The first level of a game should be like the beginning of a book. Both need to catch the audience’s interest. Both should make the audience want to keep going, to find out what happens next. Halo Reach’s first level, Winter Contingency, fails spectacularly.
In my opinion, there are three separate places where Winter Contingency falls short, especially when compared to other Halo starting levels like The Pillar of Autumn from Combat Evolved and Sierra 117 from Halo 3. I’m going to pick this level apart over several posts, showing exactly why Winter Contingency is such a failure.
More Cut-Scene
Winter Contingency picks up where Noble Actual leaves off. Noble Team is in the air, and Carter is briefing everyone on the relay station. Originally I didn’t see anything wrong with this, but everyone (except Jun) heard Holland explain the situation. It makes sense tactically that he repeats everything, so that the whole team knows what’s happening and what they have to do, but from the player’s perspective it doesn’t really add anything if they watched Noble Actual. One of these briefings, most likely from Noble Actual, should have been omitted so the game flows better.
Gameplay Starts
As the Falcons fly in, a distress beacon is detected. Noble Team decides to investigate, thinking it might be the missing troopers. The beacon is found but there are no troopers. All that’s present is the remains of a warthog. There’s a bit of discussion amongst the Spartans as to why there isn’t any explosive residue. Plasma damage (hallmark of the Covenant) is brought up but quickly refuted.
Noble Team then ventures to the next structure. Here are some farmers, hiding inside. Jorge translates for them. They tell you that their neighbours were attacked the night before. There were screams and gun fire. They also report that some “thing” is hiding in the fields. This thing killed the farmer’s son.
At this point, Jun, who has remained in the Falcon, advises that he sees heat signatures in yet another structure. The team sprints over, where the bodies of the neighbouring farmers, along with two of the missing troopers, are found. They’re surrounded by very alien-looking footprints.
Suddenly, you can hear the sounds of something large moving further inside of the structure. Jun alerts us to movement outside of the building we’re in. We head through this building, through a courtyard, then into yet another building. And then the Covenant attack.
Covenant Suspense?
An awful lot happens before the Covenant finally appear. For someone completely unfamiliar with the Halo games, perhaps this is fine. But the Covenant have never been subtle before, so this doesn’t really fit with the first levels of other Halo games. Sure, in both The Pillar of Autumn and Sierra 117 it takes a bit before you are actually able to engage with the Covenant. But in both of those examples you know they’re present.
This is the first Halo game that tried to ease the player in with a bit of suspense. But this suspense isn’t handled very well. A good chunk of the player base knows what happens to Reach, and as I pointed out in Noble Actual, the game is very clear about it from the start.
It’s also really easy to miss all this Covenant foreshadowing. You can run by the farmers and the bodies, straight into the first Covenant encounter. Unfortunately, doing so will leave you rather confused about what is going on plot-wise.
A Better Solution
Reach would have been better off starting straight in the action. Holland could have believed it was rebels, but the troopers should have alerted you to the Covenant in either Noble Actual or the beginning of Winter Contingency. Even having one trooper hiding out by the beacon to tell you would have worked. Then you could have run straight into a firefight at the first building, rather than having to go to the third.
Next time I’ll look at the Covenant encounter and trooper rescue. But in the meantime, let me know what you thought about this section of Winter Contingency. Did you think they did a good job introducing the Covenant? Or should Bungie have started with more action?
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