Halo Reach & The Tactical Super Soldier Fantasy
All the mainline Halo games have many of the elements that I’ll be discussing, but Halo Reach’s campaign is exceptional at delivering a heroic tactical super soldier fantasy. Let’s break it down!
A game’s narrative must embody the same values as it’s mechanical fantasy. It sets up expectations for the player, letting them know how they should approach this game. In particular, I think it’s worth taking note of it’s pacing and it’s premise.
Pacing
Halo Reach’s campaign starts somewhat relaxed. With long, gradual sweeping shots and an opening score that has a foreboding sense of danger or failure. But it has a steady pace that — to me — feels courageous. As if to say that things will get rough, but if we stay calm and take one step at a time then we might just get through this. That steady pace is carried throughout the experience.
Premise
Set in the future on a distant planet, you are a Spartan super-soldier assigned to a super-soldier squad, called Noble Team. Before the beginning of the game, they had lost a member that sacrificed his/her own life to save the day. They are sent out to investigate a rebel attack but soon find out that it was the beginning of an alien invasion.
Something very important is laid out here. Let’s break it down.
- You are a ‘Spartan’ super-soldier. You are an exceptionally capable warrior and, thus, would have a moral responsibility to take a stand and protect others.
- You are filling the shoes of a member that sacrificed his/her own life to save the day and so there is an unspoken expectation that you will uphold that moral responsibility.
- The team is called ‘Noble’, further reinforcing that you have a privileged position.
- You are sent out to investigate a rebel attack, you are a peacekeeper.
- There is an alien invasion, it’s time to make a stand.
The game heavily foreshadows your demise from the very beginning. It asks you to come to terms with the death of your character, this story is bigger than just Noble 6. Without a doubt, death is coming. But it’s not here yet, so you might as well stand up straight and do what needs doing now.
Exceptional feats of bravery and skill need to be just that, exceptional. If you are only ever around other super-soldier and powerful aliens you might feel quite ordinary. To emphasise your status, the game employs a variety of tricks. Some are more subtle than others.
Many details call on our familiarity with the real-world, encouraging the player to contrast the feats on-screen with what they know about reality. For example, cinematics have a handheld aesthetic and are generally edited to feel as if they are playing out in real-time. Usually only ever compressing time and space when transitioning to the next mission.
More notably, this game features many non-augmented soldiers, civilians and weaker aliens that shrink next to your towering stature. The professional military personalities that periodically broadcast to your radio, and entrust you with critical missions, helps to reinforce your importance. You truly are one of the few that can do the job, and everyone needs a hero.
Having several other Spartans around at the beginning of the game certainly helps with your confidence. Through their barks and behaviours, they demonstrate the courage that’s expected of a Spartan while keeping the enemy busy. This opens up brief windows of opportunity, enticing you to go for a riskier play. It also gives you a chance to see how the enemy reacts under fire, showing you that it is good to keep the pressure on. Being in a team allows you to share the credit too.
As the game goes on you will gradually be trusted to handle things on your own. The training wheels will be taken off and you’ll know it because it’s lonely on the ground by yourself. But you can handle it now and eventually, you’ll even be the leader of your very own squad for a time.
Reactions
Each enemy has distinct patterns of behaviour that can be reliably exploited. Importantly, you can brute force every enemy too. It can take a lot more damage to do so, but having the option be present makes you feel really smart and skilled when you exploit their weakness instead.
My favourite example is the Jackal.
It carries a large and very durable energy shield that can, admittedly, be disabled with enough brute force. You could also try to flank it or, if you have a precision weapon, you can shoot the Jackal’s exposed gun hand. Which causes it to recoil in agony, and then you’ll have a clear shot at its head. Bam bam! Two shots and it’s out.
With the right equipment, every enemy can be briefly stunned too. Even vehicles!
All enemies are prone to losing their cool for a moment. If you throw a grenade at some Grunts then they will dive out of the way, but leave themselves exposed to a follow-up attack. Elites can side-step a grenade with little disruption, but if you can take down their shields they will cry out in anger for a moment before charging at you in their more vulnerable state.
These wild and dramatic reactions inform you that you have bested your opponent. You stayed calm, and they cracked under the pressure you applied.
Feedback
The feedback from a hit registering helps to bolster your confidence and keeps you applying that pressure. From the ragdoll effect, seen when a Grunt practically backflips from a shot to the head, to the bits of armour on enemies that shatter from the shock of your grenade. Frequent feedback like that tells you that what you are doing is working, keep it up.
The Player Is More Dynamic
Enemies also shoot on sight, with no hesitation. They don’t try to sneak up on you or wait for the most opportune moment. With the addition of your movement tracker, it’s very easy to know where enemies are. So, just like a super-soldier, you have a keen sense of your surroundings.
It also helps that the environment art is generally quite clean and isn’t afraid of using large spaces. Even stairs are much wider than they might, realistically, need to be. But this makes it very easy to spot where you can go and what is cover, even from afar.
Here is the most important behaviour given to the enemies and non-augmented soldier allies alike. They don’t try very hard to close the gap or flank aggressively. They will happily pepper your cover with plasma shots from a short distance. You’ll know where they are, so pick your moment, jump out and make the push. Having the enemy act defensively makes the player feel ferocious when they act aggressively. The player is almost always gaining ground and, if they have their wits about them, they may very well be an unstoppable force.
A brief wait between each push makes it feel strategic and that’s where the Health System comes into play.
Halo Reach has a health system that is still somewhat unique compared to many of its modern counterparts. It has two distinct components :
- Shields that take the initial brunt of an attack and regenerating over time when you are not taking damage.
- Health that starts to take damage when your Shields are depleted and can only be restored by specific items. If you run out of health then you are dead.
Shields allow you to take risks but your limited health makes sure that you consider the risk and act in bursts. Move from cover to cover, look for openings and suppress the enemy.
Pacing
The game usually allows you to start the engagement. You can scan your surroundings and prioritise your targets beforehand.
Feeling calm and collected is only achieved when you feel in control of the situation. At its core, that’s the challenge the game presents to the player: Can you stay in control of the situation? It tests your ability to attack but it also tests your ability to dictate when and where that fight happens. Being able to disengage, stun enemies and improvise are all just as important as your ability to point and shoot. A few enemies on their own aren’t much against a Spartan, so the game often tests your endurance.
Randomness
To feel fair, the game has reduced the amount of randomness you have to contend with. Having predictable enemy behaviour is a key ingredient in allowing the player to feel in control and another ingredient is the reliability of your avatar.
There is no weapon sway and no accuracy penalty for hip firing. Some weapons don’t even have an ‘aim down sights’ function. Every reactive action is nearly instant, like punching and weapon swapping.
Halo Reach introduced weapon bloom to the series, a controversial addition in the community. It makes it so that shots fired in quick succession get progressively less accurate. This introduces randomness that, some would argue, harms the competitive side of the game. As far as more casual play goes, it further enhances that tactical feel. The player needs to demonstrate restraint and, yes, stay in control of the situation.
Plan your approach
Armour abilities are powerful movement-based actions that are short-lived but do recharge over time. You can only have one at a time and they can drastically change your playstyle. Some are defensive by nature (like the stationary, health healing Bubble Shield), some are offensive (like the invulnerable, EMP emitting Armour Lock) and some are more about opening up options (like the lumbering, yet endearing and unique Jet Pack). Selecting your armour ability IS planning your approach.
Halo Reach’s campaign features a few missions that have multiple paths with secondary objectives. These are largely inconsequential or just a matter of what order you do things. They are on the fly decisions but that extra touch helps you feel like a valued strategist.
Choose your tools
The game developers present you with the appropriate tools for what’s next. You’ll have a curated selection but the player still gets to have some say in the flavour of weapons, vehicles, armour abilities and the like. Crucially, many of Reach’s weapons are reliably carried by enemies and allies. You always have the option of picking up a new tool on the field, changing your tactics as the situation evolves.
Halo Reach allows you to carry two weapons, two grenade types and one Armour Ability. Keeping the moment to moment decisions relatively light and encouraging the player to improvise if they are not properly equipped.
Vehicles add variety to the game and are a great way to mechanically demonstrate the escalation of the conflict. You know that things are getting serious when they airdrop a Scorpion Tank for your next task.
The game has many quirks with its physics that can be used to give yourself an edge or to simply show off and feel like a badass. More specifically, I want to talk about how the game handles collisions.
The most obvious quirk is that the Frag Grenade bounces off surfaces, unlike the Plasma Grenade which sticks to surfaces. This makes the Frag Grenade an excellent tool for flushing out an entrenched opponent, bouncing it around corners instead of putting yourself in the line of fire.
Bullets also bounce off surfaces if the angle is shallow enough. It’s pretty generous though, I’m guessing that the maximum is about 30 degrees. Also, the bullet can ricochet quite a lot. Possibly indefinitely. Realistically, it’s use is pretty limited but if you pull off a headshot after two ricochets you’ll definitely feel like bona fide sharp shooting super-soldier.
If you drive a vehicle into an opponent at full speed you will likely kill them. A shocking revelation indeed but that’s not all. The same can also be applied to many of the objects in the environment. They can be made to move by an explosion and if they collide with you or anyone else it’s likely going to be lights out, even for a Spartan.
Some of these additions are the candles on the iced cake. They don’t really change the cake itself and they’re only there on special occasions, but it’s nice to have something to look forward to and mark an achievement.
Halo Reach is about staying in control of the situation. The writing, sound, visuals, and gameplay all work towards this same experience. They all harmonise because they all closely adhere to the same pacing and premise.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection
Unfortunately, some of the changes to Halo Reach, seen in Halo: The Master Chief Collection, harms the cohesive vision of its original form. Regarding the experience of the campaign, notably the main menu interface and the progression system for unlocking cosmetics have been completely redesigned. The results of which — in their current iteration — are very simplistic, more generic, less rewarding and disappointingly unintuitive.
On the plus side, the game is available on more devices, it runs at higher resolutions with a higher frame rate and it’s still a pretty damn good example of the craft.
More On The World
From a Westerner’s perspective at least, Halo’s world is steeped in ours. Even though it’s the far future, it’s technology and culture seem quite familiar. It’s easy for me to imagine that Reach is just like Earth and feel inherently attached to it.
I think that’s a big part of the heroic angle. I might not know or see everyone that I’m trying to save in the game but that doesn’t matter. I get the sense that there is a whole world out there. I can feel that this story is bigger than just me.
I’ll sh’laters,
Richard.
