Developer Knows ‘Halo 5’ Story Wasn’t What Anyone Wanted

Samantha Loveridge
Games
Games

You weren’t alone in thinking that the Halo 5 storyline was just a bit meh. Rather than being able to play as our hero Master Chief, you were forced to play most of the campaign as the sub-par Agent Locke. But don’t worry, it seems the developers over at 343 Industries have heard your wails of disappointment.

Halo Franchise Boss – aka an important fella over at Microsoft – Frank O’Connor said that they’ve taken ALL your feedback on board.

“We took some digs for storytelling in Halo 5, but they were absolutely merited,” explained O’Connor in an interview with GamesTM (via WCCFTech). “We very much realised that people wanted Master Chief’s story of Halo 5. We definitely marketed in a way that we hoped was going to bring surprise, but for some fans and certainly fans of Master Chief, it was a huge disappointment because they wanted more Chief.”

The story is something that O’Connor is calling the biggest takeaway from the reception of Halo 5.

“Doubling down on Master Chief story and the amount of focus on him was probably the easiest learning from Halo 5. That was a really simple thing to absorb and embrace.”

Interestingly O’Connor still decided to tease that an eventual Halo 6 game may well include other playable characters. It’ll also be a “more realistic and compelling” world but you can definitely expect the story to revolve around the Chief.

“Chief we tend to think of as kind of a vessel for your adventure rather than necessarily this major character in the universe. He’s really just your entry into the universe. But people have become attached to him over the last 15 years and they’ve started to sort of fill in the gaps that the character deliberately has for gameplay reasons with a genuine emotional attachment. We certainly underestimated that with Halo 5.”

“It wasn’t that surprising to me, but the volume of ‘give us more Chief’ at the end of Halo 5 was significant and so I think if anything he’s slightly more important now than he has ever been, certainly to our franchise.”

Samantha Loveridge
Sam is the UK Gaming Editor at Fandom. She's been addicted to games since she first got her paws on a GameBoy and hasn't looked back.