Halo 4 Is Probably The Piece Of Media That I Have The Biggest Love/hate Relationship With.

I mean, its not like Chief is completely and totally unquestionably loyal to the UNSC. In Halo 3 he puts his trust in Cortana over Lord Hood's orders + the whole Del Rio plotline in 4. (I would use Halo 5 as an example but I don't like that game's story)

"Master Chief and Doomguy would be best friends." Master Chief was an abducted child supersolider created to crush human rebellions who is unerringly loyal to the fascist military that created him. Doomguy canonically beat his commanding officer to death for ordering him to shoot civilians. No they would not.

No

Solar Flare

(been doing headcanon *heh* attacks for Sonic characters)

Halo 4 has such an overlooked/underappreciated score its almost baffiling.

I don't know what to do. We need nothing short of a miracle, but I doubt we will be so lucky

We are all so fucked

The coolest.

Fleetway Amy

This is what American politics feels like

Thinking back on this post and learning more and more about the production of Halo 4 and 5 I can't help but feel frustration at the direction the series went. 343 as a development studio never seemed to fully come together behind the scenes. The studio that made Halo 4, 5, and Infinite really feels like 3 separate entities.

Its hard to pin a specific blame. Microsoft's history of poor choices in managing studios, poor leadership at 343, no consistant vision, or hell maybe just a few plain old bad ideas.

Idk, I am not a developer nor was I there when these things happened. But what I can say is that the state of Halo makes me sad.

For the past decade its really felt like its been 343 trying their hardest to succeed against all odds. So it hurts seeing them come so close to greatness only to fall short or in some cases drop the ball super hard.

Halo 4 is probably the piece of media that I have the biggest love/hate relationship with.

It feels so close to being something great but doesn't quite hit the mark.

Not to mention how its a game that was the start of a storyline/trilogy that didn't really go anywhere, leaving the feeling that it was the start of something special that never got a proper follow up

Halo 5 Helmet Redesigns

A little project I’ve had in the works since the end of inktober.

There is a ton of criticism I have for the game, but one thing that’s bothered me a lot is the design of the Gen 2 armor variants and helmets. 

Many of them just didn’t look like Spartan armor anymore. By all means excellent designs by themselves, they weren’t really the best fit for Halo. This was probably to support differentiation of rewards in the card pack system in the game, but from an in-universe standpoint it makes no sense to me. 

Although it’s stated that production of power armor has been opened up to the private sector as well, there is something to be said about having compatible standards, especially in a military context and even more so when the people wearing these suits regularly get into extremely hazardous situations where damage to their armor is likely an replacements need to be made. Worse, Spartans often operate behind enemy lines without easy access to maintenance and having wildly different designs seems like a bad recipe for field repairs.

So that’s one thing I tried to do as a design exercise with this and create a more uniform look while keeping the icons that make the helmets unique: Where possible, all helmets share the same neck seal and neural interface port and a more straightforward visor. (Don’t get me started on Seeker.)

Variants where the main difference is some sort of add-on tech or visor have been redesigned to have one baseline frame with these additions on top (like back in Reach). 

Variants that were really similar in design (think EVA and Orbital) have been condensed into one.

Some helmets have been ignored entirely and ones with super-gimmicky designs (hello Warmaster) have been dialed back.

Armor designs will follow once I figure those out.