Microsoft and 343 have been typically tight-lipped when it comes to plot details surrounding Halo 4. But today, that all changed: The track-listing for the gameâs soundtrack was released. Oh yeah. You read that right.
Using the track names from the soundtrack, I have pieced together some highly precise (ish) predictions about the story of Halo 4
The soundtrack, composed by Massive Attackâs Neil Davidge, consists of musical compositions with awesomely vague and action-gamey names like âNemesisâ and âArrival.â Youâd think it would be impossible to deduce a thing about the game before PR decides to tell us the story. Too bad they didnât take my amazing forecasting abilities into account!
https://lastchance.cc/meet-the-man-whos-making-the-music-for-halo-4-5903515%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
The Track List:
1. Awakening
2. Belly Of The Beast
3. Requiem
4. Legacy
5. Faithless
6. Nemesis
7. Haven
8. Ascendancy
9. Solace
10. To Galaxy
11. Immaterial
12. 117
13. Arrival
14. Revival
15. Green And Blue
Okay, letâs do this thing.
1. Awakening
Master Chiefâs eyes open for the first time in a long while. You could say he⊠awakens. Presumably he undergoes some type of systems check where a computer voice asks him if he would like to invert the y-axis.
2. Belly Of The Beast
Chief barely gets his bearings when suddenly⊠there is an attack underway! Some sort of attack! Oh no! Or maybe they hit an asteroid belt! Or both! Chief must fight his way through the ship to reach Cortana, who has, like, been separated from him somehow. He finds her, and the two set their ship on a crash course for the mysterious Forerunner planet below. Maybe itâs shaped like a halo. Maybe not. Letâs say itâs kinda oblong. Itâs called âRequiem.â
3. Requiem
Chief crash-lands on Requiem and runs around in some big fields. Game reviewers everywhere will remark about how this sequence âHarkens back to the way I felt when I landed on Halo in the first game.â
4. Legacy
Chief learns something about the history of the Forerunners. Itâs really confusing but anyone who keeps up with the ins and outs of Halo lore will be like, âI TOTALLY CALLED IT.â
Letâs say⊠the Forerunners were actually reapers all along. Or ghosts? Or maybe they were people! Oh yeah, thatâs good. A menacing voice calls out to Cortana, and she starts to wig out a little bit.
5. Faithless
After making that horrible discovery about the Forerunners, everything is turned on its head. Up is down! Left is right! Dogs and cats, living together! Etc.!
Um, some humans have gotten in touch with Chief, and they tell him something about the guys heâs been fighting this whole time. Thereâs a recurring character in there somewhere, one who didnât die in Halo 3. That character points Chief to a big ship or installation or something that he has to infiltrate to stop something. Cortana continues to wig as they get closer and closer to it. They fight a huge battle in front of the ship as a distraction, and then Chief makes his way aboard, or in, or up to it.
Oh, maybe itâs actually the humans, who have secretly been merging with the Forerunner tech to become super-beings? Yes! Thatâs totally who the bad guys are! Letâs say thatâs it.
6. Nemesis
Onboard the alien/enemy/something ship, everything goes crazy. Craaaazy! Um, thereâs no gravity? Yeah, thereâs no gravity, or gravity is weird, so Chief has to navigate and shoot while floating in the air. Itâs probably pretty cool. A voice keeps calling out to Cortana, and she is really wigging out hard at this point. The voice belongs to some ancient power that threatens the universe, probably. A⊠NEMESIS, you could say.
Oh, maybe itâs actually the humans, who have secretly been merging with the Forerunner tech to become super-beings? Yes! Thatâs totally who the bad guys are! Letâs say thatâs it.
Anyway, there is a pitched close-quarters fight against a bunch of enemies and at the end, a big cutscene plays where Cortana, exhausted from her continued wiggage, loses it completely. She actually more or less becomes the big bad, Willow-from-Buffy-style, and the ship theyâre aboard begins to make a second crash-landing. Bam, crash-landing, fade to black.
7. Haven
Chief crawls from the wreckage, and Cortana is nowhere to be found. Poor guy. Forever alone. He, like, finds a haven of some sort. Yeah. Maybe he walks around and some people talk to him, like in a non-combat game. Oh I know, a bunch of splinter UNSC troops have finally tracked Chief to Requiem, and have set up a camp since they want to help him out. So now heâs part of a bona fide squad. Katee Sackhoff returns to reprise her role as âSpace Marine #3â.
But then the name of this chapter becomes ironic as they are attacked and Chief must wage guerrilla warfare in a level that doesnât look like the other levels of the game. A new enemy type is probably introduced.
8. Ascendancy
Chief fights his way into a Forerunner building to find out whatâs happened to Cortana. Thereâs a computer, um, a computer there and it will tell him what happened to her. There are some new enemy types introduced again.
9. Solace
Turns out Cortana has some sort of robot-sickness that comes from her having been turned on so long. (âTurned onâ, you say? â Stephen) Sheâs been compromised by the inner workings of the Halo, and sheâs in the process of like, merging with the Forerunners to lose her humanity. This is all being helped along by another bad guy. She appears to Chief in a vision, doing a sort of SHODAN from System Shock 2 thing, and Chief has to fight her minions a bunch before finding a map to the uh, mainframe computer that he can override to get her back. Wait this is a lot like Halo 3, isnât it.
10. To Galaxy
Probably a level with some space battles. Or maybe itâs a fight to get aboard another ship named âGalaxy.â Crystal ball is foggy here.
11. Immaterial
Cortana has spread through a bunch of computers and Chief fights his way to the big main computer he found in âSolace.â She begins to taunt him about âwho he really isâ and promises some juicy/mean revelations about his true story. She downloaded them from his brain while she was inside his suit, or whatever. He fights his way to her, and they have a big showdown. Chief fights off a billion of her robot/etc drones, but itâs not enough, and she escapes once more. This part is probably the hardest fight of the game, so later people will say, âYou know, that mid-game fight against Cortanaâs minions was way harder than the final battle.â Before she leaves, Cortana tells Chief something devastating about himself.
12. 117
Master Chief, âJohn-117,â has learned some shattering thing or another about his past. Maybe he killed a child. Maybe he was never human. Maybe he had a sister, but that sister was abducted by aliens, setting him on his current Quixotic path. Maybe he used to be into tabletop Warhammer. Who knows. This music plays while that revelation unfolds. It is rousing and there are trumpets. There is probably a playable flashback. Maybe some slow-mo.
BAM. Back online, baby. Probably some asses get kicked.
13. Arrival
The evil dudeâs master plan is coming to fruition. Some big menace that has been approaching is finally here, and lands on Requiem. Chief tracks Cortana to a huge compound in the middle of Requiem. Shit is on. He comes in guns blazing, blowing away a ton of dudes before making it to Cortana. This time, there is no fightâsome other kind of gameplay, maybe a vehicle chase, and he eventually finds her. But itâs too late, she is dying. As sheâs fading away, with the world falling down around them, Chief uses some power he has, maybe something he unlocked when he learned that stuff about himself, to save her.
14. Revival
BAM. Back online, baby. Probably some asses get kicked. Maybe Chief re-activates something inside of Requiem.
15. Green And Blue
Rousing finale where Chief fights his way off Requiem, with Cortana back but maybe still sick and/or maybe dying. He and some of the UNSC troops make it off the planet before it explodes or whatever. The explosion is super sweet-looking. At the end of the game, Chief is looking out a window at the stars beyond, thinking about the data they got just before they left, which points them towards 5 similar (and similarly dangerous) planets. There is a vast conspiracy at play, and enemies are lurking in every corner.
âItâs going to be a long fight, but weâre going to stop them,â Chief says. Credits.
***
And so endeth Halo 4. Or heck, maybe none of that will happen, and the game will be all about some white-haired guy named Raiden sneaking around on an oil rig. Stranger things have happened.