History Videogame / Halo4

* WorldOfCardboardSpeech: Master Chief spends the entire game bouncing from one crisis to the other without any concern for himself; his entire life was spent being a hero and he has a hard time thinking outside of those parameters. Cortana at one point quips that at some point they will figure out who between them is the machine. After Cortana [[spoiler: saves him from the Didact and they have a final conversation]], she reminds him that [[YouAreNotAlone he was not alone in his struggles]] and that they took care of each other. Later on, Lasky comments that Chief [[MeaningfulEcho is not a machine]] and has the right to be a person.

* ArtEvolution: While they were never exactly beautiful, the Covenant are somewhat more grotesque in ''4'' than they were in previous games. Compare the [[http://www.halopedia.org/images/c/c4/H4_profile_-_KigYar.png Halo 4 Jackal]] to the [[http://www.halopedia.org/images/7/72/JackalMinor.png Halo 3 Jackal]], for example. Forerunner architecture is also different: compare the blocky, flat geometry of the Ark's [[http://www.halopedia.org/images/6/60/Citadel_Side.jpg citadel]] to the more detailed and flowing shapes on [[http://www.halopedia.org/images/8/89/SO-EP1-CH3.png Requiem]]. In both those cases though, WordOfGod is that that the "old" designs are still canon, with the newer ones representing different phenotypes and subspecies in the case of the Covenant, and divergent design philosophies between the different Forerunner castes in the case of Requiem's architecture.

* ArtificialGravity: For some reason, Requiem possesses a gravity generator which seems to serve no function other than to make passing ships crash into it (the surface certainly still appears to possess gravity after it's destroyed). For some reason, it's constantly referred to in-game as a "gravity well", which generally refers to a body's ''natural'' gravity field as it pertains to objects attempting to escape from it or pass by without crashing.

* ArtificialGravity: For some reason, Requiem possesses a gravity generator which seems to serve no function other than to make passing ships crash into it (the surface certainly still appears to possess gravity after it's destroyed). For some reason, it's constantly referred to in-game as a "[[YouKeepUsingThatWord gravity well]]", which generally refers to a body's ''natural'' gravity field as it pertains to objects attempting to escape from it or pass by without crashing.

** This does, however, cause some problems. Both the Master Chief and the frigate ''Forward Unto Dawn'' received radical redesigns, despite there being no in universe justification for them. For Forward Unto Dawn, the ship was already a small frigate cut in half at the end of Halo 3, so they enlarged it to be more suitable as the entire first level. For Master Chief and the Mjolnir armor, previously games were designed to create a seamless blend of hard armor and flex points, making him look like a walking tank. In this game it's clear he is wearing a bodysuit with hard armor strapped over it (with the final moments of the story showing the armor being removed), along with enlarged booster pods on his shoulders he looks both skinnier and more top heavy.

* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler: Although Didact is prevented from completing killing every human on Earth, he still manages to kill the entire population of New Phoenix. It's still quarantined six months later when ''Spartan Ops' starts.]]

* LaserGuidedKarma: You can dish this out '''beautifully''' in the "Composer" mission. When you get to the air lock areas that often has an automated voice announce the "Exterior/Interior Airlock" activations, usually one can't do this for the first encountered area with the first set of airlocks, but in the second one you can. Once the Covvies enter from an exterior airlock, you can immediately [[ThrownOutTheAirlock vent them right back out]], thus easily getting rid of the pests.

* LampshadeHanging: An easter egg can be found with two marines talking about an inverted stick on "Composer", which pokes at how most players use non-inverted sticks anyway.

-->'''Mantis Marine:''' It just doesn't make sense. The thing's a mech, not a fighter.

** The Pelican pilot leader in the "Reclaimer" mission is this to an absolute T. Despite Sarah Palmer's [[IWarnedYou repeated warnings]] lowering their altitude due to being '''right''' in the firing path of one of the Forerunner Particle Cannons, he '''still''' continues to fly right into it along with the other group of Pelicans. No points for guessing what happens to them ignoring the aforementioned warnings.

** The Pelican pilot leader in the "Reclaimer" mission is this to an absolute T. Despite Sarah Palmer's [[IWarnedYou repeated warnings]] of being '''right''' in the firing path of one of the Forerunner Particle Cannons, he '''still''' continues to fly right into it along with the other group of Pelicans. No points for guessing what happens to them ignoring the aforementioned warnings.

** Spartan-[=IVs=] use an upgraded version of the MJOLNIR armour (GEN 2, to be precise) to make up for their augmentations which are wound down from the more powerful augs used in Spartan-[=IIs=]. They also have the nice advantage of being drawn from fully adult volunteers, a first for the Spartan program, which means they can be churned out in greater numbers and they lack the psychologically issues that plagued the Spartan-[=IIIs=]. Certainly a direct upgrade from their predecessors, but whether they are better than the Spartan-[=IIs=], the jury is still out.

* TheCameo: If you activate certain Easter Eggs during ''Spartan Ops'', some UNSC dialogue gets replaced by [[Machinima/RedVsBlue the Blood Gulch Reds and Blues]].

* BondVillainStupidity: [[spoiler:Twice, the Didact decides to telekinetically lifts the Chief and monologue to him rather than killing him outright. The second time, all he had to do was shut off the hardlight bridge and let the Chief fall. He also doesn't bother carrying any weapons.]]

** The sticky detonator gun in the campaign. It can usually kill Hunters in two hits provided you hit their weak spots from behind, the bomb sticks to the enemy if you hit them with it, and it has quite a nice explosive radius, making them very useful for taking out groups of enemies bunched up together. That said, you can usually only carry 6 rounds at best (5 rounds + 1 in the chamber), and the guns themselves are pretty rare and don't really show up till late in the game, so their usefulness is limited.

--> '''Chief''': Are any of the ship-to-ship defenses online?
--> '''Cortana''': Only the Hyperion missiles, but we'll have to fire them manually from the outer hull.

--> '''Chief''': Didn't the ship's sensors say we still had weapons systems online?
--> '''Cortana''': Yes, but since the ship was torn in half, we can't access the weapons stations. We'll have to fire them manually from the outer hull.

** On the other hand, the Covenant Elites are... not so elite this time, having suffered a BadassDecay wherein they are now both [[ConservationOfNinjutsu more numerous]] and, with the exceptions of the Zealots and gold-armored Warriors (who actually are elite among the Elites), relatively easy to kill (similar to ''Halo 2'' and ''Halo 3'', without their shields they're no tougher than a Grunt or Jackal, and they don't even have the resistance to plasma weapons they had in ''2'' and ''3'').

** On the other hand, the Covenant Elites are... not so elite this time, having suffered a BadassDecay wherein they are now both [[ConservationOfNinjutsu more numerous]] and, with the exceptions of the Zealots and gold-armored Warriors (who actually are elite among the Elites), relatively easy to kill (similar to ''Halo 2'' and ''Halo 3'', without their shields they're no tougher than a Grunt or Jackal).

** In fact there are only 5 different variants of Elites in ''Halo 4''; Storm Elites are similar to the blue Elite Minors from previous games, only they have the ability to throw grenades and occasionally use energy swords. Elite Commanders, the equivalent of Elite Majors[=/=]Elite Officers, aren't much tougher than Storm Elites, but often carry heavier weapons like concussion rifles and occasionally will pull out an energy sword when angered. Elite Rangers show up in space combat and tend to use precision weapons. Gold-armored Elite Warriors are slightly tougher than Commanders, and in addition to standard Elite weapons will occasionally use fuel rod cannons. Zealots are the toughest Elites in ''Halo 4'', with slightly stronger shields and about twice as much health as Storm Elites, as well as using cloaking devices and sometimes energy swords.

* DoesNotLikeShoes: Most Grunts, although a few have spacesuits on. This time around, their feet look more like those of a turtle, with four clawed toes instead of three claws and a stub for the heel projecting directly out of the foot. Averted with Jacakals, who now have proper footwear.

* PunctuatedForEmphasis: After Mission 5, when Del Rio dismisses Cortana and John-117's warnings, Cortana snaps at him:

** Human Marines are the weakest they've ever been in the series, being able to survive barely more damage than a Covenant Grunt. This is balanced out by the addition of Spartan-[=IV=] allies, who are about as tough as Elites.

** The sticky detonator gun in the campaign. It can usually kill Hunters in two hits provided you hit their weak spots from behind, the bomb sticks to the enemy if you hit them with it, and it has quite a nice explosive radius, making them very useful for taking out groups of enemies bunched up together. That said, you can usually only carry about five rounds at best, and the guns themselves are pretty rare and don't really show up till late in the game, so their usefulness is limited.

* CripplingOverspecialization: The new Railgun. Classified as an anti-infantry weapon, it really is... ''just'' that. It's powerful enough to tear through the toughest of infantry, cutting down Knights and Elites, but does underwhelming damage to light vehicles and practically nothing to tanks.