Halo kinda struggled to find an enemy faction that would stick as much as the OG Covenant and the Flood after its initial trilogy, but I think the series hit a homerun with the Banished, a rogue alien group exploited by the original game's big bad who also happens to be led by an ultra badass brute. Though the faction was only created to get back to the series' roots after Halo 4 was a little too dark and Halo 5 was... well, bad.
Speaking to FRVR, Halo Wars 2 writer Dion Lay explains that 343 Industries (now Halo Studios) came up with the idea for the Banished to introduce in the RTS sequel, laying the groundwork for them to take center stage in Halo Infinite.
"343 was like we want you to get back to [the roots]," Lay says, explaining that the studio saw the faction as a course correction. "I really loved Halo 4 as well because it was quite dark and then some of it was a bit more realistic, and they [343] wanted to bring some of the fun back, but they didn't want to lose the thrill of action."
Lay goes on to explain Halo's "balance" was all about "really fun" gameplay that feeds into a "quite funny" superhuman power fantasy, "but then underneath the story is really dark and really complex and it does a really amazing job of balancing both things at the same time."
While Halo 4 might've swung too far in the dark side, Halo 5 swung in a direction that simply made no sense, leading to a more grounded but still slightly fun enemy faction for the next mainline game.
"Blur were making the cutscenes as we were making the game," Lay recalls. "'Yeah, it's gonna be Atriox is going to fight three Spartans and beat them all.' And you're like, 'What? Spartans?' And it's like, 'Yeah, and this is going to be big,' and it was a massive deal."
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