Halo: Combat Evolved

Halo: Combat Evolved

FPS

Bungie, 2001

Human forces are engaged in a bitter war against the mysterious alien ‘Covenant’. After being all but destroyed in a space battle, the sole remaining ship of a battle group, the Pillar of Autumn, jumps blindly into deep space to lead the alien aggressors away from Earth. The ship happens across a huge orbiting ring, the titular Halo, and is attacked by Covenant forces. Captain Keyes of the Pillar of Autumn initiates a crash-landing onto the Halo to prevent the Covenant from capturing information from his ship which would lead them to Earth.

A ‘SPARTAN II’ super-soldier, the Master Chief, meets Keyes as the ship heads for the ring’s surface, and ejects in a life pod with an AI construct named Cortana. The game follows the Master Chief (controlled by the player) as he explores the Halo and discovers its origin and purpose. The Covenant are keen to do the same, to harness its vast power to use against Earth.

The plot is thickened by the introduction of a second alien race, the ‘Flood’. This race is unintelligent, aggressive, and has an insatiable taste for blood. The halo turns out to be a defence against the flood, designed to kill all sentient life in the galaxy, thereby starving the unstoppable Flood. The race for control of the Halo becomes a race against time to destroy it, hampered by the Covenant forces, the Flood, and the AI controlled robot caretakers built by the creators of the Halo (the Forerunners).

Notable Archetypes

The Hero - Master Chief

The Master Chief is the embodiment of Earth’s struggle for survival: one super-soldier feared, and even labeled as a demon by the Covenant. When interacting with Cortana, the Master Chief takes on aspects from the Sidekick archetype - becoming the clumsy, reckless ape to the AI’s tactful, almost motherly wisdom.

The Father - Captain Keyes

Captain Keyes leads by example, sacrificing himself and the Pillar of Autumn to protect the location of Earth. The Master Chief and Keyes share certain personality traits: bravery, loyalty, sacrifice. They are both soldiers to the core. The Master Chief’s adventure of bravery and sacrifice is started by Keyes’, reinforcing is fatherly influence. Keyes gives the Chief his blessing before crashing his ship and sacrificing himself.

The Shadow - 343 Guilty Spark

343 attempts to achieve his goals differently to the Master Chief. In fact, the characters are polar opposites - the Chief putting himself on the line, pushing his endurance and abilities to the limits for the greater good, taking sacrifice and hardship on the chin, whereas 343 takes a passive, devious approach to problem solving. His preferred method was the manipulation of the Chief, but once that failed, he employed robotic killing machines to take care of the Chief while he observed from a safe distance, assimilating knowledge and human history from the Pillar of Autumn’s databanks with great satisfaction. The Master Chief is the proud, loyal heart. 343 is the cold, logical brain.

The Wise Old Man - Cortana

Cortana is the Master Chief’s counter-balance, installed in his high-tech armour suit on behalf of Keyes. She is a motherly figure, adding a little intelligence and delicacy to the testosterone.

The Dragon Forces - Covenant

The Covenant are a seemingly ubiquitous force, always ready to throw a spanner in the player’s works. As well being bitter enemies of all humans, they are in direct competition with the Master Chief, as they race to be in control of the Halo.

The Departure

The Call to Adventure - 8 (Implicit, out of sequence)

After the minor explicit call of meeting Keyes on the bridge, the Master Chief finds himself on the Halo’s surface, and the sole SPARTAN II, the task of solving the mystery of the Halo and defeating the Covenant is clearly his. After landing on the Halo, the Chief joins the rest of the surviving human forces in a Guerilla campaign against the vastly superior Covenant, learning more of the Halo and focusing the call until it becomes Explicit - destroy the Halo.

Refusal of the Call - N/A

Supernatural Aid - 6

The Master Chief meets Captain Keyes on the bridge of the Pillar of Autumn, and he installs Cortana, the AI construct, into his suit. Cortana, although not a typical protective amulet, provides the Chief with tactical and technical advice, and keeps him on the correct path.

The Crossing of the First Threshold - 9

The Master Chief stepping out of the crashed escape pod onto Halo’s surface.

The Belly of the Whale - 8 (Out of Sequence)

The player boards a Covenant ship rescue Captain Keyes. The Master Chief explores alien-looking, tight, claustrophobic environments unlike anything else he has experienced before. At the end of the level, the Master Chief has learned more about the Halo, and has atoned with Keyes.

Initiation

The Road of Trials - 6 (out of sequence)

Most of Halo’s gameplay forms the Road of Trials.

The Meeting with the Goddess - 4

Although not a classical Meeting with the Goddess, the Master Chief meets the (deceased) marine, Private Jenkins, after journeying deeper into the Halo. Jenkins is Master Chief’s connection to his past - the Pillar of Autumn, the military, Earth. Through the footage in Jenkin’s helmet, the Master Chief learns about the deadly ‘Flood’.

Woman as the Temptress - 2

343 Guilty Spark tempts the Chief into activating Halo. Since the Chief was unaware of 343’s dubious goals, his intentions were good.

Atonement with the Father - 7 (out of sequence)

There are two atoning events in Halo. The first is rescuing Captain Keyes from a Covenant ship where he is being held captive (see also: the Belly of the Whale). The second is using the codes posthumously retrieved from Keyes’ brain to initiate a meltdown in the crashed Pillar of Autumn’s reactor, destroying Halo. The boss sequence of overcoming the sustained 343 Guilty Spark attack, as well as Flood onslaught, to destroy the Pillar of Autumn and therefore the Halo, adds weight to the atonement; with great struggle and sacrifice comes great reward.

Apotheosis - N/A

The Ultimate Boon - N/A
Return

Refusal of the Return - N/A

The magic Flight - 10

To reach a spacecraft (specifically, a Longsword fighter) docked in the Pillar of Autumn in order to escape, the Chief must drive, at speed, through its long and winding corridors in a ‘Warthog’ (a jeep-like military vehicle). Flood and Covenant forces are scattered through the ship, and add a modicum of resistance (the Covenant are mainly concerned with escape, and the Flood are too slow to pose a serious threat) to the stringent time limitation of the Pillar’s reactor meltdown.

Rescue from Without - 7

The failed attempt of an air-rescue by the persistent assistant, Flight Officer Captain Carol ‘Foehammer’ Rawley is a play on the Rescue from Without. In the end, the Chief must rely on a ‘Rescue from Within’ (literally, since his internally-mounted AI helps him along the way). Foehammer is the dropship pilot responsible for inserting and extracting the Master Chief repeatedly in and out of danger in his guerilla actions against the Covenant throughout the game.

The Crossing of the Return Threshold - 7

The Master Chief and Cortana flee the exploding Halo, back into space. This stage would have been stronger if they had traveled back to the Pillar of Autumn, but it was destroyed, making this impossible.

Master of the Two Worlds - 8 (Out of Sequence)

The Master Chief destroys the Pillar of Autumn, dominating 343 Guilty Spark and his cohorts, the Flood, and the Covenant, he becomes the master of both doomed ‘worlds’ the crashed Pillar of Autumn (a metaphorical microcosm of humanity), and the Halo.

Freedom to Live - 5

Both the Master Chief and Cortana escape the Halo and survive its explosion. However, 343 Guilty Spark is also shown to have survived, so the continuation of the Chief’s battle is implied.

Conclusion

Being an epic battle for the survival of the human race, Halo incorporates many of the elements of Campbell’s structure. However, their order is rather jumbled, and certain stages (for example, Meeting with the Goddess, Atonement with the Father) are unorthodox. The Freedom to Live section is purposefully vague, due to Halo being the first of three games in the series.