![]() ![]() While some human characters like Lasky are likeable companions and others serve as obstructions, the confusing story elements make it hard to be invested in this side of the story, especially as it steals focus away from doing more with Cortana. The Didact is the main thing keeping Master Chief from returning to Earth though as all human vessels in the area can’t escape the gravitational pull of the Forerunner technology, and working alongside Earth’s forces, you fight your way to taking down this foe whose motivations are better told by optional story terminals rather than the main plot. Guiding a group of robotic troops known as Prometheans and taking control of the Covenant splinter group, The Didact seems to be too powerful to beat and hits on the issue where he could have killed Master Chief at multiple points but doesn’t, all while the final confrontation with him proves to be an anticlimax both in the playable portion and how it resolves story-wise. The Didact is a Forerunner, an ancient race that were the ancestors of humanity and their species was even responsible for building the Halo superweapons and other extraterrestrial installments that have cropped up throughout the franchise. There could be a deeper discussion to be had about how to support someone with negative impulses or the limits of trust, and the idea of exploring the relationship between these two that has been growing over the previous three games would have added a lot more heart to the adventure if done well, but instead Halo 4 glosses over the potential as it instead clumsily pursues a new and uninspired villain. It’s rather frustrating to see Cortana be responsible for plenty of death and destruction while in this state as Master Chief blindly pushes forward with the idea of salvaging her mind, and the fact he trusts her with such important technology and machinery grows more and more suspect over time as she becomes so unreliable and more innocent people get caught in the crossfire. ![]() Master Chief promises to return Cortana to Earth in the hopes of finding some way to prevent the mental degradation without removing her personality and agency, but the path there involves many moments where he needs to rely on Cortana to perform vital tasks that she repeatedly fails. While this allows them to think more like sentient being, it also begins to fracture their thinking as destructive impulses and negative thoughts start to take hold. Master Chief’s AI companion Cortana had grown more and more human during the time he spent with her during his battle with the Covenant and Flood, but in the Halo universe, any AI that isn’t wiped after a set amount of time will begin to undergo a process known as Rampancy. Instead, Master Chief’s combat with the Covenant soon gives way to the two elements of the game’s real plot focus: Cortana and the Didact. Despite the Covenant crumbling at the end of Halo 3, a splinter faction seems to be causing trouble for humanity still, but this won’t be explained much in the main campaign and is instead relegated to a secondary story mode called Spartan Ops. When Master Chief is woken up aboard the remains of the Forward Unto Dawn, he finds the space vessel’s remnants being attacked by a familiar foe. Thankfully this seemingly messy approach to making a new installment in a beloved first-person shooter franchise didn’t lead to an absolute mess, but picking up Halo 4 certainly feels different than playing the previous five titles in the series and not in a way that seems to be pushing the series in an exciting new direction. However, this new team of developers was a strange assemblage of people who at first didn’t know they were working on Halo 4, were specifically asked to try and correct what they “hated” about Halo when they did learn, and had work discarded when it was deemed too close to the series’s traditional design. However, when Microsoft decided they wanted Xbox’s biggest icon back in action, Bungie was on their way out to begin developing Destiny and the task of continuing the franchise fell on a newly created team known as 343 Industries. “Wake me when you need me” were the last words spoken by Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 at the end of Halo 3, and to Bungie’s credit, they managed to keep Master Chief on ice and instead developed two Halo spinoffs in the form of Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach. ![]()
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