Yesterday we got our first official Halo Infinite trailer following last year’s tease of Master Chief and the UNSC on Zeta Halo two to three years after the events of Halo 5: Guardians in 343 Industries’ Slipspace Engine demonstration. Since then we haven’t received any new information regarding the story behind what Infinite will be and this trailer has hit a very different tune from past Halo stories in the First Person Shooter (FPS) titles. Watching from the floor of the Microsoft Theater was an experience all on it’s own, but what the trailer got me to feel caught me off guard a little. This sense of what I’ve only been able to describe as intrigue and curiosity for something that threw me off-balance from my developed expectations of a Halo story has urged me to dust off the writing tools to express what I find fascinating about this trailer.
Short disclaimer to all my fellow fans: I’m writing this in the perspective that I’ve only watched the trailer once and have not delved into the extended conversations that the community has engaged in, dissecting every frame and reference. I’m purposefully staying away from all other articles and analyses before completing this.
The Halo Infinite trailer was lead in with the announcement that it will be released with the launch of Project Scarlett in the holiday 2020 time-frame, so there was no surprise appearance or guessing as to what trailer was actually for Halo. This quickly dispelled any anticipation of needing to backtrack my thoughts once I figured out a trailer was for Halo. However, the first scene in the trailer still threw me off balance and kept me that way for a good part of the viewing.
Warning flashes and other signs of trouble find a sleeping man harnessed to a seat as muffled audio clears and the scene becomes clear of the danger of the situation. At this point, I started to question, “Wait, is this really the Halo Infinite announcement? Why are we starting with a guy in a room and flashing warning lights?” At first I didn’t recognize the location as we would later find out to be Pelican Echo-216 with the man being the pilot. This didn’t align to any previous E3 showing. It has mystery built in, but that mystery was immediate followed up by a significant showing of environment or character that played a big part. The immediate mystery of this scene was solved by the act of the pilot overriding the warnings, causing a breach, which he then proceeded to fix.
At this point, I was still unsure where this was taking place, but after entering the Pelican loading bay, things started to piece together and the impressiveness of the Slipspace engine started to hit me. This opening really showed off some of the new tools the engine is giving the 343 development team to work with and boy does it look impressive. The dynamic lighting, shadows, facial features, realism of textures really popped in the dimly lit spacecraft. Jarred away from marveling at the impressive Slipspace engine, the next push of unbalance happens with a holo-disk of a recording from the pilot’s wife and the voice of his daughter in the background.
Outside of the mainline characters, there has not typically been plot development for supporting characters and here we have a full scene dedicated to a family connection drawing out sympathy for the father and an emotional desire to relate to the troubles of what traditionally has been left to novels. We’ve had our share of aches and pains over the loss of Cpt. Jacob Keyes, Sgt. Avery Johnson, and Cortana at the end of Halo 4 (I actually teared up on that one), but this is different. This is a supporting character in a main-line game that got more than just a name and purpose of why they are there. Aside from Halo 3: ODST, I can’t recall a time where a marine got this much focus. Oh, and the time-lapse effect of the man’s beard growing while the camera spun around the holo-disk was another awesome display of the Slipspace engine’s capabilities.
Who knows how much time passed between the beginning and end of the holo-disk playback; I’m guessing at least a week from the beard growth. The announcement of a friendly contact breaking into the moment was well executed. The man thought nothing of it the first time around, almost as if he didn’t believe it or wanted to ignore it. The second time we get the sense of urgency that he may have a way to survive. Great execution that really gave into the despair the man was feeling.
A desperate call for help and moments later we find a Spartan drifting just outside the cockpit among debris. The suspicions of the Spartan being the Master Chief quickly resolve after a fade to the Chief on a crane in the loading bay. The pilot sets him down on the ground and goes on to explain to the viewer the state of Chief’s armor: main power cells were fried so the suit powered down into survival mode. The pilot expresses his desire to override the suit to power it back up, however power conduits have already been connected. To me, this seems more like an explanation for the sake of the viewer than what would actually happen, and after all, it is just a trailer.
This sequence of scenes really helps drive home the importance that the supporting characters have to the universe. Marines are typically seen as cannon fodder in the games and mainly make their impact in the novels. I felt this really show 343’s intent to solidify that relationship in the mainline FPS games and ringing true the line from Sgt. Johnson in Halo 2, “Folks need heroes, Chief. It gives them hope!” This would be one of the many throwback references to previous titles.
Lights fade out and viewers are greeted with a boot-up sequence of the armor on the VISR. Another disconnect in this trailer is that Chief is somehow instantly awake either during or after his suit powers up. It would make sense that if he felt someone or something moving him that he would wake up; it’s just a little jarring, but pretty minor (and the more that I think about it, it does make sense).
The pilot goes to search for some diagnostic gear for the armor noticing issues with the servos in his hands and Chief reveals an empty AI chip before proceeding to walk away from the power couplings wired up to his armor. Yet another disconnect for me is, that if the pilot rerouted the last bit of power from the Pelican to the suit, why did all of the lights in the Pelican suddenly come on? I get that it was supposed to be like jumping a car, but it still seemed a bit off.
In a stoic tone, Master Chief asks for a status report to the pilot, who is at first confused and then proceeds to show him the Halo where they had supposedly lost a battle on. With whom or what remains unknown, but it continues the unraveling of a deep mystery that goes beyond the initial mystery of the pilot unconscious in his harnessed pilot seat. All assumptions (that have since been re-enforced by more hints in the trailer) lead to this ring as Zeta Halo. It’s at this point where I begin to regain my balance on what is happening round the time of this trailer. The best feeling I can associate with it is when learning to ride a bike and finally getting to the point where you don’t have to put your foot down to keep going.
To me, this really displays how 343 is wanting to change the way they are going to tell their next story. It won’t be an attempt at previous methods or a way to re-tool what Bungie did in their games, but take a unique approach to allowing us to not just play as Master Chief, but also emotionally connect to the story they wish to tell. There is so much unknown surrounding the war against the Created and with the timeline of the story seeming to be at least a few years in the future from Halo 5: Guardians. While I may not have a grasp of the events that have taken place nor their magnitude of their importance, this trailer provides an emotional anchor and an inquisitorial one in the moment. It’s like I understand what is happening in the moment and can feel that emotion, but the overall mystery of the events that led to that moment keep me on the edge of my seat.
Suddenly, power goes out; the sobering moment of letting thoughts and emotions set in is interrupted as the Pelican loses power from what is assumed to be a Guardian. The pilot gives us the clues that whatever is happening now happened before, another point in the Guardian column, not to mention what’s happening outside the cockpit. We’re set up with another throw-back with the pilot telling Chief they need to run when he retorts, “We need to Fight!” With the pilot locked into the cockpit, Chief stays in the loading bay, ready to depart as the Pelican bay door opens and the room is flooded with light from the Guardian, giving us a glimmer of hope that since Cortana took over the Guardians, some discoveries have been made to combat them.
Music heralding in the days of Halo 3 begin to play as Chief jumps out of the Pelican, showing the release time-frame. And this is where the trailer for me really begins to push the throw-backs too far for this trailer. I know there’s a lot of fans out there that want Bungie-era inspiration to make their way back into the game, but the trailer was doing so well and then it could have been done so much better. For me, I got pulled out of the immersion I was feeling because of it. Marty’s music is great and all, but there’s a time and a place for everything and that really missed the mark for me. Not to mention that the scene right afterwards was a direct call back to the beginning cut-scene from Halo 3.
For the final scene, we enter what is unmistakably a Halo control room with a beautiful display of holographic star systems and the ring showing off the “explosion” that likely took place and lead to the state we saw Zeta Halo in previously. Another breathtaking example of what Slipspace is enabling 343 developers to do. Watching Chief walk across the bridge we hear a familiar voice, Cortana say, “I chose you because you were special. I knew we would be perfect together, and I was right.” Another wincing call-back to previous Halo’s that I felt was unnecessarily forced, but did pose an interesting question at the end when Master Chief pulled out his AI chip and the hologram collapsed.
This trailer gives me a new hope in the direction 343 is taking in their story telling. The emotional connections that I felt was unlike any I’ve ever felt before in the mainline FPS games. It starts to blend a little bit of the novel story telling with the interactive media of video games like we haven’t seen in the Halo franchise. The Slipspace engine has made Halo look the best it ever has and I was astounded by how real and believable certain aspects of the trailer looked. Obviously, the big crutch of this trailer was that, in my opinion, 343 is relying too much on Bungie-era Halo elements.
The call backs began just fine and were subtle enough to feel natural, but then they were forced. I didn’t mention this, but first was the armor, which I’m personally OK with, but I know the big debate between classic and new style armor. I think there could have been more of a balance struck between the Halo 2/3 and Halo 4/5 style armors for Mjolnir that could appease both communities. Also, the music was too much like Halo 3‘s and didn’t really provide a unique feeling to me that we saw in some of the arrangements in Halo 5: Guardians.
I’m hoping the trailer is not indicative of how much they’re relying on blatant connections to the past, but I will say that the narrative portrayed by the trailer and the incredible improvements Slipspace is giving me a renewed hope in a Halo story that will be uniquely 343’s. It’s a way of storytelling and expression that I feel will work for Halo, but in a different and inviting way. Curiosity and Intrigue are still the emotions I feel among an unknown comfort where I don’t know where we are, but I think the way we’re going to find out will be spectacular and rewarding and maybe, just maybe we’ll hopefully discover something fantastic along the way.
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