Halo: Reach was one of the best video games about war

David Grove
Apr 29, 2020 3:50 PM PDT
1 minute read
Gaming photo

SUMMARY

Despite the fan base not being filled to the brim with lovers of the game, Halo: Reach remains in the hearts of many of us gamers who dumped a considerable amount of time into the game itself. One thing that might stand out, especially for …

Despite the fan base not being filled to the brim with lovers of the game, Halo: Reach remains in the hearts of many of us gamers who dumped a considerable amount of time into the game itself. One thing that might stand out, especially for those of us in the veteran community, is how the game itself depicts war.

Halo: Reach was released nearly a decade this upcoming September, and this campaign still gets a lot of us excited. It had some good characters, each with unique qualities, and the story was amazing. The gameplay is another story, but what we're focusing on here is the biggest thing that stood out: this game is about war.

Here's why Halo: Reach was one of the best:


You were also, for the first time, surrounded by other Spartans.

(Bungie)

Nerfed Spartan strength

Throughout the original Halo trilogy, you fight as Master Chief, the only Spartan in sight, which makes you an absolute force of nature on the battlefield. You're essentially unstoppable, with your only purpose being to bring judgment down upon the Covenant that stands before you.

Reach took that and essentially made you just slightly weaker, but it was noticeable. Stronger than the average UNSC Marine but just on the same level as the best the Covenant has to offer. This made you feel more like you couldn't just steamroll into battles, bringing death on a silver platter to the Covenant.

There are plenty of shots in the game that show the planet's destruction.

(Bungie)

Depicted a losing fight

Most of us who knew the lore of Reach before the game's release knew it was a doomed mission. You were fighting a losing battle because the Covenant hits the planet's under-manned military defenses with an all-out attack force with the intent to reap every last soul upon its surface. That didn't stop you, though.

It really showed the tenacity that troops bring to the battlefield. Knowing you could lose doesn't matter, you'll fight to the death anyway and make the enemy work for every life they have to take – and suffer the consequences of taking it to begin with.

Prime example: Jorge.

(Bungie)

Showed the tremendous sacrifices that were made

One thing that the original trilogy doesn't take much time to do is to show the sacrifices of individual soldiers. Reach absolutely does that. With Noble Team, you see each of the team members die in some way or another, a couple of them choosing to die so that others may live.

Seeing mega cities like this getting torn apart was devastating.

(Bungie)

The devastation

Reach takes a lot of time to show us how destructive the Covenant is and the devastation of that destruction in context with what they do to the planet. Most of the other games you don't get that sense, with Halo 3 being the obvious exception since part of it takes place on Earth.

But what we got in Reach was an entire game of trying to save a planet only to fail.

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