Forum:Halo Wars 2: There are those who said this day would never come

"What are they to say, now?"

- Prophet of Truth

That day has at last arrived, my faithful. Yea, though it has been a long and arduous path we have walked, soon we will all be rewarded. One final effort is all that remains!

Halo Wars 2 has been announced. The Great Journey is at hand.

I love Halo Wars. I don't think it's the BEST strategy game, but it did something different with Halo in a new genre, it introduced a time period and characters we hadn't seen, and it finally felt like we were fighting a war on an interstellar scale as we hopped from Harvest to Arcadia to the Shield World.

I'm so hyped for Halo Wars 2. Especially the fact that it will apparently be available for Windows 10 - as much as I think Halo Wars did its best to optimise itself for the consoles, I still thought it could be cumbersome at times. I understand now that you can connect your PC to your Xbox One and control the game through that, too. So, hopefully that means a more complex, more innovative game, with more units and bigger battlefields!

Most of all, I'm excited to see what becomes of the crew of the Spirit of Fire - I'd especially love to see the Spartans take the fore as significant, and interesting, characters, since we don't have Forge anymore as the eyepiece character through which we lead our units in campaign. I'd also love to have some playable Covenant missions - take control of a Brute Chieftain as he storms the Spirit of Fire, or even an Elite force coming to the aid of their human allies, and finding they don't know the war is over.

What about you guys? What would you like to see? Who are you looking forward to meeting again? --  Qura 'Morhek   The Autocrat     of Morheka   22:29, 4 August 2015 (EDT)

Comments
"Halo Wars 2! Its divine wind will rush through the stars, propelling all who are worthy along the path to salvation!"

- Alertfiend

I am more curious about our intrepid heroes and our new and scary looking Jiralhanae foe. But I will be happy with the story line as long as it takes place after the war. Alertfiend (talk) 22:46, 4 August 2015 (EDT)
 * It would be interesting if the game ends with a UEG-allied alien faction like Swords of Sanghelios coming to rescue the Spirit of Fire crew, but the crew is unaware that the war is over and begins attacking them. Also, if the game takes place after the war, Serina is either dead or incredibly rampant. But since Halo Wars ends with her telling Cutter that something is wrong, I wouldn't be surprised if the game took place during the war. The Jiralhanae antagonist may be the Jiralhanae Army Commander. - NightHammer (talk) 22:56, 4 August 2015 (EDT)

This is an old blog post I wrote back before Halo 4 came out. It speculates on features I'd like in Halo Wars 2. I'll wait until Halo 5 to see if there are Promethean units I'd like to see in this game, but I'm sure there will be some. Here's also a link to the Reddit AMA where Graeme Devine put the opening scene of his script for HW2. Tuckerscreator (stalk ) 23:43, 4 August 2015 (EDT) I've waited a long time for this. I am super excited. But onto the subject of timelines, I am hoping it does take place closer to Escalation. In addition to giving the story more wiggle room it gives players a larger variety of units and factions. Sith Venator  ( Dank Memes ) 01:30, 5 August 2015 (EDT)

@Tucker: I agree with pretty much all of your points, except the direction the Devine spec-script would have taken. Bringing back Forge would be a mistake. Not because I didn't like Forge, but because narratively, his sacrifice at the end felt right. As I said, I'd rather see the Spartans take on Forge's role as tip of the spear for campaign play - maybe each UNSC faction gets a different member of Red Team, with different advantages build around their specialisations and personalities? I also really like the sound of a playable Forerunner side, using Promethean units - that fills out their ground-based complement nicely. Heck, allowing Knights to deploy Watchers is perfect for a researched upgrade. I still don't know if I want the Flood to be playable - to my mind, they should feel like an unstoppable, unknowable force of nature. We've seen them demystified enough. --  Qura 'Morhek   The Autocrat     of Morheka   06:53, 5 August 2015 (EDT)


 * I agree that bringing back Forge now would be a bad idea; maybe back then when the loss felt fresh, but now it's sunk in and accepted, and so revival would feel cliche. If Escalation's tease means the Flood are coming back, though, then I'd much rather they be playable like demonstrated in this mod than have their only contribution being more hordes to suffer through. Tuckerscreator (stalk ) 20:30, 5 August 2015 (EDT)