Noble 6: Ghost of Reach

A stone overtunred

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I only really started playing Halo at the beginning of this year. In fact, it was specifically so I could do a quick review series on the entirety of the Master Chief Collection, the first of such reviews you can find here. However, though I like to big-up the whole 'I had never played Halo before that moment' the truth is only partially right there. Because whilst I had never played any of Master Chief's journey before, I had actually played one Halo game. That game was 'Halo: Reach' and I loved it. That attachment that so many old Halo fans have towards John-117 is how I feel about the secretive 'Nobel 6' from the defence force that were overwhelmed during the Fall of Reach, and even having played the rest of the story I still think that Reach offered some of the most poignant and cinematic moments of the franchise in it's best moments. As such, as far as my nostalgia is concerned; Reach is my Halo game.

I set this as an establishment to the issue of how important this game is to me, such that when I tell you how curiously I approach a fan animated project to tell the story of Nobel 6 after the events of Reach I get a bit curious. Now that's for a few reasons. Firstly, we are currently in a golden age of technology where fans are totally within their capabilities to animated high quality video footage if they have the know how, and I'm always excited to see the results of all that. Secondly, I am personally invested in a couple of my own 'fan fiction' sort of projects, they're not to the scale of highly produced animatics, but I'm familiar with the balance between respect and imagination you want to juggle in that situation. And thirdly, and arguably most importantly; what after Reach? Didn't Noble 6, you know, freakin' die on Reach? Isn't that sort of the point of his entire narrative and story? Well I have to see what sort of project has the gall to stop on something as significant as a sacrifice plotline.

Right now what we have is a teaser trailer that looks exceptionally well animated given the tools at the team's disposal, conveying the bare basic premise as well as giving us a look at the armour of Nobel 6 and a brief snippet of some of the voice work going behind bringing this story to life. (Oh, and it sounds like the team are reusing some of Reach's incredible soundtrack. Can hardly ride them for doing that, can I?) As I understand things, this narrative is set to follow Nobel 6 embarking on several completely lone wolf guerrilla campaigns against the occupying Covent force on Reach after surviving his final encounter with them after the Pillar of Autumn's evacuation. Actually, from the look of things it might be more accurate to say that the epilogue mission never even happened at all by these guy's reckoning; as they depict Nobel wearing his full armour without a broken visor like what happens at the end of Reach. (You know, that perfect Bookend moment which brings the narrative finale back round to meet the intro? They just scrubbed that.)

The presentation appears to be a story told in reverse after Nobel 6 has been bought back by ONI to answer for his, presumably several, years AWOL in the middle of a Convent/Human war. (Master Chief could have certainly used another badass one-man-army helping him out during the campaign against the Covenant.) So in that way somewhat similar to that other fan-verse Star Trek story that was shut down all that time ago, Axanar. A style of narrative presentation I inherently dislike due to the way it divorces the tension of possibility from the followed events as we know the speaking character gets through it all unscathed; they're the one telling the story. Although I suppose in this particular case, it would be a bit weird for the team to resurrect Nobel 6 just to kill him off again, huh?

Now although the animation looks eye-catchingly good, the voice work gives away the amateur nature of production. There's a bit too much unnatural 'gruff' going on behind the ONI commander's words (Which I've noticed becoming very popular in indie games recently. I don't know why non-actors don't just play it straight and allow their script to do the heavy lifting) and some questionable mic quality. There was also the decision made to give Nobel 6 a new voice which was... unnecessary. But I can kind of see why they went that direction. Of course, all we're currently looking at is a teaser trailer and the team are actively reworking elements of the final product at all times, so what we see will not be representative of whatever ends up happening. The newly chatty protagonist, however? That's a given, that ain't changing; so let me go into my thoughts on this matter.

Obviously they want this story to be narrated by Nobel 6, he needs to speak; and I've got some personal experience in trying to give a voice to a character who was originally conceived as a voiceless avatar for the player. It's hard and the transition is always going to be rocky. I'm not in love with the voice they chose to give Noble 6, nor that cliché of an opening line, but I'm willing to give some ground because I know this can be done right. Again, I cite Cloud from the FF7 Remake where the team knew to characterise his taciturn depiction as a quirk of character that defines who he is. That is a way to bring this to life, and writing is as much about learning what fits as following the rules; I just hope the team have taken into account that the process of adaptation needs to be formative for the character they're writing if they went this depiction of Noble 6 to have chance of sidling up alongside the vanilla man. Oh, he's canonically a man now. Not sure if that was done in any side novels. They're obviously disadvantaged by the fact that Nobel 6 actually had a voice in the game, meaning there are comparisons to be made, but if the characterisation feels on point the mind's eye will overlook that.

Those are all the barriers to entry, as for the potential; well that's wide open for this team to come along and tell their own Master Chief-style narrative deep within the heart of enemy lines. From the little snippets we got it looks like the action is going to be a core pillar of narrative rather than following the emotional breakdown of a stranded deep behind enemy lines of a war that, from his limited perspective, humanity has already lost. Were it that I didn't know any better, I might even suspect this whole set-up of a 'disobedience trial' as a metaphorical mental construct with which Nobel 6 tries himself over his failure to save Reach in a sort-of 'Jacob's ladder' style projection flashing through his failing mind as his body flatlines on the scorched sands of a planet mid-glassing. That would be ridiculous though. Nobel 6 was ultimately killed by an Energy Sword through the chest if I remember correctly, that's gotta be a pretty instant way to be taken out. Not much space for self reflection there.

I love fan projects and really wish there were more space for them to exist across the industry. Heck, KOTOR would already have its remake if the world were more open to fan works, but by that same merit we'd have even more Fifty Shades of Grey copycats; so it's a real give and take equation here. Of all the animated projects of this vein, and there are a couple milling about (including a retelling of KOTOR with similarly dubious voice acting) the very idea of spitting in the face of a perfect conclusion is so ballsy that I can't help but tilt up my chin to meet the challenge. Of course, my biggest hand goes out to the team that had the guts to step out on this road to begin with, whether out of love for Halo or bitterness (the fanbase is often driven by equal parts of both) the more reimaginations we see the absolute better.