I always thought Long Night of Solace getting onto Reach is a little stupid, I understand from a game design perspective if you followed the book the battle lasted only a few hours and you cant make a game with that. I think you should make a breakdown of how the battle was described in Fall of Reach, that had a lot more information on what was present and the course of the battle, even if its not totally canon it would allow you to do a more in depth battle video, but regardless please keep it up I love this series and keep it up.
Think you can do a comparison video? Who's the more effective soldier 'A Pilot and there TITAN' from the TITANFALL series or 'A Spartan II with an AI' from the Halo series
@Elgar7022 thats honestly a good question. We know lore wise that the Covenant had some stealth tech for some of their smaller ships but as far as we know they dont have the stealth tech to hide a ship thats roughly 29 Kilometers in length. Which just to give some perspective, the CAS class assault carrier that the CSO super carrier shares the same base design doesnt even match the CSO class's fore section in length. Yea Reach just caused way too many issues and questions to come up that cant really be answered.
@@TheVergile It's not impossible. It's just... I would REALLY like them to explain just how it got there. It's the one piece of Halo lore that I really question just how the covenant managed it.
I have to say my favorite story element from Halo would have to be the point in time when the Sangheili began openly questioning the doctrine set forth by the prophets. They just couldn't understand why a species that exhibited such resourcefulness and unbreakable resolve would be marked for extinction.
MUH Geschichte It's only natural that this would occur. Of course there were zealots who believe wholeheartedly in "the great journey" just as there were more rebellious elements who would have inevitably turned on the prophets. The real Tipping Point came with the moderates. They would be the ones who were conflicted and who upon learning the truth would turn on the zealots and by extension the Covenant. It's not so much that Humanity pitted the Sangheli against one another. They merely provided a little push.
I find it funny how they've been in a war for 27 years, and now they start asking questions. Hell, why didn't they say anything before the war started?
The Android from Aiur Yeah. I mean, space is big, and planets are thousands of kilometers across but you simply cannot sneak 28km past an orbital defence grid. Its bullshit. The novel was better. The covenant literally just rocked up with a gargantuan fleet second only to the fleet of high charity, and they hit reach with everything they had. Reach fell in a week, not 3 months like in the game.
Never liked the 1 week to fall timeline, i mean i can see it happening with the UNSC so outnumbered and outgunned, and surprised, but we are talking about probably tens to hundreds of thousands of UNSC land based assets. Sure that means almost nothing if the Covies glass the planet from orbit, but 1 week for total land victory... Reach was a UNSC fortress world... 1 month is my fair estimation.
Mr. Swordfish I can see where you coming from, but I think the 1 week timeline conveys just how hopeless Humanities situation is. Reach, the planet sized fortress and the last line of defense for Earth, was lost in a week. Not only that, but it is belived that every Spartan died in defense of thier home. The ease of Reaches demise is spread throught the UNSC and an already low morale drops even further, yet rumors begin to spead that lone Spartan survived the Fall. This give us an atmosphere where The Master Chief is literally the last hope Humanity has for winning the war.
I think this is one of the things we always forget about halo battles. Its more grounded in reality, its pretty obvious there would be a lot of open gaps on Reach, its a pretty big planet. Despite the covenant being dogmatic and zealous, they still have enough smarts to exploit weaknesses on an enemy. Also the covenant invasion fleet on Reach was commanded by the (not yet) Arbiter, and from the lore, he stood out from other Elite commanders on that he actually used tactics and strategy instead of simply bum-rushing an enemy because of muh-honor.
When you destroy a massive covenant capital ship losing numerous navy personnel a cruiser and a spartan 2 but then an even bigger fleet appears soon followed by one of the greatest commanders in the halo universe
RK7 I don't think it was the particular justice who jumps right after the destruction of the Long Night of Solace because this fleet had brutes which are not... appreciate by Thel
Fun fact: the Covenant had about 310 ships assaulting Reach, and yet over 2/3 of it was destroyed by the mark V super MAC cannons on the orbital defense platforms, and also the nuclear minefield the UNSC had placed around the planet
No, it would actually be 750 ships coz when regret attacked earth, cortana said he had 15 ships in his fleet, then lord hood says the fleet that destroyed reach was 50 times this size. So correct me if im wrong but im pretty sure it would be 750 ships
@@twister107 then again, 500 ships of that fleet was going to be used to invade earth but they failed in the operation first strike book and half of them maybe more were now in elite control, then there's also the unsc and covenant fighting in the orbit of delta halo and the ships in halo 3 are the stragglers from operation first strike
Sadly I don't think Reach could have been saved even if operation red flag Succeeded we have seen that the covenant were willing to let one of their Prophets die so I don't see them caring about a high ranking official even if all of humanity forces were their they probably would have lost maybe if they had enough defense to out last then that might have worked
It wouldn't have succeeded, the only reason Humanity 'won' the war is because the Covenant broke internally after the discovery of the Halo Array. If Halo hadn't been discovered and Red Flag hadn't been scrapped, the Covenant would have won because the Covenant was internally unified and had faith in their leadership. Killing or trying to hold a Prophet hostage would have only led to an escalation of an already horribly destructive war. Humanity didn't win, it survived only by a extremely lucky set of circumstances.
Stingra87 not only the breaking of the covenant, but also the flood outbreak at installation 05 destroyed High charity and the "largest convent fleet humanity has ever seen" so holy fuck we got so fucking lucky
I agree as well Cory Dorton. That late in the war, there’s nothing the UNSC could have done to stand up against such incredible Covenant firepower. If Reach has more ships and more ODP’s, perhaps the outcome may have been better or at least more Covenant ships would have been destroyed. Though with the several thousand ships escorting High Charity as seen in Halo 2 out there, I don’t think it would have mattered.
Stingr87 I don't the covenant would stay together even if Red Flag was successful. Truth was already looking for a way to replace the Elites, and the Elites were now doubting their faith on the Great Journey (especially since the whole war is based off a lie). Even if installation 04 was not discovered and Humanity lost, the Covenant would have likely still fall into a civil war. Operation Red Flag would just accelerate Truth's plans.
99.99% of what i know about the halo universe comes from this channel. Really wish microsoft wasnt such cunts with their console exclusives. I'd play the hell out of those games on PC.
To put it simply, Operation: RED FLAG got cancelled because of the invasion of Reach, in which most of the Spartan IIs and the Pillar of Autumn (the ship made for the operation) were reassigned to defend the planet. It's unknown whether or not RED FLAG would have actually worked. The idea was to use the Autumn to capture a Covenant ship, find the Covenant homeworld or capital (High Charity), capture the existing leadership and force a truce. The problem was that they had absolutely no idea where High Charity was, and even if they did find it there was a big problem; they had to get past all of the ships and defenses in the fleet without raising suspicion. And then they had to fight their way to the Hierarchs themselves. Add onto this the fact that High Charity's defense fleet had an ever-changing authorization code and were willing to vaporize any ship that didn't have it, Operation RED FLAG probably wouldn't have worked.
RED FLAG was kind of a last ditch effort, even the top brass of the UNSC thought that. It was clear that humanity would not/could not win the war, so it was a operation to give them enough time to properly prepare. The problem was there was so many unknowns on the UNSC side that it would have totally failed like how they didn't know about High Charity and how devout the Prophets would have been and likely rather have died then let the humans have a cease fire.
To be fair, it would have never worked. Even if they succeeded in capturing a prophet, the entire Covenant would be pissed, and try to exterminate them even faster.
And even if they got on too High Charity, Elites are literally depicted as being Spartans equals in The Fall of Reach, and it's more realistic with the damage plasma does to the Spartans armor they're not unstoppable plasmasponge juggernauts, it doesn't take much plasma to kill a Spartan II in Mark IV, V, or Mark VI armor at all. They would never make it thro High Charity anyways Halo 2 regarding actual Halo lore would've been utterly impossible no matter how many Spartan IIs are there
Makaveli Shakur The thing is, in the original print of The Fall of Reach, the idea was that Elites had basically sat out the war until the very last year. Bungee didn’t really like this idea, so they started soft-retconning it away from pretty early on, so that by the time Ghosts of Onyx came out (written by the same guy who did The Fall of Reach), we have 12 year old Spartan-IIIs in SPI armor easily beating the shit out of sword-armed Elites in CQC.
I thought the Covenant fleet was much larger than that just from a line from Halo 2 between Cortana and Lord Admiral Hood. Cortana: 15 Covenant Capital Ships staying just outside the kill zone. Lord Hood: you have the MAC Gun Cortana, soon as they come in range, open up. Cortana: gladly. Lord Hood: something’s not right, the fleet that destroyed Reach was 50 Times this size. 15X50=750, that’s been the number I always thought it was. Either way, it was an absolutely massive fleet that the UNSC didn’t really stand a chance against.
Penitent Owl yeah i always assumed it was like some sort of exaggeration or maybe it was mostly made of like corvettes or many smaller ships with the capital ships makes more sense to me that way
Christopher Murphy please all the halo games since have been just as good and fun. The only thing halo 5 lacks a bit is the campaign isnt as strong. Its people like you which make the new ones so shitty because the whinge and whine its not like something they know. Master cheif needs to be retired from halo. And they need to find a suitable replacement for him, or they branch off into different areas where humanity was losing the war still and let us play as marines or obst's.
The newer halos aren’t bad, they are just strong in one department and lacking in the other. Halo 4: Pretty good story, pretty meh online, halo 5: Awful story, pretty great online we just want to see halo 6 be the best as it possibly can, capturing back some of the nostalgia from the old games while bringing new content. Don’t think that constructive criticism is “hating” on the newer games. Some people are just entitled brats, but the rest of us just want to make halo great again
Alexander Irving I never said any of the other halo games were bad. I’m simply saying that 3 was my favorite. When I say “something games these days lack significantly” I’m not talking about the new Halo games I’m talking about new games in general. There has been a serious shift in purely multiplayer games that have a weak story attached to it. People like me enjoy everything about Halo, it’s actually difficult for me to not impulse buy something that has the “Halo” logo on it so relax, I’m not hating on anything.
Nope Chris is right. I prefer Halo 2, but 4 and 5 aren't even halo games. Even Reach is better than both. Halo 4 tried to be COD and ppl hated it, Halo 5 is something else altogether and ppl hate it too. If you grew up with halo 1,2 and 3, you most likely hate all of this 343 crap they've made. Which is why the player base has lessened so much. Hardcore fans don't buy halo games anymore. Unless you bought Halo 1 and played system link with your friends, or bought halo 2 and experienced Xbox live when it first started and everyone had mics and collaborated. You will not understand.
The fall of reach book does a much better job of explaining the battle I thought. Especially the space battle. The game Halo Reach makes it messy and confusing honestly. Good video as always 👍
Alec Copeland The game also contradicts some events in the book which was my major gripe with it. For example, the Pillar of Autumn, Cortana, and Master Chief were in space during the battle.
I reject bungie's reality and substitute my own. Nylund's book was amazing, which made playing the game afterwards as confusing as can be, so I postulate that Halo:Reach the game is what is sold to kids on Earth for their XBox90210s around the year 2610 trying to sensationalize a bit of history but in reality a lot of it never really happened.
Agree. The game version doesn’t make any sense. Should just go with the book version as canon due to the huge inconsistencies in the storyline of the game. Though I still enjoyed playing the game anyways.
GANGSTA PANDA The Halo 2 scarab was a mining vehicle, Regret's fleet wasn't expecting earth to be the human homeworld and showed up unprepared for a full scale engagement
I think the scarab can be easily explained since Halo 3 happened directly after the events and had the new scarab design meaning they were already in service. Also, I think all the scarabs that we saw in Halo 2 came from Regrets flagship so one could just explain that he had special ones or something. What bothered me more is when Halo: CE anniversary uses Halo Reach MA37 rifle models when those were technically an earlier model than the MA5B rifles from the original Halo game. That was just laziness on the part of 343 and not wanting to re-design the model from the original game. That was the first sign that 343 was going to destroy the series.
Also would have loved for them to put ODST troops on the remake of the level Truth and Reconciliation. In the book The Flood, the troops that were described as taking on that mission with Master Chief were ODST troops but they had not been designed yet in the first game. Would have loved for 343 Industries to actually put a bit more thought and care into their first project with Halo, which was essentially just a reskin. But no, they just threw it together with Halo Reach pre-rendered models with no thought given at all and just called it a day.
We really need a game of the Fall of Reach, Halo reach the game is just a side story of Spartan IIIs , they hide most of the battle and do very small side missions. The real battle was with the Spartans II defending the Mac generators and the space battle which Noble Team had nothing to do with. We need a game of the actual Fall of Reach or at the very least a animated series or movie
The thing is that as with so many cases in Halo lore, books and games just don't add up in the slightest. The game Halo Reach basically rendered the book Fall of Reach completely out of canon. And in typical Halo fashion, both stories were garbage to begin with. Halo was always extremely great in terms of gameplay and atmosphere, but storywise, i think the first Halo is the only one that even managed to tell a somewhat coherent story internally. And i say that as someone who loves Halo.
There was a big ground battle at Viery territory, then the smallish fleet after Long Night of Solace was destroyed. That might have been beaten by the time New Alexandria was glassed. Then the final blow comes with the Arbiter's fleet arriving.
Chris sonofPear the Arby’s fleet arrives right after the long night of solus and it’s fleet is destroyed I believe.. but by then the covies knew all the had to and the rest of the game is litteraly just noble team running from the inevitable
No, 343 is still treating the Fleet of Particular Justice as arriving on August 30th, not the 14th. Also, a large part of the UNSC fleet was due to arrive on the 15th.
Great video. I believe the first two waves occurred on one side of the planet (likely in one region too), while the others were on the more heavily defended side (probably the side of the planet where most of the important UNSC facilities and leadership were located), to add to that, the planet is larger than Earth. This can explain why in the book (in which the battle only lasted a week) nobody knew what was going on from the events of Halo reach (the game). Because of the Visigrad relay being destroyed, half of the planet went dark. Its more likely that a small covenant special strike force were sent in first to disable communications, and then the first wave covenant fleet, that is led by the Long Night of Solace, came in afterwards and snuck through the lightly defended area of Reach. (probably cloaked already). I think the Long Night of Solace fleet were just an excavation fleet and scout fleet, the area they were located at was near that big Forerunner ruin at Sword Base.
I think too many people miss this. The big fleet doesn't arrive until halfway through the game, up until then it's basically dealing with a stealth insurrection or something. Notice how in the second level the Covenant go _straight_ for Sword Base, which is where the Forerunner artifact is. That was their priority at first, not glassing the planet.
As a huge Halo fan, I love it when when you go into details about that battles that took place in the Halo Universe. So I’d like to thank you for your hard work and please keep them coming! ^_^
Think you can do a comparison video? Who's the more effective soldier 'A Pilot and there TITAN' from the TITANFALL series or 'A Spartan II with an AI' from the Halo series
I would say it may depend on the specific mission, but I would say a Pilot and a Titan together would be better overall, or if thats not the right term, in more situations they would be better/more effective, Also we can continue our other discussion here if you want
I’ve been on a two-week camping trip (10-odd days in), but the campground I’m at now has WiFi (and reasonable cell signal)! Long live Emperor Eck! Also, Grand Admiral Eck. And Grand General Eck. And Grand Moff Eck. You have a lot of titles don’t you, Eck.
It didn't take long for Reach to fall. Our enemy was ruthless, efficient but they werent merely fast enough. And because of you, we found halo. Discovered its secrets and shattered our enemies resolve. Our victory....your victory was so close I wished you could have lived to see it but you belonged to Reach. Your body and armor ,all burned and turned to glass .....everything ..accept your courage, that you gave to us and with it we will rebuild.
I really liked reaches atmosphere and how hopeless it was... also liked being able to see the covenant at full force with the intent to destroy a planet. Also covenant ships have the best names
The Gravemind captured 2401 Penitent Tangent. Also broke quarantine, then hacked the teleport grid to move Flood onto the frigate In Amber Clad. That made a very handy boarding craft, when jumped inside...
There was a massive civil war going on in and around High Charity when the flood arrived on the In Amber Clad. The thousands of dead bodies that were left because of the civil war fueled the flood with a lot of biomass and the flood were using UNSC pelicans to spread all over the city. With all that the covenant were just overwhelmed.
I love that you're doing battles from the books. The Battle of Sigma Octanus IV would make a fantastic videos. The timeline is described in detail and there were many stages of the battle, such as Keyes initial engagement with 3 Covenant ships and the final major UNSC Victory, where they used the cheeky tactic involving the Cradle.
A Brute would destroy a Krogan in single combat. The Krogan's real advantage is their redundant organs and that won't save them from being body slammed by someone who can out muscle a spartan and a Sangheili.
Duncan McOkiner i want this too but If its before the Genophage cure the playing field would evenly matched I dont know Halo lot well enough to know if Brutes can breed as fast as the Krogan. Of course the Brutes would havea tech advantage I'll think but an invasion of Tuchanka would be challenging for Brutes as they not only have to kill the Krogan but the deadly wildlife on the planet, namely Kalros, the Mother I all Thressa Maws.
Krogan have got natural armour, battering rams for heads and can one-am weapons which recoil that shatters human arms. And if you do chieftain vs chieftain then the Krogan almost certainly has biotic powers. The Brutes are almost certainly stronger but the Krogan are walking cubes of lead with the words 'hard to kill' carved into them with chainsaws.
I meant 1v1, chief v chief and squad v squad, not their entire races. Like what he did with Brutes vs Wookies and Ewoks vs Grunts. And yeah, Tuchunka is absolute hell. Javik, the best soldier of a race more advanced than the Covenant, said in plain terms that it consumes life.
Battering rams for heads? You're looking at a species that could flip a moving car. They aren't afraid of 150 kilograms compared to their 500 kilograms, so in terms of weight ratio a Brute would suplex a charging Krogan. For one armed weapons again goes to the Brutes since they use a hammer and the spiker which given the size of those spikes and no recoil compensation must fucking hurt to shoot. And a Brute Chieftain towers over any Krogan, regardless of biotics. The most a Krogan could do is try and throw them around which would not go well, even still the Brute can use their gravity hammer to turn them into a wall painting. Krogan may be hard to kill, but they can be beaten to death by an average human, a Brute got an entire clip from an assault rifle emptied into it and was perfectly fine. Hard to kill is not enough to slow down a Brute.
Before I watch the video, I'll answer the question. A: 750 Covenant ships, UNSC has little time to no time to prepare defenses, additional nuclear minefields, have ships in position, etc. The REAL question is, since Earth had 15 times as many orbital defense platforms and already had a large fleet in-system when Regret's little task force showed up, and was expecting a Covenant force to show up soon (as in, all approaches to Earth should have been heavily mined), and the initial Covenant fleet was not very large nor did it sport any new, more powerful ship types than what the UNSC was used to, how the hell did the Covenant break through Earth's orbital defenses so quick? Even in the early days of the war, a Covenant fleet of 15 ships would be no match for a fleet of 150 UNSC ships, let alone UNSC ships backed up by 300 orbital defense platforms.
that's been bugging me a lot too. I guess the explanation is that the covenant were able to destroy the Athens and the Malta and that punched a hole in Earth's defense line, which then those two assaults carriers were able to slip through.
In the book, which, in my opinion, is the better version, the Covenant had a two wave attack. The first lost because of Keys’ awesomeness and the fellow ship, and the second wave beat them. Cortana, who was fighting in the battle, made a slip-space jump to escape destruction when they had lost the fight. The ground war on Reach was vastly different between the two versions. We all know the story of Reach in the game, but in the book, the covenant already had a sizable ground force by time the dozens of Spartan-2’s got there. Most of the Spartans on the ground went to defend the MAC cannon arrays while three of them did a scouting mission in stolen banshees. In the end, the planet was glassed, along with a majority of S-2’s. The only survivors were the ones that went with Halsey and John’s crew, which consisted of John, Linda, and one other (I’m not sure about that last one.). The reason I love the game is because it’s Halo: Reach, it’s amazing. The reason I hate Halo: Reach is because it throws the canon into a whirlwind. Halsey meets the Spartan-3’s way before their time, the Spartan-3’s are older than they should be, the Foreunner artifact is never found. It just throws everything off. Still a fantastic game though.
That last one on John's team in space should have been Ben. That poor sod is likely dead from asphyxiation as the air recycling unit in the MJOLNIR was stated to only be able to recycle air for thirty minutes at most. He got flung away from the platform due to a blast and was likely never recovered.
The old Republic (Clone Wars era) vs the new Republic (Legends). The Covenant vs the Yuuzhan Vong. The Eternal Empire vs the Infinite Empire. The Xenomorphs (Aliens) vs the Flood. The Restored Empire vs the First Order. The Necrons (WH40k) vs the Yuuzhan Vong. The Tau Empire vs the Eternal Empire. The Banished (Halo) vs the Alliance to Restore the Republic. Thrawns fleet at Atollon vs the Separatists fleet at Christophsis. The UNSC Infinity with escort fleet vs the Empires fleet at Hoth (legends). The Empires and Rebels fleets at Endor (legends and no Death Star) vs the Covenants Fleet of Particular Justice (60 ships). The Separatists fleet at Kamino vs Thrawns blockade of Lothal. Imperial I-class Star Destroyer vs CPV-class Heavy Destroyer.
With the Xenomorphs vs The Flood it depends on the scenario, if both are dropped into a city then it's the Flood for sure, but if there is a set number of Flood against a set number of Xenomorphs (assuming they are basically the same in numbers) then the Xenomorphs would likely win, The Flood are far faster in propagating than the Xenomorphs, but the Xenomorphs from what I have seen are far more capable in in combat than the Flood is,
It's Ya Boi Daniel I agree. And the Flood can't infect them since if a infection form tried it would be destroyed by the acid blood. Also Xenomorph don't seem to need to breath so Flood spores probably wouldn't be a issue for them
Best Transforming fighter: VF-11 thunderbolt from Macross plus vs the Union Flag from Gundam 00 vs the Viking from StarCraft vs the Mecha Tengu from Command and Conquer vs the Legioss from Genesis Climber mospeda.
None of the events of Halo: Reach make any sense. The writer of the game, for reasons unknown, decided to completely ignore the events of the final act of The Fall of Reach, and in doing so created a huge continuity snarl for the Halo canon that has never been satisfactorily resolved. That was by far my biggest complaint about the game (my second biggest being the Armor Lock). It also didn't help that they had to shoehorn Cortana, Keyes, Chief, and the Autumn into the plot.
What Master Chief thinks when he learns about Noble 6: Well shit... he must've been one hell of a guy, if only I could meet him and shake hands... Oh right... he's dead(Or is he?)... Damn it! There goes my one and only chance at meeting someone who was exactly like me! Then we could really kick ass!
The game didn't cover much of the space battle but it's to be assumed from various points in the game that the defense force was minimal and wouldn't stand a chance against the force that took Reach. It's safe to say that the defense force did what they could but were obliterated.
Try maybe a video of the fall of Jericho VII or Andesia? Or maybe a video about a battle between the UNSC and Insurrection or perhaps a battle during the Forerunner-Flood war like the destruction of the Greater Ark and Omega Halo or when the Iso-Didact managed to take what is now Installation 07 from Mendicant Bias!
Idea: do an episode where you describe your “perfect fleet”, with access to ships from Star Wars, Halo, Mass Effect, and/or other sci-if universes. (3rd try)
Great video, and it only underscores why I hate Halo:Reach and how overrated it is. I did like the MP side, but the single player story just shit all over the established canon of Halo at that point. The story told in the game is so stupid, especially when compared to the book. There are so many plot holes in the game and it's so inconsistent with everything else in the canon. Everyone loves to blame 343 for the lack of a good Halo story, but Bungie had been churning out shit after Halo 3. Halo 1-3 were masterpieces, ODST was ok and Reach was crap.
In Halo Wars 1, the Covenant was desperately trying to assemble a fleet to fight humanity. Why would they if they had the power to do it the whole time? Or am I mistaken?
It's possible Regret was lying, and more worried the secret of the Reclaimers would leak if they weren't annihilated quickly. Also seems like the Banished had not been formed yet.
“Could Master Chief Assassinate Palpatine?” Not who would win in a fight, but could he figure out a way to do it? Maybe throw blue team in there with him.
It's Ya Boi Daniel use some imagination dude. There are tons of options. The first thing that comes to mind is blowing up the Death Star with palpatine onboard. Blowing up massive space stations is a specialty of his. Or he could sabotage the emperors shuttle. Or create a distraction then shoot him in the back from half a mile away. Etc.
How is Master Chief going to blow up the Death Star? I doubt that there wouldn't be any resistance, especially since I believe I heard from somewhere (I think it was from Eckhart himself) there are supposed to be one million people onboard the Death Star, If Master Chief were to find a way to destroy Palpatines shuttle there is still basically every other shuttle on board to leave on, I think that Palpatine has a sort of future vision using the force so he could foresee this coming, and not completely fall for it, And last time I checked, Master Chief was a good guy, and killing good guys is one of Palpatines specialties
“How the covenant won the battle of reach: they had three times the number of ships which were three times stronger. They also invaded and destroyed generators with overwhelming force” yeah this wasn’t a super complex battle they just massively overwhelmed the human defenses
I'm new to the series, so this might be a dumb question, but can't the UNSC go back to Reach after the events of the other games with the Master Chief and take back the planet?
I love Reach, but Fall of Reach by Eric Nylund has a far superior story of how Reach fell. A massive 315 ship fleet showed up and the UNSC got destroyed in less than a day. Bungie had to extend that timeline for gameplay reasons, but it devalues both the power of the covenant at that point in the war and how devastating reach was for humanity to have a bunch of covenant show up on the world and nobody knows about them but the military somehow, have multiple different small fleets show up before the big one, each getting through Reach’s defense ships? Humanity’s military presence at Reach was second only to Earth. The Covenant paid dearly for Reach. It’s telling that out of the original fleet of around 300 ships that attacked Reach, Arbiter only had 13 to send after Pillar of Autumn. Others were still glassing the planet, but at least 2/3 of the original fleet was destroyed by the UNSC.
Here's my theory on how the Covenant got past the UNSC and first landed on Reach. First, i dont believe for a second they sent the entire Fleet of Valiant Prudence all at once. The UNSC would easily spot the 28.9 KM ship on radar or visually. The corvettes most likely exited slipspace first and began transportation runs to and from the Long Night of Solace that is most likely waiting at the edge of the system out of radar and visual range. From there they built the spires to cloak themselves. Sending the Zealot team to the Visegrad outpost had little significance on the invasion as it was just to cut comms to other planet and to find info on Forerunner artifacts. The big kick came during the attack on Sword base. Sword was an important base for ONI, so important they deployed 2 great assets, NOBLE team and even a shot from a ODP Super MAC round. I believe this was just a distraction as the LNOS jumped in system and landed on reach and then cloaked. All the comm channels would be jammed with talk and every military installation put on high alert if they needed to send out support. A SDV-Heavy Corvette could easily have taken out Sword, even if it wanted to wipe it off the map. Yet it didnt use its full power and instead decided to retreat. We see in Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn that 3 of the same corvettes took out Corbulo Academy with relative ease. Just 1 of them could have flatten Sword. Instead, LNOS arrived and it was recalled but got destroyed. With the attack over and other UNSC installations standing down, they never notice the LNOS. Once NOBLE found the landing site the Covenant attacked everything in the vicinity of them, including nearby Orbital Platforms. Rest is history.
Now how the hell did the UNSC miss that ship headed for Reach? With all the sensors and monitoring local ship traffic, how did they miss a ship of that size headed for the planet?
Reach was honestly my favorite game,it is also the first halo game I ever played.It brings back a lot of memories.It was sad watching the planet get taken over
What could the UNSC have done better? For starters, the second the Winter Contingency was declared, which was on July 24th, they should have immediately started evacuating civilians. Even if not immediately, The Long Night of Solace occurs on the 14th of August, three weeks after they find the Covenant on Reach. So they had at least three weeks to get everyone off the planet before the poo hit the fan. Noble Six is helping the evacuation effort in Exodus FOUR WEEKS after the Covenant are discovered and nine days after the armada shows up.
If humanity had even just a little advance notice that the invasion was coming, I think Reach could have not only been saved, but the entire course of the war altered towards humanity's favor. In the Book, First Strike, Admiral Witcomb reveals that Reach had developed a weapon called the "Nova Bomb" which was a cluster of nukes that when detonated, fused their tritium together in the center to increase the yield 100x. Calling them "Planet Killers" and claiming that multiple Nova Bombs were present on Reach at the time, with the intention of using them in space to wipe out Covenant fleets. If they had even a couple days of advance warning, they could have likely managed to get a couple of those nukes into space and on board some of the ships like the Hannibal or maybe the Trafalgar. Once the super carrier was down and the main Covenant fleet was in orbit, they would have had a target of over 400 capital ships to annihilate with the nukes, provided the EMP didn't wipe out their systems. So it would have depended heavily on *when* they used the nukes, since after using them, the ODPs would have been out of commission along with likely, many of their ships. But it also would have made. Huge dent in the Covenant's military ability.
I'm not a fan of Halo Reach's story. The book was so much better. Especially Bungies idea to bypass the canon from the book. That was a stupid messed up idea I think. Just shows you how they really don't know what they are doing in regards to story telling (halo 2 and 3's stories were written up as they went by). You need to remember. Bungie created halo, but Microsoft hired story writers for the books. That's why the books were always better written than the video games. Bungie weren't amazing story writers. People say "but but but it's Bungie, they created halo", so by that logic it must be better because it's written by the original creators and it's their vision, but remember Star Wars. If George Lucas had written Empire and ROTJ, we would have received shit stories. His original idea for Star Wars was so embarrassing and bad after ANH that the studios basically took power away from him and had to convince him to not write the second and third film and bring in new writers and directors and he just overlooked aspects to keep it in line with his "vision". Just because he came up with the initial story, doesn't mean he knows how to finish it. Thats a general misconception these days. Original writers doesn't mean better. He wrote the prequels and we saw how shit they were. Anyways. Same idea applies to Bungie, they were good at general story, like a synopsis and making video games, but none of them were actual writers. Bungie created the first Halo game with no intentions of creating any others, thank god Microsoft hired external writers to help out and not let a bunch of video game programmers take full creative control that eventuated in the series we know today (lets not talk about Halo 5, in my world, that game never existed). Eric Nylund's take on the battle of reach was incredible. Here's how I would do the video game based off his version of the events. They should have focused the campaign from the moment the battle for Reach begun, starting off with Spartan teams guarding the orbital defence platforms in space. You begin like Halo 2, walking around the orbital defence platform, the calm before the storm. Your team just arrived there from a previous unknown mission (some reason to why your on the platform and not on the planet) then you witness in real time the covenant fleet coming out of slipspace from afar! The alarms start going off etc in the station to alert everyone. You witness first hand the panic from everyone as no one thought Reach would be found this early in the war. People panicking, freaking out, absolute chaos. You understand whats at stake here. You begin seeing the ODP's firing their mac rounds and the human fleet amassing. The sense of dread as you watch and can't actually participate yet. You feel somewhat hopeless at this moment, just to increase tension in the player. Then the covenant boarding parties begin. This is where your first fight begins, like Halo 2 (kinda it'll be different enough to not seem like a repeat). You fight them off for some time. They begin overwhelming the station and you are pushed back to defend the bridge where all the officers are. Maybe a bit like that scene in Aliens (1986) where they defend the medical bay when the aliens start arriving, you have turrets setup etc. Once the Covenant realise that's not a good strategy as the orbital defence platforms are taking out some of their ships (which you can witness from looking outside the windows), they begin using that bending plasma beam cannon from that unidentified covenant ship in the book that destroyed heaps of ships and mac cannon platforms, including yours, you have to jump off as it rips through the station, sucking everyone out (including covenant to show you how little some lives are to them) including you and other spartans, then nav your way through space and destroyed human ship debris and bodies (maybe it zooms out to 3rd person at this point for a bit of fun so you can accurately nav through - debris hurts you so you can be killed in this part of the mission), before landing on the planet in a forest (the landing part can be a cut scene). Linking up with other spartan 2 teams who also jumped off with you and survived the jump (or maybe a pelican in space captures you or something.. so many ideas!), you overhear that the covenant are going for the ODP power generators. You grab 3 warthogs from somewhere (after coming across a UNSC base as they are everywhere on Reach), all the spartans jump on, so you've got a bit of a convoy and making your way to the nearest ODP power generator to defend it from the incoming invasion, getting straffed by Banshes, Phantoms etc, driving through cities and battles going on, marines vs covenant forces litter the area which you have to fight your way through (like a warthog run but through forests and cities) before arriving at the platform. Note you can stop and help out during battles that you come by, or you can just continue driving through to your objective, the open world platform is yours and there are multiple ways to take. You can go through the cities and battles, drive through the forests and jungles to avoid big battles etc. When you arrive at the platform you are introduced to more spartan 2 teams defending that area, they are all ground in and ready to fight, with defences, turrets, tanks, warthogs, (maybe some halo wars vehicles are there like wolverines etc) set up from all sides to defend the platform. As you wait for the impending battle you look up above in the sky and see the dreaded space battle overhead, then the invasion force comes. Thousands of covenant appear on the horizon. Fighting along 30 other spartan 2's and thousands of marines in a massive ground battle, defending the platform. Like a real life mission firefight. Once your defences are pushed back (which happens slowly as the numbers become overwhelming and the defending NPC's start dying and maybe a bunch of scarabs appearing) and your one of the only remaining spartans alive (or you get new orders to create a safe passage exit for your forces by investigating a nearby cave system, then you can introduce the inside of the planet and make it more like a horror video game, dark unidentified hallways that were made by the forerunners where you have to evade the hunter killer teams of hunters and cloaked elites (who just happen to be inside, maybe the zealot elites who are hunting for forerunner artefacts are trying to hunt you whilst you try find a way out, whilst discovering new forerunner tech and ruins inside the planet...then later once your out introduce things like sword base, and add in a few city civilian and marine rescue missions to mix it up. How cool would it be if you were in the city defending a civilian transport then look up and see 300 ODST coming down all over the sky to land next to you to join you in the fight like in the short halo series! Moments like that. Imagine once point near the end, human battlecruiser debris starts reigning down all over the place from the sky, crushing buildings and mountains etc etc There were so many opportunities for amazing level design and story telling and kept it close to the canon of the book!
Watching this video makes me wonder why there has never been a fleet & army strategy game for the halo games. It seems like a no brainer, commanding fleets and armies of UNSC or covenant. Halo Wars seems far too small of scale for how huge these wars were. edit : I'm a huge Halo Wars 1&2 fan but my love of games like Total War & Stellaris has made me realize how wide the scope could be for a fantastic halo strategy game
The invasion of Reach from the novel has far fewer inconsistencies. The _Long Night Of Solace" isn't involved at all and there is no magical bypassing of the orbital defense platforms. Sheer technical superiority and overwhelming numbers are what won the day for The Covenant.
Halo Reach the game was not written according how the battle played out in The Fall of Reach. The Covenant never snuck onto Reach prior to the battle. The Covenant tracked Captain Keyes’ ship, the Iroquois, back to Reach; then, they brought an entire fleet to attack.
Kinda crazy to think that if the autumn never made that emergency jump, if the covenant had never followed them, they likely would have continued their genocide of humanity unabated. Without the destruction of the ring to condemn Thel as a heretic, without the 343 Guilty Spark's egress to Threshold, the great schism likely never would have happened.
2 was the best halo 3 was also great and both are superior to halo reach because reach just doesn’t feel the same as the the og the battle didn’t really feel like a fight at all I wish we could have participated more in the actual invasion than what just felt like side quest and actually have met the master chief rather than just see the ship he was supposed to be on it was a good game just not what I was wanting
The battle of earth was fine, but It could never beat the moment the rest of the fleet arrived at reach. Slipspace rupture detected. Slipspace rupture detected. Slipspace rupture detected.
it would have helped if they never actually hid the early stages of covenant invasion from the rest of the planet and UNSC and i understand Visegrad relay was temporarily offline but it could have made the difference
Like if you enjoyed, and leave a comment with the battle you'd like to see me handle next!
[120th ask] Krogan vs Brutes
I always thought Long Night of Solace getting onto Reach is a little stupid, I understand from a game design perspective if you followed the book the battle lasted only a few hours and you cant make a game with that. I think you should make a breakdown of how the battle was described in Fall of Reach, that had a lot more information on what was present and the course of the battle, even if its not totally canon it would allow you to do a more in depth battle video, but regardless please keep it up I love this series and keep it up.
EckhartsLadder the battle of 04 for the halo ring
could you possibly do the battle of the Ark or the Harvest campaign?
Think you can do a comparison video?
Who's the more effective soldier 'A Pilot and there TITAN' from the TITANFALL series or 'A Spartan II with an AI' from the Halo series
I have a serious question.
How does the Covenant just... sneak a CSO onto the planet...? That's like sneaking a Scorpion Tank into a McDonalds.
@Elgar7022 thats honestly a good question. We know lore wise that the Covenant had some stealth tech for some of their smaller ships but as far as we know they dont have the stealth tech to hide a ship thats roughly 29 Kilometers in length. Which just to give some perspective, the CAS class assault carrier that the CSO super carrier shares the same base design doesnt even match the CSO class's fore section in length. Yea Reach just caused way too many issues and questions to come up that cant really be answered.
you saying it cant be done?
@@TheVergile It's not impossible. It's just... I would REALLY like them to explain just how it got there. It's the one piece of Halo lore that I really question just how the covenant managed it.
@@Elgar7022 i was talking about McDonalds, but i guess your question is fine too
@@TheVergile Oh, well... I mean I guess you -could- sneak a tank into MacD. Maybe.
I have to say my favorite story element from Halo would have to be the point in time when the Sangheili began openly questioning the doctrine set forth by the prophets. They just couldn't understand why a species that exhibited such resourcefulness and unbreakable resolve would be marked for extinction.
Mike Vasquez Some Sangheili even found Humanity to be honorable, Dying in battle fighting to the last on every world before they burned.
i would realy like mroe bout the schism
well little did they knew that as far i know the humans started to pitch the sangheli against each other...
MUH Geschichte It's only natural that this would occur. Of course there were zealots who believe wholeheartedly in "the great journey" just as there were more rebellious elements who would have inevitably turned on the prophets. The real Tipping Point came with the moderates. They would be the ones who were conflicted and who upon learning the truth would turn on the zealots and by extension the Covenant. It's not so much that Humanity pitted the Sangheli against one another. They merely provided a little push.
I find it funny how they've been in a war for 27 years, and now they start asking questions. Hell, why didn't they say anything before the war started?
"Yo lemme just sneak a 28.000m ship past your security systems"
The Android from Aiur Because...plot
The Android from Aiur Yeah. I mean, space is big, and planets are thousands of kilometers across but you simply cannot sneak 28km past an orbital defence grid. Its bullshit. The novel was better. The covenant literally just rocked up with a gargantuan fleet second only to the fleet of high charity, and they hit reach with everything they had. Reach fell in a week, not 3 months like in the game.
Never liked the 1 week to fall timeline, i mean i can see it happening with the UNSC so outnumbered and outgunned, and surprised, but we are talking about probably tens to hundreds of thousands of UNSC land based assets. Sure that means almost nothing if the Covies glass the planet from orbit, but 1 week for total land victory... Reach was a UNSC fortress world... 1 month is my fair estimation.
Mr. Swordfish
I can see where you coming from, but I think the 1 week timeline conveys just how hopeless Humanities situation is. Reach, the planet sized fortress and the last line of defense for Earth, was lost in a week. Not only that, but it is belived that every Spartan died in defense of thier home. The ease of Reaches demise is spread throught the UNSC and an already low morale drops even further, yet rumors begin to spead that lone Spartan survived the Fall. This give us an atmosphere where The Master Chief is literally the last hope Humanity has for winning the war.
I think this is one of the things we always forget about halo battles. Its more grounded in reality, its pretty obvious there would be a lot of open gaps on Reach, its a pretty big planet. Despite the covenant being dogmatic and zealous, they still have enough smarts to exploit weaknesses on an enemy. Also the covenant invasion fleet on Reach was commanded by the (not yet) Arbiter, and from the lore, he stood out from other Elite commanders on that he actually used tactics and strategy instead of simply bum-rushing an enemy because of muh-honor.
Love the work you put into this channel.
Didn’t think you would be here
Strange to see you here, but hey, he does produce good content.
You like halo???
This is confirmed to be part of history now
Woah I love your vids dude
Remember Reach
airsoft squad Remember an overrated Halo entry
Shenaniganizer what makes it overrated
Shenaniganizer I don't think it's overrated.
airsoft squad because the book was far superior. They didn't drag the fall out over 3 months. Reach fell in a week
Shenaniganizer what does that have to do with it being overrated?
*REMEMBER REACH*
It wasn't hard to remember. Halo Reach was easily one of the best games in the series. I'd say it's in the top 3
Jacob Hunter Reach is one of the best game in general, not just in Halo series
Đan Mạnh Phạm Thái agreed!
The Covenant wanted some of those juicy Moa burgers.
Well, I hope they like their Moa very well done. Glassing is overkill for your barbecued Moa burgers.
moas are tasty AF
ruclips.net/video/iM_KMYulI_s/видео.html
Only 7.77
Those damn juicy moa burgers
When you destroy a massive covenant capital ship losing numerous navy personnel a cruiser and a spartan 2 but then an even bigger fleet appears soon followed by one of the greatest commanders in the halo universe
RK7 I don't think it was the particular justice who jumps right after the destruction of the Long Night of Solace because this fleet had brutes which are not... appreciate by Thel
Chuck no I meant the fleet after the 2nd fleet
The one on August 30th, rather than 14th.
Yes the fleet of particular justice
Straight Busta I heard he was paralyzed
Fun fact: the Covenant had about 310 ships assaulting Reach, and yet over 2/3 of it was destroyed by the mark V super MAC cannons on the orbital defense platforms, and also the nuclear minefield the UNSC had placed around the planet
@@rickjames5998 With a very bright and sudden flash I'd imagine
No, it would actually be 750 ships coz when regret attacked earth, cortana said he had 15 ships in his fleet, then lord hood says the fleet that destroyed reach was 50 times this size. So correct me if im wrong but im pretty sure it would be 750 ships
@@Hitler-fried-chickenwith that many ships, the UNSC never stood a chance
@@twister107 then again, 500 ships of that fleet was going to be used to invade earth but they failed in the operation first strike book and half of them maybe more were now in elite control, then there's also the unsc and covenant fighting in the orbit of delta halo and the ships in halo 3 are the stragglers from operation first strike
Could you do how Shipmaster defeated Truths fleet over The Ark from Halo 3?
i 2end this one and in halo 3 they left hints to the space battle by radio like firendly fire
It would be cool to see especially since they were outnumbered 3 to 1 there.
It still was an even fight
Cody Spencer yes it was, but it'd still be cool to see the tactics used
that would be an amazing vid
#reachwasaninsidejob
Darth Vader Actually ONI knew there was a high chance of the Covenant attacking Reach beforehand.
gtfo of here lord vader
How could've it been an inside job if it was taken place outside?🤔
Darth was that thumb nail offensive on Allen's vid
Reinboa your right
Sadly I don't think Reach could have been saved even if operation red flag Succeeded we have seen that the covenant were willing to let one of their Prophets die so I don't see them caring about a high ranking official even if all of humanity forces were their they probably would have lost maybe if they had enough defense to out last then that might have worked
It wouldn't have succeeded, the only reason Humanity 'won' the war is because the Covenant broke internally after the discovery of the Halo Array. If Halo hadn't been discovered and Red Flag hadn't been scrapped, the Covenant would have won because the Covenant was internally unified and had faith in their leadership. Killing or trying to hold a Prophet hostage would have only led to an escalation of an already horribly destructive war. Humanity didn't win, it survived only by a extremely lucky set of circumstances.
Stingra87 not only the breaking of the covenant, but also the flood outbreak at installation 05 destroyed High charity and the "largest convent fleet humanity has ever seen" so holy fuck we got so fucking lucky
Exactly, operation red flag probably would of pissed them off. Making it even worse and lead to a faster genocide against humanity.
I agree as well Cory Dorton. That late in the war, there’s nothing the UNSC could have done to stand up against such incredible Covenant firepower. If Reach has more ships and more ODP’s, perhaps the outcome may have been better or at least more Covenant ships would have been destroyed.
Though with the several thousand ships escorting High Charity as seen in Halo 2 out there, I don’t think it would have mattered.
Stingr87
I don't the covenant would stay together even if Red Flag was successful. Truth was already looking for a way to replace the Elites, and the Elites were now doubting their faith on the Great Journey (especially since the whole war is based off a lie).
Even if installation 04 was not discovered and Humanity lost, the Covenant would have likely still fall into a civil war. Operation Red Flag would just accelerate Truth's plans.
“Brute ships staggered line, ship master they outnumber us three to one!”
Cyber Swiper "then it is an even fight, all cruisers fire at will, burn their mongrel hides!!"
"Shes a little cooked sergeant, but she'll hold"
Then it is an even fight!
Then it is an even fight
Then it is an even fight.
“Although they were outnumbered 3 to 1”
tHeN iT iS aN eVeN FiGhT
All cruisers fire at will burn there mongrel hides
@@abelsalazar4297 *john cena "are you sure about that" meme*
Technician at console: This is serious sir, we're boned.
*"Burn their mongrel hides!"*
Only if keys could somehow pilot every ship
I know absolutely nothing about Halo, but I still love this video.
HalfDemonInuyasha time to learn something about halo
99.99% of what i know about the halo universe comes from this channel. Really wish microsoft wasnt such cunts with their console exclusives. I'd play the hell out of those games on PC.
MWBalls well you can play wars on pc
HalfDemonInuyasha look up facts and info about all Halo games, incredible game. Also really really interesting and you should play 1-5. Hella awesome
@@Gamer6Gamer BOY DO I HAVE SOME NEWS FOR YOU
The covenant:
"Well if we send enough grunts at them they will EVENTUALLY run out of bullets"
To put it simply, Operation: RED FLAG got cancelled because of the invasion of Reach, in which most of the Spartan IIs and the Pillar of Autumn (the ship made for the operation) were reassigned to defend the planet. It's unknown whether or not RED FLAG would have actually worked. The idea was to use the Autumn to capture a Covenant ship, find the Covenant homeworld or capital (High Charity), capture the existing leadership and force a truce. The problem was that they had absolutely no idea where High Charity was, and even if they did find it there was a big problem; they had to get past all of the ships and defenses in the fleet without raising suspicion. And then they had to fight their way to the Hierarchs themselves. Add onto this the fact that High Charity's defense fleet had an ever-changing authorization code and were willing to vaporize any ship that didn't have it, Operation RED FLAG probably wouldn't have worked.
RED FLAG was kind of a last ditch effort, even the top brass of the UNSC thought that. It was clear that humanity would not/could not win the war, so it was a operation to give them enough time to properly prepare. The problem was there was so many unknowns on the UNSC side that it would have totally failed like how they didn't know about High Charity and how devout the Prophets would have been and likely rather have died then let the humans have a cease fire.
Idk, Chief could solo High charity mid difficulty
To be fair, it would have never worked. Even if they succeeded in capturing a prophet, the entire Covenant would be pissed, and try to exterminate them even faster.
And even if they got on too High Charity, Elites are literally depicted as being Spartans equals in The Fall of Reach, and it's more realistic with the damage plasma does to the Spartans armor they're not unstoppable plasmasponge juggernauts, it doesn't take much plasma to kill a Spartan II in Mark IV, V, or Mark VI armor at all. They would never make it thro High Charity anyways Halo 2 regarding actual Halo lore would've been utterly impossible no matter how many Spartan IIs are there
Makaveli Shakur The thing is, in the original print of The Fall of Reach, the idea was that Elites had basically sat out the war until the very last year. Bungee didn’t really like this idea, so they started soft-retconning it away from pretty early on, so that by the time Ghosts of Onyx came out (written by the same guy who did The Fall of Reach), we have 12 year old Spartan-IIIs in SPI armor easily beating the shit out of sword-armed Elites in CQC.
I thought the Covenant fleet was much larger than that just from a line from Halo 2 between Cortana and Lord Admiral Hood.
Cortana: 15 Covenant Capital Ships staying just outside the kill zone.
Lord Hood: you have the MAC Gun Cortana, soon as they come in range, open up.
Cortana: gladly.
Lord Hood: something’s not right, the fleet that destroyed Reach was 50 Times this size.
15X50=750, that’s been the number I always thought it was. Either way, it was an absolutely massive fleet that the UNSC didn’t really stand a chance against.
Penitent Owl yeah i always assumed it was like some sort of exaggeration or maybe it was mostly made of like corvettes or many smaller ships with the capital ships
makes more sense to me that way
Halo 3 was the best Halo game. It was perfectly balanced between the campaign and multiplayer. It’s something games these days lack significantly
Christopher Murphy please all the halo games since have been just as good and fun. The only thing halo 5 lacks a bit is the campaign isnt as strong. Its people like you which make the new ones so shitty because the whinge and whine its not like something they know.
Master cheif needs to be retired from halo. And they need to find a suitable replacement for him, or they branch off into different areas where humanity was losing the war still and let us play as marines or obst's.
The newer halos aren’t bad, they are just strong in one department and lacking in the other. Halo 4: Pretty good story, pretty meh online, halo 5: Awful story, pretty great online we just want to see halo 6 be the best as it possibly can, capturing back some of the nostalgia from the old games while bringing new content. Don’t think that constructive criticism is “hating” on the newer games. Some people are just entitled brats, but the rest of us just want to make halo great again
Alexander Irving I never said any of the other halo games were bad. I’m simply saying that 3 was my favorite. When I say “something games these days lack significantly” I’m not talking about the new Halo games I’m talking about new games in general. There has been a serious shift in purely multiplayer games that have a weak story attached to it. People like me enjoy everything about Halo, it’s actually difficult for me to not impulse buy something that has the “Halo” logo on it so relax, I’m not hating on anything.
Preach my dude
Nope Chris is right. I prefer Halo 2, but 4 and 5 aren't even halo games. Even Reach is better than both. Halo 4 tried to be COD and ppl hated it, Halo 5 is something else altogether and ppl hate it too. If you grew up with halo 1,2 and 3, you most likely hate all of this 343 crap they've made. Which is why the player base has lessened so much. Hardcore fans don't buy halo games anymore. Unless you bought Halo 1 and played system link with your friends, or bought halo 2 and experienced Xbox live when it first started and everyone had mics and collaborated. You will not understand.
The fall of reach book does a much better job of explaining the battle I thought. Especially the space battle. The game Halo Reach makes it messy and confusing honestly. Good video as always 👍
Alec Copeland The game also contradicts some events in the book which was my major gripe with it. For example, the Pillar of Autumn, Cortana, and Master Chief were in space during the battle.
The games are the main canon Bungie confirmed that
Jackson Garrison Bungie confirmed the games are main Canon
well i think this confusion actualy pretty much fits the scenario...
i mean people in reach were confused
I reject bungie's reality and substitute my own. Nylund's book was amazing, which made playing the game afterwards as confusing as can be, so I postulate that Halo:Reach the game is what is sold to kids on Earth for their XBox90210s around the year 2610 trying to sensationalize a bit of history but in reality a lot of it never really happened.
Great video. Hard to cover due to the game and the book not really matching up.
Agree. The game version doesn’t make any sense. Should just go with the book version as canon due to the huge inconsistencies in the storyline of the game. Though I still enjoyed playing the game anyways.
TheCelestialvision cough cough halo 3 scarabs in reach instead of halo 2 scarabs cough cough
GANGSTA PANDA The Halo 2 scarab was a mining vehicle, Regret's fleet wasn't expecting earth to be the human homeworld and showed up unprepared for a full scale engagement
I think the scarab can be easily explained since Halo 3 happened directly after the events and had the new scarab design meaning they were already in service. Also, I think all the scarabs that we saw in Halo 2 came from Regrets flagship so one could just explain that he had special ones or something.
What bothered me more is when Halo: CE anniversary uses Halo Reach MA37 rifle models when those were technically an earlier model than the MA5B rifles from the original Halo game. That was just laziness on the part of 343 and not wanting to re-design the model from the original game. That was the first sign that 343 was going to destroy the series.
Also would have loved for them to put ODST troops on the remake of the level Truth and Reconciliation. In the book The Flood, the troops that were described as taking on that mission with Master Chief were ODST troops but they had not been designed yet in the first game. Would have loved for 343 Industries to actually put a bit more thought and care into their first project with Halo, which was essentially just a reskin. But no, they just threw it together with Halo Reach pre-rendered models with no thought given at all and just called it a day.
We really need a game of the Fall of Reach, Halo reach the game is just a side story of Spartan IIIs , they hide most of the battle and do very small side missions.
The real battle was with the Spartans II defending the Mac generators and the space battle which Noble Team had nothing to do with.
We need a game of the actual Fall of Reach or at the very least a animated series or movie
The thing is that as with so many cases in Halo lore, books and games just don't add up in the slightest. The game Halo Reach basically rendered the book Fall of Reach completely out of canon. And in typical Halo fashion, both stories were garbage to begin with.
Halo was always extremely great in terms of gameplay and atmosphere, but storywise, i think the first Halo is the only one that even managed to tell a somewhat coherent story internally. And i say that as someone who loves Halo.
I think there is a movie
@@tomitiustritus6672 what are you saying ?
id say the reveal and destruction of the super carrier was pretty significant
Yeah, but knowing how incompetent 343 is, I doubt we'll ever get to see that because of the raging hard-on they have for Master Chief.
The book is much better in explaining the battle, the game broke a lot of the lore around reach
It was an amazing game, but it always sucks when good lore is put down in favour of new content.
There was a big ground battle at Viery territory, then the smallish fleet after Long Night of Solace was destroyed. That might have been beaten by the time New Alexandria was glassed. Then the final blow comes with the Arbiter's fleet arriving.
Chris sonofPear the Arby’s fleet arrives right after the long night of solus and it’s fleet is destroyed I believe.. but by then the covies knew all the had to and the rest of the game is litteraly just noble team running from the inevitable
No, 343 is still treating the Fleet of Particular Justice as arriving on August 30th, not the 14th. Also, a large part of the UNSC fleet was due to arrive on the 15th.
Bungie wanted the games to have prioritiy
Dark Helmet vs Darth Vader (69 trillionth attempt)
Spartan Abrams I think Darth Vader would win
@Joshua
How do you know that?! We have no idea if Vaders Schwarts is as big as Dark Helmets!
PLEASE DO THIS
Great video. I believe the first two waves occurred on one side of the planet (likely in one region too), while the others were on the more heavily defended side (probably the side of the planet where most of the important UNSC facilities and leadership were located), to add to that, the planet is larger than Earth. This can explain why in the book (in which the battle only lasted a week) nobody knew what was going on from the events of Halo reach (the game). Because of the Visigrad relay being destroyed, half of the planet went dark.
Its more likely that a small covenant special strike force were sent in first to disable communications, and then the first wave covenant fleet, that is led by the Long Night of Solace, came in afterwards and snuck through the lightly defended area of Reach. (probably cloaked already). I think the Long Night of Solace fleet were just an excavation fleet and scout fleet, the area they were located at was near that big Forerunner ruin at Sword Base.
I think too many people miss this. The big fleet doesn't arrive until halfway through the game, up until then it's basically dealing with a stealth insurrection or something.
Notice how in the second level the Covenant go _straight_ for Sword Base, which is where the Forerunner artifact is. That was their priority at first, not glassing the planet.
Kat looking over new Alexandria.
“I know we’re losing, I want to know if we’ve lost.”
The quality of your videos only get better each time! Keep it up.
If that ship was too scale then the Covenant could just spear through planets like a giant space version of my insecurities.
edgy much
thats dark bro
r/suicidebywords
Damn, man
Lol
0:59 well, that's because there are 2 different storyline for the battle of reach (the one in the game and the one in the book) and they're both canon
I absolutely love all your videos and i'm addicted to the halo ones lol
Dammit Bobby! You just ain’t right I tell ya hwat.
3:57 Then it is an even fight.
*Clicks Like* K now to watch the vid
WildGurgs36 you don't even need to watch it to know it's good it's eckhartsladder
As a huge Halo fan, I love it when when you go into details about that battles that took place in the Halo Universe. So I’d like to thank you for your hard work and please keep them coming! ^_^
could you do preston cole's last stand?
Kusinagi Yes, that would look so cool in Battle Breakdowns!!
Kusinagi
What a good idea
Awesome video! Could you do the battle of the Maginot Sphere? Any battle from the forerunner-Flood War would great.
Fallout prewar America Vs. Brotherhood of Nod at the start of the third Tiberium War
Hey for anyone who wants to watch Battlestar Galactica it’s on Amazon Prime. Also can you do some videos on Battlestar Galactica please
Grand Admiral Dragon one why do I get the feeling you like BSG
Think you can do a comparison video?
Who's the more effective soldier 'A Pilot and there TITAN' from the TITANFALL series or 'A Spartan II with an AI' from the Halo series
Spartan is so tiny in comparison
I would say it may depend on the specific mission, but I would say a Pilot and a Titan together would be better overall, or if thats not the right term, in more situations they would be better/more effective,
Also we can continue our other discussion here if you want
Honestly it depends on the weapons they have, Spartans would dunk a pilot on the ground but when the pilot had a titan it’s hard to say.
Bigass Titanfall fan here and it's going to the Spartan.
Hey Eck can you do a faction comparison of light vehicles??? Such as Ghost, mongoose, AT-RT, chopper, 74-Z speeder, Grievous’ bike. Etc.
Replicators vs a Unified Star Wars universe (237th try now, *_I._** WILL NEEEEVER EEEVER GIVE UP!!!)*
Eckhart not doing this is HERESY
It's obvious...
Because The one who led it was our boy Thel.
I’ve been on a two-week camping trip (10-odd days in), but the campground I’m at now has WiFi (and reasonable cell signal)! Long live Emperor Eck!
Also, Grand Admiral Eck. And Grand General Eck. And Grand Moff Eck. You have a lot of titles don’t you, Eck.
Jay
Nice
It didn't take long for Reach to fall. Our enemy was ruthless, efficient but they werent merely fast enough. And because of you, we found halo. Discovered its secrets and shattered our enemies resolve. Our victory....your victory was so close I wished you could have lived to see it but you belonged to Reach. Your body and armor ,all burned and turned to glass .....everything ..accept your courage, that you gave to us and with it we will rebuild.
"accept your courage"
except* lol
You should do more Halo battles
I really liked reaches atmosphere and how hopeless it was... also liked being able to see the covenant at full force with the intent to destroy a planet. Also covenant ships have the best names
How did the Flood take the covenant Holy city of high chairly
Would like to know how it all happened and all the details
The Gravemind captured 2401 Penitent Tangent. Also broke quarantine, then hacked the teleport grid to move Flood onto the frigate In Amber Clad. That made a very handy boarding craft, when jumped inside...
I think some post entry details would also be nice, like what was the covenant force inside trying to do to stop the Flood and stuff
ruclips.net/video/N0rE6vu1KwU/видео.html
There was a massive civil war going on in and around High Charity when the flood arrived on the In Amber Clad. The thousands of dead bodies that were left because of the civil war fueled the flood with a lot of biomass and the flood were using UNSC pelicans to spread all over the city. With all that the covenant were just overwhelmed.
I love that you're doing battles from the books. The Battle of Sigma Octanus IV would make a fantastic videos. The timeline is described in detail and there were many stages of the battle, such as Keyes initial engagement with 3 Covenant ships and the final major UNSC Victory, where they used the cheeky tactic involving the Cradle.
Krogan vs Brutes [119th ask]
A Brute would destroy a Krogan in single combat. The Krogan's real advantage is their redundant organs and that won't save them from being body slammed by someone who can out muscle a spartan and a Sangheili.
Duncan McOkiner i want this too but If its before the Genophage cure the playing field would evenly matched I dont know Halo lot well enough to know if Brutes can breed as fast as the Krogan. Of course the Brutes would havea tech advantage I'll think but an invasion of Tuchanka would be challenging for Brutes as they not only have to kill the Krogan but the deadly wildlife on the planet, namely Kalros, the Mother I all Thressa Maws.
Krogan have got natural armour, battering rams for heads and can one-am weapons which recoil that shatters human arms. And if you do chieftain vs chieftain then the Krogan almost certainly has biotic powers.
The Brutes are almost certainly stronger but the Krogan are walking cubes of lead with the words 'hard to kill' carved into them with chainsaws.
I meant 1v1, chief v chief and squad v squad, not their entire races. Like what he did with Brutes vs Wookies and Ewoks vs Grunts.
And yeah, Tuchunka is absolute hell. Javik, the best soldier of a race more advanced than the Covenant, said in plain terms that it consumes life.
Battering rams for heads? You're looking at a species that could flip a moving car. They aren't afraid of 150 kilograms compared to their 500 kilograms, so in terms of weight ratio a Brute would suplex a charging Krogan. For one armed weapons again goes to the Brutes since they use a hammer and the spiker which given the size of those spikes and no recoil compensation must fucking hurt to shoot.
And a Brute Chieftain towers over any Krogan, regardless of biotics. The most a Krogan could do is try and throw them around which would not go well, even still the Brute can use their gravity hammer to turn them into a wall painting.
Krogan may be hard to kill, but they can be beaten to death by an average human, a Brute got an entire clip from an assault rifle emptied into it and was perfectly fine. Hard to kill is not enough to slow down a Brute.
Before I watch the video, I'll answer the question. A: 750 Covenant ships, UNSC has little time to no time to prepare defenses, additional nuclear minefields, have ships in position, etc.
The REAL question is, since Earth had 15 times as many orbital defense platforms and already had a large fleet in-system when Regret's little task force showed up, and was expecting a Covenant force to show up soon (as in, all approaches to Earth should have been heavily mined), and the initial Covenant fleet was not very large nor did it sport any new, more powerful ship types than what the UNSC was used to, how the hell did the Covenant break through Earth's orbital defenses so quick? Even in the early days of the war, a Covenant fleet of 15 ships would be no match for a fleet of 150 UNSC ships, let alone UNSC ships backed up by 300 orbital defense platforms.
that's been bugging me a lot too. I guess the explanation is that the covenant were able to destroy the Athens and the Malta and that punched a hole in Earth's defense line, which then those two assaults carriers were able to slip through.
you should make video about The expanse...
Best science fiction series of all time
In the book, which, in my opinion, is the better version, the Covenant had a two wave attack. The first lost because of Keys’ awesomeness and the fellow ship, and the second wave beat them. Cortana, who was fighting in the battle, made a slip-space jump to escape destruction when they had lost the fight.
The ground war on Reach was vastly different between the two versions. We all know the story of Reach in the game, but in the book, the covenant already had a sizable ground force by time the dozens of Spartan-2’s got there. Most of the Spartans on the ground went to defend the MAC cannon arrays while three of them did a scouting mission in stolen banshees. In the end, the planet was glassed, along with a majority of S-2’s. The only survivors were the ones that went with Halsey and John’s crew, which consisted of John, Linda, and one other (I’m not sure about that last one.).
The reason I love the game is because it’s Halo: Reach, it’s amazing. The reason I hate Halo: Reach is because it throws the canon into a whirlwind. Halsey meets the Spartan-3’s way before their time, the Spartan-3’s are older than they should be, the Foreunner artifact is never found. It just throws everything off. Still a fantastic game though.
That last one on John's team in space should have been Ben. That poor sod is likely dead from asphyxiation as the air recycling unit in the MJOLNIR was stated to only be able to recycle air for thirty minutes at most. He got flung away from the platform due to a blast and was likely never recovered.
The old Republic (Clone Wars era) vs the new Republic (Legends).
The Covenant vs the Yuuzhan Vong.
The Eternal Empire vs the Infinite Empire.
The Xenomorphs (Aliens) vs the Flood.
The Restored Empire vs the First Order.
The Necrons (WH40k) vs the Yuuzhan Vong.
The Tau Empire vs the Eternal Empire.
The Banished (Halo) vs the Alliance to Restore the Republic.
Thrawns fleet at Atollon vs the Separatists fleet at Christophsis.
The UNSC Infinity with escort fleet vs the Empires fleet at Hoth (legends).
The Empires and Rebels fleets at Endor (legends and no Death Star) vs the Covenants Fleet of Particular Justice (60 ships).
The Separatists fleet at Kamino vs Thrawns blockade of Lothal.
Imperial I-class Star Destroyer vs CPV-class Heavy Destroyer.
We will watch your career with great interest.
I say Lothal blockade vs Kamino invasion force
With the Xenomorphs vs The Flood it depends on the scenario, if both are dropped into a city then it's the Flood for sure, but if there is a set number of Flood against a set number of Xenomorphs (assuming they are basically the same in numbers) then the Xenomorphs would likely win,
The Flood are far faster in propagating than the Xenomorphs, but the Xenomorphs from what I have seen are far more capable in in combat than the Flood is,
It's Ya Boi Daniel I agree. And the Flood can't infect them since if a infection form tried it would be destroyed by the acid blood. Also Xenomorph don't seem to need to breath so Flood spores probably wouldn't be a issue for them
Imperial II-class Star Destroyer vs. CPV-class Heavy Destroyer
Did you get this idea from me or did you come up with it on your own? o.O
So do you think their was a way to save Reach in your opinion eck and I would like to see a break down of the battle for earth on mass effect 3
I would like some Information about Operation red flag ;0;
REACH was better ^^
Best Transforming fighter:
VF-11 thunderbolt from Macross plus vs the Union Flag from Gundam 00 vs the Viking from StarCraft vs the Mecha Tengu from Command and Conquer vs the Legioss from Genesis Climber mospeda.
None of the events of Halo: Reach make any sense. The writer of the game, for reasons unknown, decided to completely ignore the events of the final act of The Fall of Reach, and in doing so created a huge continuity snarl for the Halo canon that has never been satisfactorily resolved. That was by far my biggest complaint about the game (my second biggest being the Armor Lock). It also didn't help that they had to shoehorn Cortana, Keyes, Chief, and the Autumn into the plot.
MORE HALO CONTENT!!! PLEASE!!!
I actually just finished a play through of the fall of reach. Such an incredibly heart wrenching game.
What Master Chief thinks when he learns about Noble 6: Well shit... he must've been one hell of a guy, if only I could meet him and shake hands... Oh right... he's dead(Or is he?)... Damn it! There goes my one and only chance at meeting someone who was exactly like me! Then we could really kick ass!
How they won the battle of Reach short version: They had overwhelming numbers and superior technology.
The game didn't cover much of the space battle but it's to be assumed from various points in the game that the defense force was minimal and wouldn't stand a chance against the force that took Reach. It's safe to say that the defense force did what they could but were obliterated.
Try maybe a video of the fall of Jericho VII or Andesia? Or maybe a video about a battle between the UNSC and Insurrection or perhaps a battle during the Forerunner-Flood war like the destruction of the Greater Ark and Omega Halo or when the Iso-Didact managed to take what is now Installation 07 from Mendicant Bias!
Idea: do an episode where you describe your “perfect fleet”, with access to ships from Star Wars, Halo, Mass Effect, and/or other sci-if universes.
(3rd try)
100% Culture General Offensive Units
@EckhartsLadder
Great video, and it only underscores why I hate Halo:Reach and how overrated it is. I did like the MP side, but the single player story just shit all over the established canon of Halo at that point. The story told in the game is so stupid, especially when compared to the book. There are so many plot holes in the game and it's so inconsistent with everything else in the canon. Everyone loves to blame 343 for the lack of a good Halo story, but Bungie had been churning out shit after Halo 3. Halo 1-3 were masterpieces, ODST was ok and Reach was crap.
Can you do the ground assault of Geonosis? 1st or 2nd siege is fine with me
In Halo Wars 1, the Covenant was desperately trying to assemble a fleet to fight humanity. Why would they if they had the power to do it the whole time? Or am I mistaken?
It's possible Regret was lying, and more worried the secret of the Reclaimers would leak if they weren't annihilated quickly. Also seems like the Banished had not been formed yet.
Q: How did the Covenant take Reach?
A: Kat was driving 😒
I wasn't notified of this video being uploaded, RUclipss algorithms have committed HERESY of the highest order
“Could Master Chief Assassinate Palpatine?”
Not who would win in a fight, but could he figure out a way to do it? Maybe throw blue team in there with him.
+Guy well Master Chief WOULD have to be able to win in a fight against Palpatine if he'd want to kill him,
It's Ya Boi Daniel there are lots of ways to kill someone without fighting them.
+Guy Well I doubt Master Chief could slip a cyanide pill into his drink when the Death Star is probably on full alert once he's half way to Palpatine,
It's Ya Boi Daniel use some imagination dude. There are tons of options. The first thing that comes to mind is blowing up the Death Star with palpatine onboard. Blowing up massive space stations is a specialty of his.
Or he could sabotage the emperors shuttle. Or create a distraction then shoot him in the back from half a mile away. Etc.
How is Master Chief going to blow up the Death Star? I doubt that there wouldn't be any resistance, especially since I believe I heard from somewhere (I think it was from Eckhart himself) there are supposed to be one million people onboard the Death Star,
If Master Chief were to find a way to destroy Palpatines shuttle there is still basically every other shuttle on board to leave on,
I think that Palpatine has a sort of future vision using the force so he could foresee this coming, and not completely fall for it,
And last time I checked, Master Chief was a good guy, and killing good guys is one of Palpatines specialties
I find Halo Reach the game very confusing, i whish it was more like in the book Fall of Reach.
“How the covenant won the battle of reach: they had three times the number of ships which were three times stronger. They also invaded and destroyed generators with overwhelming force” yeah this wasn’t a super complex battle they just massively overwhelmed the human defenses
I think noble 6 would've been very successful in operation red flag alone though
There's nothing I love more than studying the logistics and tactics of large scale fictional battles, in particular, the battle of Reach.
I'm new to the series, so this might be a dumb question, but can't the UNSC go back to Reach after the events of the other games with the Master Chief and take back the planet?
Breakdown of the Battle of Atallon please.
I love Reach, but Fall of Reach by Eric Nylund has a far superior story of how Reach fell. A massive 315 ship fleet showed up and the UNSC got destroyed in less than a day.
Bungie had to extend that timeline for gameplay reasons, but it devalues both the power of the covenant at that point in the war and how devastating reach was for humanity to have a bunch of covenant show up on the world and nobody knows about them but the military somehow, have multiple different small fleets show up before the big one, each getting through Reach’s defense ships?
Humanity’s military presence at Reach was second only to Earth. The Covenant paid dearly for Reach. It’s telling that out of the original fleet of around 300 ships that attacked Reach, Arbiter only had 13 to send after Pillar of Autumn. Others were still glassing the planet, but at least 2/3 of the original fleet was destroyed by the UNSC.
Here's my theory on how the Covenant got past the UNSC and first landed on Reach. First, i dont believe for a second they sent the entire Fleet of Valiant Prudence all at once. The UNSC would easily spot the 28.9 KM ship on radar or visually. The corvettes most likely exited slipspace first and began transportation runs to and from the Long Night of Solace that is most likely waiting at the edge of the system out of radar and visual range. From there they built the spires to cloak themselves. Sending the Zealot team to the Visegrad outpost had little significance on the invasion as it was just to cut comms to other planet and to find info on Forerunner artifacts. The big kick came during the attack on Sword base. Sword was an important base for ONI, so important they deployed 2 great assets, NOBLE team and even a shot from a ODP Super MAC round. I believe this was just a distraction as the LNOS jumped in system and landed on reach and then cloaked. All the comm channels would be jammed with talk and every military installation put on high alert if they needed to send out support. A SDV-Heavy Corvette could easily have taken out Sword, even if it wanted to wipe it off the map. Yet it didnt use its full power and instead decided to retreat. We see in Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn that 3 of the same corvettes took out Corbulo Academy with relative ease. Just 1 of them could have flatten Sword. Instead, LNOS arrived and it was recalled but got destroyed. With the attack over and other UNSC installations standing down, they never notice the LNOS. Once NOBLE found the landing site the Covenant attacked everything in the vicinity of them, including nearby Orbital Platforms. Rest is history.
Now how the hell did the UNSC miss that ship headed for Reach? With all the sensors and monitoring local ship traffic, how did they miss a ship of that size headed for the planet?
Reach was honestly my favorite game,it is also the first halo game I ever played.It brings back a lot of memories.It was sad watching the planet get taken over
What could the UNSC have done better?
For starters, the second the Winter Contingency was declared, which was on July 24th, they should have immediately started evacuating civilians. Even if not immediately, The Long Night of Solace occurs on the 14th of August, three weeks after they find the Covenant on Reach. So they had at least three weeks to get everyone off the planet before the poo hit the fan. Noble Six is helping the evacuation effort in Exodus FOUR WEEKS after the Covenant are discovered and nine days after the armada shows up.
Ancient Halo vs ancient 40k !!!!!!!!!
Crazy Trooper hell yeaaa!!
If humanity had even just a little advance notice that the invasion was coming, I think Reach could have not only been saved, but the entire course of the war altered towards humanity's favor.
In the Book, First Strike, Admiral Witcomb reveals that Reach had developed a weapon called the "Nova Bomb" which was a cluster of nukes that when detonated, fused their tritium together in the center to increase the yield 100x. Calling them "Planet Killers" and claiming that multiple Nova Bombs were present on Reach at the time, with the intention of using them in space to wipe out Covenant fleets. If they had even a couple days of advance warning, they could have likely managed to get a couple of those nukes into space and on board some of the ships like the Hannibal or maybe the Trafalgar. Once the super carrier was down and the main Covenant fleet was in orbit, they would have had a target of over 400 capital ships to annihilate with the nukes, provided the EMP didn't wipe out their systems. So it would have depended heavily on *when* they used the nukes, since after using them, the ODPs would have been out of commission along with likely, many of their ships. But it also would have made. Huge dent in the Covenant's military ability.
The battle went down how it went down in the books
The game made no sense
Why is it that the Covenant were fucking around in some fields before Tip of the Spear?
I'm not a fan of Halo Reach's story. The book was so much better. Especially Bungies idea to bypass the canon from the book. That was a stupid messed up idea I think. Just shows you how they really don't know what they are doing in regards to story telling (halo 2 and 3's stories were written up as they went by). You need to remember. Bungie created halo, but Microsoft hired story writers for the books. That's why the books were always better written than the video games. Bungie weren't amazing story writers. People say "but but but it's Bungie, they created halo", so by that logic it must be better because it's written by the original creators and it's their vision, but remember Star Wars. If George Lucas had written Empire and ROTJ, we would have received shit stories. His original idea for Star Wars was so embarrassing and bad after ANH that the studios basically took power away from him and had to convince him to not write the second and third film and bring in new writers and directors and he just overlooked aspects to keep it in line with his "vision". Just because he came up with the initial story, doesn't mean he knows how to finish it. Thats a general misconception these days. Original writers doesn't mean better. He wrote the prequels and we saw how shit they were. Anyways. Same idea applies to Bungie, they were good at general story, like a synopsis and making video games, but none of them were actual writers. Bungie created the first Halo game with no intentions of creating any others, thank god Microsoft hired external writers to help out and not let a bunch of video game programmers take full creative control that eventuated in the series we know today (lets not talk about Halo 5, in my world, that game never existed).
Eric Nylund's take on the battle of reach was incredible.
Here's how I would do the video game based off his version of the events.
They should have focused the campaign from the moment the battle for Reach begun, starting off with Spartan teams guarding the orbital defence platforms in space. You begin like Halo 2, walking around the orbital defence platform, the calm before the storm. Your team just arrived there from a previous unknown mission (some reason to why your on the platform and not on the planet) then you witness in real time the covenant fleet coming out of slipspace from afar! The alarms start going off etc in the station to alert everyone. You witness first hand the panic from everyone as no one thought Reach would be found this early in the war. People panicking, freaking out, absolute chaos. You understand whats at stake here.
You begin seeing the ODP's firing their mac rounds and the human fleet amassing. The sense of dread as you watch and can't actually participate yet. You feel somewhat hopeless at this moment, just to increase tension in the player.
Then the covenant boarding parties begin. This is where your first fight begins, like Halo 2 (kinda it'll be different enough to not seem like a repeat). You fight them off for some time. They begin overwhelming the station and you are pushed back to defend the bridge where all the officers are. Maybe a bit like that scene in Aliens (1986) where they defend the medical bay when the aliens start arriving, you have turrets setup etc. Once the Covenant realise that's not a good strategy as the orbital defence platforms are taking out some of their ships (which you can witness from looking outside the windows), they begin using that bending plasma beam cannon from that unidentified covenant ship in the book that destroyed heaps of ships and mac cannon platforms, including yours, you have to jump off as it rips through the station, sucking everyone out (including covenant to show you how little some lives are to them) including you and other spartans, then nav your way through space and destroyed human ship debris and bodies (maybe it zooms out to 3rd person at this point for a bit of fun so you can accurately nav through - debris hurts you so you can be killed in this part of the mission), before landing on the planet in a forest (the landing part can be a cut scene). Linking up with other spartan 2 teams who also jumped off with you and survived the jump (or maybe a pelican in space captures you or something.. so many ideas!), you overhear that the covenant are going for the ODP power generators. You grab 3 warthogs from somewhere (after coming across a UNSC base as they are everywhere on Reach), all the spartans jump on, so you've got a bit of a convoy and making your way to the nearest ODP power generator to defend it from the incoming invasion, getting straffed by Banshes, Phantoms etc, driving through cities and battles going on, marines vs covenant forces litter the area which you have to fight your way through (like a warthog run but through forests and cities) before arriving at the platform. Note you can stop and help out during battles that you come by, or you can just continue driving through to your objective, the open world platform is yours and there are multiple ways to take. You can go through the cities and battles, drive through the forests and jungles to avoid big battles etc. When you arrive at the platform you are introduced to more spartan 2 teams defending that area, they are all ground in and ready to fight, with defences, turrets, tanks, warthogs, (maybe some halo wars vehicles are there like wolverines etc) set up from all sides to defend the platform. As you wait for the impending battle you look up above in the sky and see the dreaded space battle overhead, then the invasion force comes. Thousands of covenant appear on the horizon. Fighting along 30 other spartan 2's and thousands of marines in a massive ground battle, defending the platform. Like a real life mission firefight. Once your defences are pushed back (which happens slowly as the numbers become overwhelming and the defending NPC's start dying and maybe a bunch of scarabs appearing) and your one of the only remaining spartans alive (or you get new orders to create a safe passage exit for your forces by investigating a nearby cave system, then you can introduce the inside of the planet and make it more like a horror video game, dark unidentified hallways that were made by the forerunners where you have to evade the hunter killer teams of hunters and cloaked elites (who just happen to be inside, maybe the zealot elites who are hunting for forerunner artefacts are trying to hunt you whilst you try find a way out, whilst discovering new forerunner tech and ruins inside the planet...then later once your out introduce things like sword base, and add in a few city civilian and marine rescue missions to mix it up. How cool would it be if you were in the city defending a civilian transport then look up and see 300 ODST coming down all over the sky to land next to you to join you in the fight like in the short halo series! Moments like that. Imagine once point near the end, human battlecruiser debris starts reigning down all over the place from the sky, crushing buildings and mountains etc etc
There were so many opportunities for amazing level design and story telling and kept it close to the canon of the book!
Watching this video makes me wonder why there has never been a fleet & army strategy game for the halo games. It seems like a no brainer, commanding fleets and armies of UNSC or covenant. Halo Wars seems far too small of scale for how huge these wars were.
edit : I'm a huge Halo Wars 1&2 fan but my love of games like Total War & Stellaris has made me realize how wide the scope could be for a fantastic halo strategy game
The invasion of Reach from the novel has far fewer inconsistencies. The _Long Night Of Solace" isn't involved at all and there is no magical bypassing of the orbital defense platforms. Sheer technical superiority and overwhelming numbers are what won the day for The Covenant.
Halo Reach the game was not written according how the battle played out in The Fall of Reach.
The Covenant never snuck onto Reach prior to the battle. The Covenant tracked Captain Keyes’ ship, the Iroquois, back to Reach; then, they brought an entire fleet to attack.
I continue to have flashbacks to Reach......
Those god damn Sang Heli still horrify me
I honestly prefer the books version of this battle. Makes much more sense in how Reach fell.
“They outnumber us 3 to 1”
“Then it is a fair fight”. 3:57
PoA original mission was to perform Operation Red Flag, but the fall of Reach rendered that plan impossible.
“Spartans never die, they’re just missing in Action”
Kinda crazy to think that if the autumn never made that emergency jump, if the covenant had never followed them, they likely would have continued their genocide of humanity unabated. Without the destruction of the ring to condemn Thel as a heretic, without the 343 Guilty Spark's egress to Threshold, the great schism likely never would have happened.
2 was the best halo 3 was also great and both are superior to halo reach because reach just doesn’t feel the same as the the og the battle didn’t really feel like a fight at all I wish we could have participated more in the actual invasion than what just felt like side quest and actually have met the master chief rather than just see the ship he was supposed to be on it was a good game just not what I was wanting
So, exactly how many Covenant were there? It will reveal how many Covenant we need to kill in order to survive Lone Wolf.
The battle of earth was fine, but It could never beat the moment the rest of the fleet arrived at reach.
Slipspace rupture detected.
Slipspace rupture detected.
Slipspace rupture detected.
it would have helped if they never actually hid the early stages of covenant invasion from the rest of the planet and UNSC and i understand Visegrad relay was temporarily offline but it could have made the difference
I think book version of the battle is better