YAY (Destiny)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Friday, September 25, 2026, 15:03 (2 hours, 21 minutes ago) @ Schedonnardus

Gameplay might have been fine, but 343 came right out of the gate p*ssing all over everything. Retconning the forerunners to be a separate race (after Halo 3 and Contact Harvest clearly state that Humans are Forerunners), redesigning the covenant to look like bad jurassic world mutants, and then not telling a coherent story throughout the trilogy. Halo 5 just drops Halo 4's story. Also, Halo 5 was a huge bait and switch with the awesome #huntthetruth campaign, that doesn't really tie into anything. And then the created war that was started in 5 and teased in Halo wars 2 is settled off-screen, only to have Infinite tease a threat worse than the flood.

I was disappointed in Halo 2's ending, not b/c it was terrible, but because Halo 2 was amazing and the ending was abrupt. I played the hell out of the OG trilogy (and Reach/ODST) campaigns, I have only ever played through the 343 games once (though i have played a fair bit of multiplayer).

I think a lot of the retcons could have been forgiven if they would have committed to a storyline and saw it through. The 343 trilogy is a lot like a "baddie of the week" cop show, where each episode is directed by someone else, and they don't really tie into each other

This is a great summation, and thank you for giving specifics. I will push back on the "p*ssing all over everything" line. Although that's a colorful way to describe the retcons, it implies some purposeful malevolence on 343's part, and I never thought that was the case. On HBO, after attending PAX West and going to a lot of 343 panels and events, I made a post about 343 vs. Bungie. 343 were too obsequious towards fans, IMO, and overly eager for us to love them. I didn't envy them because it was tough needed to thread--it was obviously very important that they retain Halo fans. I wanted them to display more confidence in where they were going. I wanted them to make a game that they wanted to play. (Hmm. This is probably worth a separate post.) My point is, the dominant attitude within the studio was never we're going to do what we want, and if you don't like it, fine. They really, really wanted every fan they could get.