As such, when Captain Keyes goes missing and Cortana is left behind to investigate Halo’s network, Master Chief faces the greatest amount of isolation seen during the game. Whether it be orders from Captain Keyes, or suggestions from Cortana, Master Chief is focused on his objectives.
Throughout Halo, Master Chief is presented as a devoted and committed soldier, following orders and doing his utmost to ensure he fulfils his duties.
The story and themes of Halo remains unchanged while ostensibly a first-person shooter set in a science fiction environment, Master Chief’s dynamics with Cortana and the UNSC set the stage for a very curious message about human nature. Despite its age, the original Halo remains a solid experience, and the Anniversary Edition brings a modernised re-imagining of classic moments with new visuals.
One of the best-known shooters of all time, Halo: Combat Evolved (or Halo for brevity) began its life as a real-time strategy game for Mac OS X, although its transformation into a first-person shooter would result in the title becoming the Xbox’s breakout game. At least, this is about as succinctly as I can be with regards to describing Halo‘s iconic and timeless campaign. When Guilty Spark thwarts attempts to manually overload the Pillar of Autumn’s reactors, Cortana and Master Chief manually overload the reactor instead, and then narrowly escape the detonation that destroys Halo. They find him consumed by the Flood, and too late to save him, Master Chief retrieves the neural implants before returning to the Pillar of Autumn. After disabling several pulse generators to buy time, Cortana teleports Master Chief to the Truth and Reconciliation to locate Captain Keyes, who possesses the neural implants needed to access the Pillar of Autumn’s systems. In order to prevent Halo from being activated, Cortana suggests detonating the Pillar of Autumn’s fusion reactor, which remained intact following its crash. While Master Chief successfully retrieves the Index and returns to the control room, Cortana chides him, explaining that the Halo Array doesn’t kill the Flood, but rather, its food source (all intelligent life). Halo’s Monitor, 343 Guilty Spark, whisks Master Chief away to the Library, a building that holds the Index, which activates Halo. Arriving in a swamp, Master Chief comes face to face with the Flood, an ancient parasitic life form capable of galactic destruction. Cortana remains behind to study Halo’s systems, and Master Chief is sent to assist marines who are looking for the now-missing Captain Keyes. Master Chief secures the map and identifies the control room’s location, fighting his way through an icy canyon to reach the control room. When Captain Keyes is rescued, he sends Master Chief to get to the map ahead of the Covenant. A contingent of UNSC marines accompanies Master Chief to rescue Captain Keyes, who is being held on board the Covenant’s Truth and Reconciliation, where Cortana taps into the Covenant communications network and discovers that the Covenant is looking for a map to Halo’s control center. He helps to rally the surviving marines and learns that Captain Keyes had set the Pillar of Autumn down, but was captured by the Covenant in the process. Master Chief manages to escape the Pillar of Autumn and crash lands on a ring-world known as Halo. As the ship sustains fire, Captain Keyes orders Spartan Master Chief John-117 out of cryosleep to safe-keep the AI Cortana. The Pillar of Autumn barely manages to escape Reach, but is pursued by a Covenant Armada.
Well, I don’t care if it’s God’s own anti-son-of-a-bitch machine, or a giant hula hoop, we’re not gonna let ’em have it! What we will let ’em have is a belly full of lead, and a pool of their own blood to drown in! Am I right, Marines?” –Seargent Johnson But, we stumbled onto somethin’ they’re so hot for, that they’re scramblin’ over each other to get it. “Men, we led those dumb bugs out to the middle of nowhere to keep ’em from gettin’ their filthy claws on Earth.