slow and unrealistic. Then later on they all of a sudden make nice and Locke offers to help chief with cortanas lol.
7. Why did arbiter have to be involved? He really didn't serve a purpose. Why did Osiris have to take part in the sangheli civil war?
8. No real boss fight (not a huge deal personally but it was bland).
9. Why the rampant A.I cliche? (Not a big deal personally either but it's nothing new).
10. The ending, with the game being so short, I find it as an issue. Had it been longer and explained things, maybe I'd let the ending slid but I just can't.

Its simply the worst campaign if you ask me out of the whole franchise. It's not god awful, but I'm borderline on calling it even a decent campaign. I won't hold it vs 343 due to many reasons, they've shown with h4 they can make a good emotional game. I'm hoping they wee just limited with h5 due to the new console, having to revamp their engine and then playing around with its capabilities. Also, they've got a new writer so it shouldn't get worse right?.......right?

There is nothing unique or original about "computers taking over humanity in benevolent dictatorship", and it wasn't executed particularly well either.