What's Halo 5 about? (Gaming)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Wednesday, November 11, 2015, 21:05 (3299 days ago) @ Cody Miller

http://carnage.bungie.org/haloforum/halo.forum.pl?read=1210294

Pertinent, because I feel like Bungie has the same problem with their storytelling in Destiny: it's not really about anything.

Read your post over at HBO. Lots of great points there.

Here's another angle, though: Maybe videogame stories don't need to be about anything.

Before you call me crazy, I think videogame stories can be about something. When I play a game that has a great story, I truly appreciate it. But for me, 99% of videogame stories are nothing more than window dressing. It's a series of events and scenarios to justify the gameplay mechanics being thrown at the player. Splinter Cell Blacklist is one of my favorite games of all time. It has a story, but I can't tell you a damn thing about it. And that's fine. In this case, the story has a very clear and specific purpose: to give the player a reason to visit all these cool locations and do badass super-spy stuff. And that's all it needed to be.

I know there are many here who will disagree with me on this, but I've always felt the same way about Halo. I've never felt connected to the narrative or characters in any meaningful way. To me it is a bunch of sci-fi gibberish to give us a reason to go all over the galaxy fighting aliens and driving cool vehicles. To me, Halo 2 is the only game in the series that actually does a decent job of building a real character arch that holds any weight.

Now, I'm not saying that I don't enjoy elements of the story and characters in the Halo series (or Splinter Cell, or countless other games). But I enjoy them in a very superficial "in the moment" way. I didn't care about the story in ODST at all, but the characters had fun personalities and some great interactions together to make the ride enjoyable and a little more emotionally grounded. For many games, I think that is enough.