Discover the Halo collection on Steam. Explore a wide range of games from the iconic franchise.
Discover the Halo collection on Steam. Explore a wide range of games from the iconic franchise.
I haven’t played Halo Wars because I don’t enjoy strategy titles. I tried once and didn’t get into it. Never played 2. The problem with 343 is that they’re heavily focused on adapting books and movies, creating a "continuity across mediums" approach. Bungie didn’t follow through with that. There were Halo novels, but Bungie didn’t author them, so they weren’t taken seriously and often clashed with the material because it wasn’t canon. Halo 4 can be played without all the extra content since it follows right after Halo 3. But after reading a review, I lost track of how much I missed it—since it’s not great. Halo 5 is terrible. Spoiler: In Halo 4, Cortana becomes angry and behaves like a jerk while Chief battles the Forerunner, which is really frustrating to play against. Then Cortana dies, somehow comes to life to touch Chief’s chest because they needed a romantic moment, and she later dies again. Halo 5’s version of Cortana is suddenly alive, controls new Forerunner guardians that never existed before, and the story ends with a cliffhanger about her threatening galactic destruction. I don’t remember much. I played it once and it was awful. I’d really advise skipping both 4 and 5. They promise Halo Infinite will be self-contained, but they either need to clarify the confusing events in 4 and 5 or just ignore them. I’m unsure. Looking at the gameplay shows it could work, but my thoughts suggest the open world and story constraints might make it hard to enjoy the narrative.