The Arbiter – the Covenant Elite commander of the first Halo mission doomed to seek an honorary death in battle for his failure – is objectively one of the coolest characters in the franchise. Halo 2 might not have worked in the story department but certain aspects shine brighter in retrospect. They would lose it altogether with Halo 4. The games would never really regain this mystery until Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach.
It seems though that the Halo series never really learned this lesson. Admittedly the film series eventually forgot this lesson but that didn’t mean everyone else had to. The film Alien taught sci-fi writers everywhere the lesson that ancient, dead alien enigmas should be enigmatic. Once the Halo series began to dive into the lore behind the Forerunners and the AI robots like 343 Guilty spark it lost some of its mystery. The Forerunners are a great idea in theory but that’s all they should have been: theory. While the Flood work as a unifying plot device for the alliance between the humans and the splintered Covenant some things are better left a mystery. Combat Evolved introduced not only the Covenant and their quest to purify the galaxy with holy fire but also the zombie-adjacent parasite known as the Flood as well as the ancient race of extinct aliens that fell victim to them and built the ring-worlds, inventively called Forerunners. Halo: Combat Evolved was responsible for a lot of the ambitious universe building. Halo 2 bit off way more than it could chew in terms of story although that wasn’t entirely its own fault. Stopping them in the nick of time the Chief and Friends chase them to Installation 05, a second Halo ring-world in an attempt to stop their crazed, fundamentalists leaders, the Prophets of Truth, Mercy and Regret. Never ones to miss a party the alien Covenant jump into Earth’s orbit and begin a planetary invasion. Alongside them are Commander Miranda Keyes, daughter of the deceased Captain Keyes, and the Chief’s AI companion Cortana. Fresh off the victory on the original Halo ring world the Master Chief and his friend Sergeant Avery Johnson are receiving medals for their part in destroying the Halo ring. Once again Halo 2 put players into the size 15 boots of human super soldier Spartan John 117, the Master Chief. If Halo: Combat Evolved was Deep Impact then Halo 2 was Armageddon. It would be years before the dust of Halo 2’s influence would settle. Halo 2 was a meteor straight into the gaming world. Its improvements on the mechanics and gameplay if not the story of Halo: Combat Evolved as well as the effects of its multiplayer matchmaking would be felt for years to come. Halo 2 was, pun fully intended, a game changer.