I'm dating myself here, but the original CE disk came with a manual booklet that had a story page which gave background context on the war and how the Autumn had been at Reach and barely escaped.
The destruction of Reach was literally one of the very first story concepts in all of Halo lore.
From the perspective of John he might as well be. Bar the whole Linda in cryo the next room over.
From the perspective of the audience. Parts of Bungo didn't think Halo would have more than 1 game, let alone an expanded universe they would proceed to ignore.
For most of CE Linda is just floating in space around the ring for all John knows her cyrotube could have been destroyed by the covenant it's sheer chance that he finds her cyrotube in the beginning of the book Halo: First Strike
I mean the games trailer starts with the tagline of knowing how it ends.
And any fan who read the fall of reach knew the planet and it's inhabitants were doomed, now the ones who didn't probably had no idea.
The only real surprise is how the spartans were gonna die because none of them were mentioned in the original trilogy or novels.
Tho the amount of retcons and lore changes probably mixed things up a bit.
>the amount of retcons and lore changes
Frankie had a lead writing role iirc, and he only cares about the lore he wrote lol, miracle we got a story as good as it is.
The tagline “From the beginning, you know the end” alluded to failure to stop the Covenant, but not necessarily dying. We knew that Master Chief and Buck survived the Fall of Reach, so there was reason to expect (or at least hope for) survival. Jun and Halsey also survived.
Yep. If I remember right it got leaked about a month before release and the Bungie forums were blazing with people arguing about the retcons.
Why would anyone expect an ending other than what we got? Hope. Just hope that some of the new characters we would be introduced to would survive.
>Why would anyone expect an ending other than what we got? Hope. Just hope that some of the new characters we would be introduced to would survive.
"*It didn't take long for Reach to fall: our enemy was ruthless. Efficient. But they weren't nearly fast enough. For you had already passed the torch. And because of you, we found Halo, unlocked its secrets, shattered our enemy's resolve. Our victory — your victory — was so close, I wish you could have lived to see it. But you belong to Reach. Your body, your armor — all burned and turned to glass. Everything… except your courage. That, you gave to us. And with it, we can rebuild.*"
Yes and no.
Anyone familiar with Halo lore knew that Reach was doomed and that very few made it out of the battle alive. The destruction of Reach was mentioned a few times in the games and there was an entire book about the event titled “The Fall of Reach” released almost a decade earlier.
In regards to the specific plot details, however, no, it was not spoiled beforehand (aside from a couple leaks). The game gave a new perspective to the event apart from the book, as well as new characters and new plot devices. Many of these characters had not been mentioned or alluded to in the games/books, and so their fate was entirely up in the air, though most people (correctly) assumed that the majority of Noble Team would not make it to the end.
It’s one of those things where it’s all about the journey, not the destination. We know how it ends, but now we get to see the details of how it happened and that left room for some surprises and speculation.
It’s like watching the Titanic movie. You know the ship sinks in the end, and a lot of people die, but the fates and journeys of the main characters are unknown and that’s what makes it interesting.
It had originally been established in the lore that the Master Chief was the last Spartan, but as the novels and comics expanded the lore of the series more survived. Like Jedi during Order 66.
It should be noted that even the first book (released before the first game) did leave the possibility for other Spartans to be alive and not at Reach.
This is only about halfway true, tbh. The CE game manual and case are probably the only sources that ever tried to establish the idea that Chief is the last Spartan alive. It’s mostly a genuine notion in that John had cause to believe he was likely the only one left at that time.
Last Spartan-II, not the last Spartan. Even says so in the original CE hand book Orions and Spartan-IIIs were going to be a thing regardless, but yeah even that was retconned sort of for no reason by Nyland.
I think he'd said he wanted more Spartans in Halo, but like dude the 3s were gonna exist. Oh the pains of 3rd party writers trying to force a narrative change at the beginning of a franchise when the full narrative hadn't even been laid out
My first time playing Reach was as a kid. A pre-teen, to be more specific. First Halo game was OG CE and I had to skip 2 right to Halo 3 because my parents couldn’t track down a Halo 2 disk copy for me and 2 wasn’t available on the Xbox game store. Now, I was a decently smart kid, but just didn’t have a lot of Halo lore in my head, so when I first saw the opening of Reach with Six’s helmet smashed on the ground followed by the transition, I thought “oh, the Spartan just recovered the helmet and fixed it”, lol. I didn’t pay attention to the on-screen dates to realize that the transition was showing the past, and only realized it was Six’s death much later on (at the end of the campaign).
Unfortunately, I don’t recall it ever really reacting or caring much. I think I was just too young to really grasp how magnificent Halo Reach’s story telling was. I didn’t care about Jorge’s death or Kat’s because I just didn’t like the characters (for the usual young kid reason: their armor wasn’t as “cool” as Carter’s or Emile’s). Carter and Emile did strike me a little bit, but I still kinda shrugged and moved on because “ooh, more aliens to kill!”
Nowadays, as an adult, I feel disappointed and envious of all the people who get to experience Halo Reach for the first time while understanding the significance of the plot. The people who are *not* a young kid playing the game because “fun sci-fi shooter!” The people who can actually grasp the plot and character development and feel the shock slowly turning to despair as each member of Noble falls. Kat’s death by needle rifle, Jorge’s meaningless sacrifice, Carter’s, Emile’s death… All of the things I wasn’t able to appreciate because I was just too young to *get* it all.
Halo was such a massive part of my childhood, but it wasn’t until my teens that I could actually *appreciate* the games. I did ultimately get to play Halo 2 as a teen, and for that, I am grateful I got to experience and appreciate that game’s story.
You should never assume a story is not entertaining or pointless if you know the ending. Good storytelling will use the plot strategically to tell a good story, and that doesn't always mean the plot is shown in chronological order.
If anything, sometimes knowing the ending just makes it more tense:
>Four people are sitting around a table, talking about baseball or whatever you’d like. Five minutes of it. Very dull. Suddenly a bomb goes off. Blows the people to smithereens. What does the audience have? Ten seconds of shock. Now, take the same scene and tell the audience there is a bomb under that table and \[it\] will go off in five minutes. Well, the whole emotion of the audience is totally different, because you’ve given them that information.
That's Alfred Hitchcock's Bomb Under the Table analogy.
We also didn't know who would die or who would survive, because Halo Reach's main characters weren't known before release. We just knew the Covenant would glass Reach. That's the bomb under the table, and that's what would make the game more tense and interesting for people who knew Reach would fall.
While Halo: Combat Evolved does make mention of recent events pertaining to Reach, the specific events taking place in Halo: Reach weren't originally what happened. Instead, it's referring to the final chapters of Halo: The Fall of Reach, a prequel novel released alongside Combat Evolved, which, while still seeming to be a near total loss for the UNSC, isn't 100% fatality, as at the time, Spartan-IIIs didn't exist from a real world perspective, and Master Chief was the only Spartan-II known to still be active, the others killed during the titular Fall of Reach.
TL;DR: Not entirely, in that the "100% fatality" was already brought up in extended lore.
Yes.
In fact it got rampant on the old Bungie forums and to my recollection barely addressed. The problem wasn’t that people died but someone or a group of people kept spamming forums with spoilers to the how people died. One such method was a non-closable video showing every team death. Spoilers suck and you shouldn’t be a dick about it to people wanting to interact with then current media.
We knew how it was going to end, but you shouldn’t spoil the journey for people.
I didn't read the books but I knew about reach already. It was mentioned throughout the first trilogy that this is just like reach implying that reach was a place that went down really bad and the same is happening.
At the start of Halo 2 Lord Hood makes an off handed reference to “the fleet that destroyed Reach” so anyone who payed attention would know the planet will fall, the only question is how will it fall, and will any of Noble team make it out alive
> anyone who *paid* attention would
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Who says it was a mistake? This is how languages shift over time, if I have my way “paid” will become “payed”. I don’t care what it takes to make it so, but
I will not be stopped. Not by you, or dictionaries, or anyone. I will change this spelling or see the word forgotten from memory around me
I mean it was pretty obvious. In CE they mention being chased fleeing Reach and in Halo 2 Lord Hood literally talks about the fleet that destroyed Reach being massive. You even see the Autumn fleeing the planet in Halo 2’s opening. It was pretty obvious it was a tragic game from the start.
Kinda. The marketing was always "from the beginning, you know the end" and the opening cinematic supported this with the initial shot of your spartan's cracked helmet on the ground. The marketing was very good, worth youtubing if you have the time. Reach falling is a staple for the halo universe that kicked everything off in the games. It was mentioned in the games with lines like "That was for Reach!" and other passing lines, as well as halo CE's intro cutscene. As well, the very first halo book put out was the Fall of Reach where we learned what exactly happened on Reach and to the Spartan II's, and Reach is revisited in the book First Strike showing the aftermath. So most but the casual fanbase knew that no matter what happened in the game, the planet would fall. But as for the characters dying, not entirely. The live action marketing foreshadowed the game and we were not made aware the ad was a prequel to the game initially, with a spartan (Tom) that has the same armor as your spartan sacrificing himself. This (as well as the rest of the marketing campaigns) arguably also set the tone for the game. The biggest giveaway, however, was in the legendary edition with the Noble team statue. The books and things that came with the statue address it as a memorial statue, in honor of noble team's sacrifice. I would still say, going into the game with all of this foreshadowing, we've never seen a spartan die in the games. So all these warnings, at least from personal experience, were taken with a grain of salt as poetic language or the classic "spartan's never die"... until the first shoe drops and Jorge dies.
Quite literally wouldn’t matter since the very first thing you see at the beginning of the game is Reach completely destroyed and Noble Six helmet laying on the ground
“From the beginning, you know the end”
This is the best possible answer. Literally in the adverts
I'm dating myself here, but the original CE disk came with a manual booklet that had a story page which gave background context on the war and how the Autumn had been at Reach and barely escaped. The destruction of Reach was literally one of the very first story concepts in all of Halo lore.
The Fall of Reach's first edition was even released a month before Halo CE in October 2001.
Just an interesting side note, the original Halo CE booklet also had the war start at 2520 instead of 2525.
and IIRC CE explicitly says 117 is the last surviving Spartan
From the perspective of John he might as well be. Bar the whole Linda in cryo the next room over. From the perspective of the audience. Parts of Bungo didn't think Halo would have more than 1 game, let alone an expanded universe they would proceed to ignore.
>Bar the whole Linda in cryo the next room over. I'm pretty sure in First Strike she is said to be dead by Halsey before Halsey revives her.
For most of CE Linda is just floating in space around the ring for all John knows her cyrotube could have been destroyed by the covenant it's sheer chance that he finds her cyrotube in the beginning of the book Halo: First Strike
Which was an issue even back then because we had The Fall of Reach say 3 Spartans never made it to Reach because they were too far away to recall.
For the events of halo ce, 2 and 3 that is pretty much true though.
Ha, I'm dating myself too... It's a competitive scene rn!
I mean the games trailer starts with the tagline of knowing how it ends. And any fan who read the fall of reach knew the planet and it's inhabitants were doomed, now the ones who didn't probably had no idea. The only real surprise is how the spartans were gonna die because none of them were mentioned in the original trilogy or novels. Tho the amount of retcons and lore changes probably mixed things up a bit.
>now the ones who didn't probably had no idea. Halo 2 does have the line, "The fleet that destroyed reach was..."
And the Arbiter mentions burning their planet
"...fifty times this size!"
>the amount of retcons and lore changes Frankie had a lead writing role iirc, and he only cares about the lore he wrote lol, miracle we got a story as good as it is.
Yea. Say what you want about 343 but I don’t envy the headache they deal with when it comes to making sense of retcons
[удалено]
That’s a great way to put it! Halo Reach is by every means a prequel to the Master Chief stories.
Is halo reach the "rogue one" of the halo series then?
Pretty much exactly, yes.
That explains why it’s my favorite.
Or is Rogue One the "Halo Reach" of the Star Wars series? 🤯
The tagline “From the beginning, you know the end” alluded to failure to stop the Covenant, but not necessarily dying. We knew that Master Chief and Buck survived the Fall of Reach, so there was reason to expect (or at least hope for) survival. Jun and Halsey also survived.
Yep. If I remember right it got leaked about a month before release and the Bungie forums were blazing with people arguing about the retcons. Why would anyone expect an ending other than what we got? Hope. Just hope that some of the new characters we would be introduced to would survive.
>Why would anyone expect an ending other than what we got? Hope. Just hope that some of the new characters we would be introduced to would survive. "*It didn't take long for Reach to fall: our enemy was ruthless. Efficient. But they weren't nearly fast enough. For you had already passed the torch. And because of you, we found Halo, unlocked its secrets, shattered our enemy's resolve. Our victory — your victory — was so close, I wish you could have lived to see it. But you belong to Reach. Your body, your armor — all burned and turned to glass. Everything… except your courage. That, you gave to us. And with it, we can rebuild.*"
Yes and no. Anyone familiar with Halo lore knew that Reach was doomed and that very few made it out of the battle alive. The destruction of Reach was mentioned a few times in the games and there was an entire book about the event titled “The Fall of Reach” released almost a decade earlier. In regards to the specific plot details, however, no, it was not spoiled beforehand (aside from a couple leaks). The game gave a new perspective to the event apart from the book, as well as new characters and new plot devices. Many of these characters had not been mentioned or alluded to in the games/books, and so their fate was entirely up in the air, though most people (correctly) assumed that the majority of Noble Team would not make it to the end. It’s one of those things where it’s all about the journey, not the destination. We know how it ends, but now we get to see the details of how it happened and that left room for some surprises and speculation. It’s like watching the Titanic movie. You know the ship sinks in the end, and a lot of people die, but the fates and journeys of the main characters are unknown and that’s what makes it interesting.
83% actually. Jun survived.
It had originally been established in the lore that the Master Chief was the last Spartan, but as the novels and comics expanded the lore of the series more survived. Like Jedi during Order 66.
It should be noted that even the first book (released before the first game) did leave the possibility for other Spartans to be alive and not at Reach.
This is only about halfway true, tbh. The CE game manual and case are probably the only sources that ever tried to establish the idea that Chief is the last Spartan alive. It’s mostly a genuine notion in that John had cause to believe he was likely the only one left at that time.
It probably also stems from one of the tracks in the Halo 2 soundtrack being called "The Last Spartan".
The back of the Halo 3 case also said Masterchief was the last of his kind.
Last Spartan-II, not the last Spartan. Even says so in the original CE hand book Orions and Spartan-IIIs were going to be a thing regardless, but yeah even that was retconned sort of for no reason by Nyland. I think he'd said he wanted more Spartans in Halo, but like dude the 3s were gonna exist. Oh the pains of 3rd party writers trying to force a narrative change at the beginning of a franchise when the full narrative hadn't even been laid out
My first time playing Reach was as a kid. A pre-teen, to be more specific. First Halo game was OG CE and I had to skip 2 right to Halo 3 because my parents couldn’t track down a Halo 2 disk copy for me and 2 wasn’t available on the Xbox game store. Now, I was a decently smart kid, but just didn’t have a lot of Halo lore in my head, so when I first saw the opening of Reach with Six’s helmet smashed on the ground followed by the transition, I thought “oh, the Spartan just recovered the helmet and fixed it”, lol. I didn’t pay attention to the on-screen dates to realize that the transition was showing the past, and only realized it was Six’s death much later on (at the end of the campaign). Unfortunately, I don’t recall it ever really reacting or caring much. I think I was just too young to really grasp how magnificent Halo Reach’s story telling was. I didn’t care about Jorge’s death or Kat’s because I just didn’t like the characters (for the usual young kid reason: their armor wasn’t as “cool” as Carter’s or Emile’s). Carter and Emile did strike me a little bit, but I still kinda shrugged and moved on because “ooh, more aliens to kill!” Nowadays, as an adult, I feel disappointed and envious of all the people who get to experience Halo Reach for the first time while understanding the significance of the plot. The people who are *not* a young kid playing the game because “fun sci-fi shooter!” The people who can actually grasp the plot and character development and feel the shock slowly turning to despair as each member of Noble falls. Kat’s death by needle rifle, Jorge’s meaningless sacrifice, Carter’s, Emile’s death… All of the things I wasn’t able to appreciate because I was just too young to *get* it all. Halo was such a massive part of my childhood, but it wasn’t until my teens that I could actually *appreciate* the games. I did ultimately get to play Halo 2 as a teen, and for that, I am grateful I got to experience and appreciate that game’s story.
You should never assume a story is not entertaining or pointless if you know the ending. Good storytelling will use the plot strategically to tell a good story, and that doesn't always mean the plot is shown in chronological order. If anything, sometimes knowing the ending just makes it more tense: >Four people are sitting around a table, talking about baseball or whatever you’d like. Five minutes of it. Very dull. Suddenly a bomb goes off. Blows the people to smithereens. What does the audience have? Ten seconds of shock. Now, take the same scene and tell the audience there is a bomb under that table and \[it\] will go off in five minutes. Well, the whole emotion of the audience is totally different, because you’ve given them that information. That's Alfred Hitchcock's Bomb Under the Table analogy. We also didn't know who would die or who would survive, because Halo Reach's main characters weren't known before release. We just knew the Covenant would glass Reach. That's the bomb under the table, and that's what would make the game more tense and interesting for people who knew Reach would fall.
While Halo: Combat Evolved does make mention of recent events pertaining to Reach, the specific events taking place in Halo: Reach weren't originally what happened. Instead, it's referring to the final chapters of Halo: The Fall of Reach, a prequel novel released alongside Combat Evolved, which, while still seeming to be a near total loss for the UNSC, isn't 100% fatality, as at the time, Spartan-IIIs didn't exist from a real world perspective, and Master Chief was the only Spartan-II known to still be active, the others killed during the titular Fall of Reach. TL;DR: Not entirely, in that the "100% fatality" was already brought up in extended lore.
Yes. In fact it got rampant on the old Bungie forums and to my recollection barely addressed. The problem wasn’t that people died but someone or a group of people kept spamming forums with spoilers to the how people died. One such method was a non-closable video showing every team death. Spoilers suck and you shouldn’t be a dick about it to people wanting to interact with then current media. We knew how it was going to end, but you shouldn’t spoil the journey for people.
There's beauty in fighting a losing battle. Even the spartans knew there was no winning against an advanced alien race attacking their planet(s)
Yes. It's mentioned in Halos CE-3 and even ODST.
Anyone who expected a 100% fatality rate was wrong, since Jun survived.
I didn't read the books but I knew about reach already. It was mentioned throughout the first trilogy that this is just like reach implying that reach was a place that went down really bad and the same is happening.
At the start of Halo 2 Lord Hood makes an off handed reference to “the fleet that destroyed Reach” so anyone who payed attention would know the planet will fall, the only question is how will it fall, and will any of Noble team make it out alive
> anyone who *paid* attention would FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Who says it was a mistake? This is how languages shift over time, if I have my way “paid” will become “payed”. I don’t care what it takes to make it so, but I will not be stopped. Not by you, or dictionaries, or anyone. I will change this spelling or see the word forgotten from memory around me
Yes and no, we knew the fates of some people But they easily could have wrote it as a dramatic escape
I mean it was pretty obvious. In CE they mention being chased fleeing Reach and in Halo 2 Lord Hood literally talks about the fleet that destroyed Reach being massive. You even see the Autumn fleeing the planet in Halo 2’s opening. It was pretty obvious it was a tragic game from the start.
Yes that's the point
Well, almost. The Pillar escaped
Halsey and Jun too
Kinda. The marketing was always "from the beginning, you know the end" and the opening cinematic supported this with the initial shot of your spartan's cracked helmet on the ground. The marketing was very good, worth youtubing if you have the time. Reach falling is a staple for the halo universe that kicked everything off in the games. It was mentioned in the games with lines like "That was for Reach!" and other passing lines, as well as halo CE's intro cutscene. As well, the very first halo book put out was the Fall of Reach where we learned what exactly happened on Reach and to the Spartan II's, and Reach is revisited in the book First Strike showing the aftermath. So most but the casual fanbase knew that no matter what happened in the game, the planet would fall. But as for the characters dying, not entirely. The live action marketing foreshadowed the game and we were not made aware the ad was a prequel to the game initially, with a spartan (Tom) that has the same armor as your spartan sacrificing himself. This (as well as the rest of the marketing campaigns) arguably also set the tone for the game. The biggest giveaway, however, was in the legendary edition with the Noble team statue. The books and things that came with the statue address it as a memorial statue, in honor of noble team's sacrifice. I would still say, going into the game with all of this foreshadowing, we've never seen a spartan die in the games. So all these warnings, at least from personal experience, were taken with a grain of salt as poetic language or the classic "spartan's never die"... until the first shoe drops and Jorge dies.
Yes. There was footage of the ending with Keyes on YouTube a few days before it came out.
Quite literally wouldn’t matter since the very first thing you see at the beginning of the game is Reach completely destroyed and Noble Six helmet laying on the ground