Our Brave World…

With this post I shall give the welcome to this blog and make the official unveiling of it, a blog dedicated entirely to the lore, my opinion and news surrounding the Halo Universe, with the name of Haruspex Halo. Now, while we set forth towards the unveiling of more Halo content in the upcoming E3 Microsoft Press Conference in June 13th, we prepare to receive the amount of information that is inbound at what feels like pre-2525 Faster-Than-Light Travel in our hearts and minds as the wait is dreadfully long, we await the most important exposition for the Gaming Community this year, in which we’ll obtain several reveals and debuts for a different number of games, most notably anything Halo that isn’t Halo Wars 2.



I have prepared to set forth this short but sweet analysis of my opinions surrounding the current Halo Artistic Style and the several ‘changes’ made to the various species of the Halo Universe as well as the addition of the shortly controversial humanoid Yohn'et. (A specie that in my opinion, is a welcome change. Humanoids are very scarce in the universe.) Now, while I may not heavily delve into every bit of information in this topic only concerning myself entirely around the Sangheili subspecies or artistic changes throughout half of this post, I will delve deeper into certain topics later on, And while I may agree with different views on the Bungie Era art style being somewhat better than what we have today, I do have to give 343 credit where it is due. 343i has expanded so much of the universe since you could say that they took the mantle of responsibility for all species in the Galaxy, for the lack of a better explanation, there’s many wrongdoings in their actions but the good outweighs the bad, by most certainly miles. Something that I profusely thank 343i and everyone for all the work they have put in it since they took over in 2009 after the company was founded, all they have done (Even if some of it was poorly executed) is for the greater good of the franchise, and for that I give them huge props and I will continue to support them through their mistakes and hardships.





I will start with the Hesduro subspecie of the Sangheili (Though while the subspecie is not native entirely to the colony of Hesduro, I will however refer to them as Hesduro Native for the sake of simplicity) and the highly controversial change in the assets used for Thel 'Vadam, aka The Arbiter, also often named 'The False Arbiter’ by the Covenant Remnant.

So where to start? The change of his looks is already bad enough in theory but did they really change his look? No, they did not, simple as that. To further solidify this, I will quote Grim on the subject here - “It’s important to understand that things aren’t really black and white in situations like these. There are times (many times) where visual differences have canon explanations built into them to enrich the universe overall. The different variations of Sangheili are one such example. The way that you see them depicted in H2A, H3, Reach, HW, H4, etc are all representations of how an elite can look in the universe. There will be times however, when limitations dictate the need to be more efficient with the use of assets, and something you see in a game might not necessarily represent the definitive canonical look for that thing/species/character etc 100%.” - Like it was said there due to the lack of assets and time constraints they had to conform with the use of a Hesduro native asset instead, in fact this also composes half of the SoS’ forces as they’re composed by probably a 85% of Sangheilios native Sangheili, though many people have expressed their hate or more so their dislike towards the new model for the specie, while I may not personally like this model either, the expansion to the specie is most certainly welcome in my books, I think it was one of the most important decisions that 343i and company could’ve done in any situation. Much like us; humans with a rich composure of both culture and an expansive change on our specie, The Sangheili populace is conformed by a different and expansive variety of subspecies, the Hesduro natives being one of them, we can most certainly speculate that due to the rough atmosphere and terrain of the planet this phenotype originated from they became more hunched, their skin became scaly, their mandibles grew inwards instead of outwards, one could say they’re a mutation in the specie which in their own right they certainly are, much like we could argue that any of our different variation of humans is also a mutation, but that’s besides the point.



Now to the point of this, should we give 343i such a ruse and stress for decisions such as these? My opinion is an astounding and most certain no. While we may love the old looks that we might not get back anytime soon while they continue to build assets for their games (And guessing that they remain working under the very same engine they have started working so far), I can surely say that while they’re not good looking they are an expansion to both lore and the already universe. But however should we push for getting more assets involved rather than just returning to the old art style? I firmly believe the answer to be yes, get a good mix of both worlds going because while some of Bungie’s designs where better (Say, armour, UNSC structure aesthetic, etc) 343i does work hard on expanding on the former, but I however cannot expect everyone to look at the universe in the same light that I do, but I can at least aspire to relay my views for everyone else and so here I shall relay such views as well as continuing on my short analysis on the former.



I firmly believe that Halo is no longer just that one game we first received in November 15th, 2001, Halo was just John in our eyes and for many Halo continues to be John. I however believe that Halo has grown to evolve into such a world that’s surrounded with such rich characters created by such talented artists, something that we all as fans have to thank Nylund as the man who made such an expansive universe possible. But returning to my main point however, Halo has grown to become more than just John, Halo lives through each and every character that has ever set foot in its storylines. And for all of this I can say that Halo lives entirely through us as the helm that keeps stirring the boat in the turbulent waters, because something that some of us fail to see is the fact that Halo is no longer being done in the minds of an executive (while granted, Microsoft does step in on various situations that they should not, still.), Halo is being done in the minds of the fans for the fans. And that’s the beauty of it.



Now to conclude this short but certainly sweet post, to kick off the start of Haruspex Halo before E3 pretty much kicks the gates of hell and all the news and such are broken loose for us to see in several different directions. I leave you with a question that I will also answer.

Should we really give 343i such a hassle for the current Art Direction? In my honest opinion like I have said here already, no. We should not. However we should stir the boat towards where we want it to be, let’s get the best of both worlds and create a beautiful thin line between rage and serenity, a line where we can look at it and say: This is what it should be. Because Halo is as much 343’s as it was Bungie’s, but most of all, Halo lives through each and every one of us, we’re the reason such a beautiful world that we’ve grown to call a home exists.



And this home certainly deserves the best. The best from us as much as it deserves the best from everyone working day and night for us to bring us the new chapters for those stories that we so enjoy and love.

Written by Haruspex