In this series, I give an honest account of playing the Halo games for the first time in 2019. Last week I played the first entry in the series, Halo:CE, and found the game to be worthy of its status as a classic.

With that in mind, I went into Halo 2 with some fairly high expectations, and for the most part, those expectations were met. Here are my thoughts on…

Halo 2

Well I guess there’s one benefit of playing the game this many years late; I don’t have to wait 4 years to see what happens after that cliffhanger of an ending. 2004 me would have felt very cheated if I found out I would have to buy a new console to see the rest of the story.

But before I discuss what is clearly the game’s weakest point, I want to first talk about where Halo 2 succeeds.

Last week, I praised Halo:CE’s confidence when it came to telling its story, drawing upon years of film to create a game that really did feel cinematic. Some might argue that the realisation of their cinematic vision was held back by the limitations of the engine. The same cannot be said for Halo 2. There is a complexity to the cutscenes that was absent in the first game; more varied camera angles, a focus on secondary characters within the scene, cross cutting between the Arbiter and the Master Chief. If Halo:CE was a loving imitation of cinema, then Halo 2 is the transcendence from imitation to the creation of something wholly original.

It begins with the decision to make the player an active participant in both sides of the war. By placing us in the shoes of the Arbiter as well as the Master Chief, we gain an understanding of the Covenant that we didn’t have in Halo:CE. This is felt most profoundly in the opening cutscene, which cuts between the celebration of the Master Chief’s success and the condemnation of the Arbiter’s failure. It was a narrative shift that took me completely by surprise, and yet it was necessary in creating a believable and engaging world.

This is because Halo 2 offers us information that constantly makes us question our perception of events, such as the invasion of Earth. As the attack begins, we play as the Master Chief, defending ourselves from what is clearly an attempt to finish what the Covenant began in the first game. Yet we soon learn that the High Prophet of Regret, the instigator of the attack, was not expecting a human force to be present on Earth, putting the motivations of the invasion into question. The simple fight against evil in the first game here becomes something much messier, and Halo 2′s slow revelations feel all the more rewarding for it.

If I could criticise the story in one place (aside from the ending), it would be in the decision to give the Flood a voice through Gravemind. Previously, I spoke about their Lovecraftian influences; they were a powerful, terrifying, and ancient force whose motivations are seemingly unknowable. But by providing the Flood with a direct way to communicate their plans, much of that terror has been stripped away. It’s certainly not a direction I was expecting them to take, and I hope they don’t use Gravemind to answer every question I might have about the Flood. I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

In terms of gameplay, there has been a series of small but meaningful improvements that go a long way in creating a more enjoyable experience. Last week, I complained about the handling of the Warthog, whose uneven physics often left me upside down and more than a little frustrated. When I first encountered this old enemy in Halo 2, I could already see the trail of destruction in the wake of my less than stellar driving. And yet, this trepidation soon turned to joy as I was asked not to drive, but to simply man the mounted turret. That I could do. This small additional offering of choice vastly improved my time with the game, particularly when the AI was just as competent as they were in Halo: CE. Add dual wielding and vehicle sections that don’t feel like a chore, and you have a game that truly is a joy to play even in 2019.

And now onto that ending.

I’m not completely against cliffhangers. They provide a sense of anticipation for the next game, and it’s always enjoyable to question what comes next. But for a cliffhanger to be effective, the main plot has to be resolved in a satisfactory way. The problem with Halo 2’s ending is that the game feels like 2/3 of a story. Our main motivation is to find the index and stop the Halo ring from wiping out all life in the galaxy, and so the expectation is for that to be resolved by the end of the game, particularly when we achieved the same in the first game. And yet the credits roll with the mission still ongoing, the Master Chief hitching a ride on the Ark to finish the job.

Whilst there are story threads that are tied up by the end of the campaign, such as the death of Tartarus, and the Arbiter’s redemption, there is little satisfaction to be had when we’re told there’s one more thing left to do but we’ll have to wait until the next game to do it. It feels unfinished, inconclusive and ultimately disappointing, particularly when the storytelling was so strong up until this point.

Ultimately then, Halo 2 is a game to be commended for its many strengths. It is an achievement both technical and in regards to the world Bungie have continued to build upon. But I was left with a feeling of deflation from a vision so clearly cut short. As I move on to Halo 3, I have to wonder; will Bungie ever nail an ending?