Series That Rely Too Much on Expanded Universe Media

[wolf thing]

I wouldn't say Halo, since it doesn't actually rely on it. You can read the books, it will give you more information about the universe, but as someone that has never seen anything other than what the game has put immediately in front of me I have never had a problem with Halo. I didn't have any trouble with any of the things listed. I'm sorry, I just really don't see the problem here.

Im going to guess you have never played halo 4 because that is were the problems starts, the story in the other games has never been good but haloe 4 was terrbile. let me some it up in one sentace

"Whats a diadact?"

I dont know, I still dont know but every one else does. Even cheif who was asleep for two years. Even the Marines who have been fighting the convanat for decades, they know what i diadect is. So having only played the games, how do i not know, and how am i not told? was i suppose to know before this?

 

[Blaster395]

Skyrim has far too much expanded universe media stored within the in-game books. Thankfully, those books are in-game.

 

[Simple Bluff]

mass effect 3 was bad for it. from introducing a pile of characters off camera as such through to killing some on twitter. which is a low point for gaming

Tend to agree - I was the kind of nerd who'd read all the books and comics before the game came out so it all seemed pretty smooth to me. But the reactions of a lot of people after the game came out made me realise a lot of it was probably shoehorned in.

Kai Leng was probably the biggest one. If you've read the books then he's properly built up as a legit badass and coming across him in the game is a cool moment. If you haven't though, then he's just some annoying plot-armoured douchebag.

Kahlee Sanders was another one though, I guess it probably seems weird that we're supposed to have been so close to Anderson all this time, but we only find out now that he's had a girlfriend / love interest all this time. Same with going to Grissom Academy, it's a cool thing if you've read the books but it's a WTF come out of nowhere thing if you haven't. And again with Aria being kicked out of Omega and Cerberus taking over, that's dropped in without any real explanation if you haven't read the comics.

Personally, I think the worst offender is Paul Grayson. His name was dropped in three different incidences, each indicating that he was linked to Cerberus and their ambitions in a major way, even though he was NEVER acknowledged in the previous games. The strangest thing is when Anderson casually brings him up in conversation with Shepard, as if Shepard would know him personally. It really confused the hell out of me.

 

[Zantos]

I wouldn't say Halo, since it doesn't actually rely on it. You can read the books, it will give you more information about the universe, but as someone that has never seen anything other than what the game has put immediately in front of me I have never had a problem with Halo. I didn't have any trouble with any of the things listed. I'm sorry, I just really don't see the problem here.

Im going to guess you have never played halo 4 because that is were the problems starts, the story in the other games has never been good but haloe 4 was terrbile. let me some it up in one sentace

"Whats a diadact?"

I dont know, I still dont know but every one else does. Even cheif who was asleep for two years. Even the Marines who have been fighting the convanat for decades, they know what i diadect is. So having only played the games, how do i not know, and how am i not told? was i suppose to know before this?

It's not a didact. It's the guy's name, Didact. He commanded the forerunner military during the war against the Flood and was imprisoned on Requiem by the Librarian. He tells you some of that, then The Librarian tells you the rest. Granted it doesn't tell you that immediately right away as soon as the guy appears, but it's there. If you want to know more about what happened it's probably in the books, but you don't need any of the extra for the game.

 

[wolf thing]

I wouldn't say Halo, since it doesn't actually rely on it. You can read the books, it will give you more information about the universe, but as someone that has never seen anything other than what the game has put immediately in front of me I have never had a problem with Halo. I didn't have any trouble with any of the things listed. I'm sorry, I just really don't see the problem here.

Im going to guess you have never played halo 4 because that is were the problems starts, the story in the other games has never been good but haloe 4 was terrbile. let me some it up in one sentace

"Whats a diadact?"

I dont know, I still dont know but every one else does. Even cheif who was asleep for two years. Even the Marines who have been fighting the convanat for decades, they know what i diadect is. So having only played the games, how do i not know, and how am i not told? was i suppose to know before this?

It's not a didact. It's the guy's name, Didact. He commanded the forerunner military during the war against the Flood and was imprisoned on Requiem by the Librarian. He tells you some of that, then The Librarian tells you the rest. Granted it doesn't tell you that immediately right away as soon as the guy appears, but it's there. If you want to know more about what happened it's probably in the books, but you don't need any of the extra for the game.

No people refer to him as "the diadact" which means its a title not a name, the librarian does tell us stuff but it is most some stuff about old humans, not to mention how bad the librarina was as far writting goes, a character who onl exsits to spout exsption is a bad character made even wors that she is also a deus ex machinna.

but all this does not explain why everyone new he was the diadact, they all just star calling him that long before the librarian tell us he back story. even worse is noboy talk or exsplains what he is or what he does. this is bad writting and full of plot whole and i have been told that what a diadact is is explained in the books.

 

[Yabba]

i agree with halo, the fourth games writting was total shite, it was full of plot holes and bad dialog and relide on you having read the books, while still retconing all of its universe, just shite writing and it blows my mind that people defends is writing.

Halo 4 didn't fucking retcon ANYTHNG. Anyone who argues that it does doesn't know what they're talking about and that blows my mind by the sheer stupidity of it.

The Halo series is constantly retconing things, things get introduced in the books (mainly because there was so little story/world bulding in halo one) and then changed in the games, which is bad because people always say that you NEED to read the books to get the story.

As for halo 4 spsicaly: making the forerunners aliens, or shoould i say so alien, so far the game were hinting that the forerunner were very human, which is why they could use there technalogies which gets retcon in halo 4.

Making the human an ages old spacefaring race, this is not only a retcon, but also bad writting as space faring race are difficult to cover up. The retcon part is that the whole series is based apoun an acent alien races which the new race (humane covanauts), and there races interacting with them, having them both alive and space-faring changes the plot there for is a retcon.

And there is more, though out the whole series some, are more obuils than others. Retcons are bad writting it shows that the writting can not remain costant with there story telling. some good games have retcon there storys but that does not make the retconing bad.

I can tell you are a fan of the series other wise you would not that comment, i don ask you to dislike the series only to relise the problem with it, in this case is it bad narrative and the retcons and i have only talked about the retcons.

Exactly, and even in the books and metioned briefly in the game is that the Forunners created humanity in their image and preserved it. For-runner, one who came BEFORE. Guilty spark even says "You are the child of my makers. Inheritor of all they left behind. You are Forerunner."

 

[MagunBFP]

Halo 4 didn't fucking retcon ANYTHNG. Anyone who argues that it does doesn't know what they're talking about and that blows my mind by the sheer stupidity of it.

Bro you gotta admit that anyone who hasn't read the Forerunner books is gonna see the a lot of Halo 4 as retconning the human history

Making the human an ages old spacefaring race, this is not only a retcon, but also bad writting as space faring race are difficult to cover up. The retcon part is that the whole series is based apoun an acent alien races which the new race (humane covanauts), and there races interacting with them, having them both alive and space-faring changes the plot there for is a retcon.

Unfortunately Halo 4 did a terrible job of explaining anything, but in the latest book trilogy...

Spoiler

Humanity is established as having once been a massive space empire that was attacked by the flood, fought a loosing war against it and attacked forerunner planets because they had no where else to run away to. The forerunners fought back and after a long war beat the Humans who were then wiped to almost extinction and literally sent back to the stone age. Now thousands of years later we're just returning to space. The Librarian changed us so there are Forerunner additions running around in our DNA which is what causes us to be their successors. Also

Spoiler

343 Guilty Spark... was a human but his mind was turned into an AI and stored in the Monitor shell]

No people refer to him as "the didact" which means its a title not a name, the librarian does tell us stuff but it is most some stuff about old humans, not to mention how bad the librarian was as far writing goes, a character who only exists to spout exposition is a bad character made even worse that she is also a deus ex machina.

but all this does not explain why everyone new he was the didact, they all just start calling him that long before the librarian tell us the back story. even worse is nobody talks or explains what he is or what he does. this is bad writing and full of plot holes and I have been told that what a didact is is explained in the books.

Interesting to see that despite not having read the books you know enough to say someone who tries to answer you is wrong. He is The Didact, and it is his name, it's like Doctor Who his name is The Doctor, he isn't a doctor its just what you call him, the same is true for the Didact. The books don't explain what a Didact is, they explain who he is. As a side note Wolf Thing, I would suggest that before you criticise something for having bad writing you try to ensure that your spelling and grammar isn't worse.

 

[wolf thing]

Halo 4 didn't fucking retcon ANYTHNG. Anyone who argues that it does doesn't know what they're talking about and that blows my mind by the sheer stupidity of it.

Bro you gotta admit that anyone who hasn't read the Forerunner books is gonna see the a lot of Halo 4 as retconning the human history

Making the human an ages old spacefaring race, this is not only a retcon, but also bad writting as space faring race are difficult to cover up. The retcon part is that the whole series is based apoun an acent alien races which the new race (humane covanauts), and there races interacting with them, having them both alive and space-faring changes the plot there for is a retcon.

Unfortunately Halo 4 did a terrible job of explaining anything, but in the latest book trilogy...

Spoiler

Humanity is established as having once been a massive space empire that was attacked by the flood, fought a loosing war against it and attacked forerunner planets because they had no where else to run away to. The forerunners fought back and after a long war beat the Humans who were then wiped to almost extinction and literally sent back to the stone age. Now thousands of years later we're just returning to space. The Librarian changed us so there are Forerunner additions running around in our DNA which is what causes us to be their successors. Also

Spoiler

343 Guilty Spark... was a human but his mind was turned into an AI and stored in the Monitor shell]

No people refer to him as "the didact" which means its a title not a name, the librarian does tell us stuff but it is most some stuff about old humans, not to mention how bad the librarian was as far writing goes, a character who only exists to spout exposition is a bad character made even worse that she is also a deus ex machina.

but all this does not explain why everyone new he was the didact, they all just start calling him that long before the librarian tell us the back story. even worse is nobody talks or explains what he is or what he does. this is bad writing and full of plot holes and I have been told that what a didact is is explained in the books.

Interesting to see that despite not having read the books you know enough to say someone who tries to answer you is wrong. He is The Didact, and it is his name, it's like Doctor Who his name is The Doctor, he isn't a doctor its just what you call him, the same is true for the Didact. The books don't explain what a Didact is, they explain who he is. As a side note Wolf Thing, I would suggest that before you criticise something for having bad writing you try to ensure that your spelling and grammar isn't worse.

I shouldnt have to read the books to understand the main plot and character in a computer game, that is why i told that person that he is wrong, because a game and a book are two different mediums, you cant make a bad story in a game and then fill it in in some books. that is not a good use of the medium. In halo 4 everyone call him "the diadact" for no reason we get told in the game, they just start calling him that. if a writter needs a book to exsplain a character who is a amjor part in the game they should not be writing the game, simple as. by say the book exsplain the diadact is only proving my point, he gets no character in the game but a book to fill it in. it goes to show you how bad the state of writing is in gaming that main character, plot vital characters get nothing in the game but everyone is okay with and reost to person attack to those call it out. it is bad writing dont say its not because it is, plain and simple, the books can tell the greatist story ever written but iam here and may are to talk about games, and halo as a game has a terrible narritive, if you want to talk about the books fine, im tlaking about the game, i should not have to read a book to under stand a story in a game, world buliding and side is fine, but main plot, no.

as for my spelling and grammer, i have reasons why its bad, reason i dont have to explain. im no the only one here with poor grammer and spelling, and just because i dont put effort into my spelling while talk to people on the internet does not make me illqualification to talk about writing. if you think it does, fine ignore me. but you didnt so i guess it doesnt.

 

[Ruley]

I think the biggest problem with Halo 4 is that 343i knew the content like the back of their hands but it seems they didn't listen to play test enough (maybe) and left out a fair few key details.

Actually no, the biggest problem is pacing. if all of these story revelations were made with more time to digest them, i feel the story would have been stronger. Thinking back, the slower paced cutscenes are between Chief and Cortana. The Librarian scene feels so rushed.

 

[Glongpre]

Halo 4 had the best story so far and I haven't even read the books or anything. Master Chief is actually an interesting character in this one.

 

[Kolby Jack]

I think the biggest problem with Halo 4 is that 343i knew the content like the back of their hands but it seems they didn't listen to play test enough (maybe) and left out a fair few key details.

Actually no, the biggest problem is pacing. if all of these story revelations were made with more time to digest them, i feel the story would have been stronger. Thinking back, the slower paced cutscenes are between Chief and Cortana. The Librarian scene feels so rushed.

Honestly I felt the Chief/Cortana story was the main plot and the Didact was just a backdrop to it. How strongly you are against that idea is your own business, but I LOVE Halo 4's campaign mostly just because of the Chief/Cortana story. For the next game I'm really, REALLY holding out hope that we'll see the Arbiter return along with the other surviving SPARTAN IIs, but we'll see. I think it would be extraordinarily dumb for them to leave out the Arbiter completely considering that, as I recall, he's a pretty popular character. Halo 5: four-player co-op with Chief, Arby, Fred and Kelly? I'd play the shit out of that.

 

[MagunBFP]

I shouldnt have to read the books to understand the main plot and character in a computer game, that is why i told that person that he is wrong, because a game and a book are two different mediums, you cant make a bad story in a game and then fill it in in some books. that is not a good use of the medium. In halo 4 everyone call him "the diadact" for no reason we get told in the game, they just start calling him that. if a writter needs a book to exsplain a character who is a amjor part in the game they should not be writing the game, simple as. by say the book exsplain the diadact is only proving my point, he gets no character in the game but a book to fill it in. it goes to show you how bad the state of writing is in gaming that main character, plot vital characters get nothing in the game but everyone is okay with and reost to person attack to those call it out. it is bad writing dont say its not because it is, plain and simple, the books can tell the greatist story ever written but iam here and may are to talk about games, and halo as a game has a terrible narritive, if you want to talk about the books fine, im tlaking about the game, i should not have to read a book to under stand a story in a game, world buliding and side is fine, but main plot, no.

as for my spelling and grammer, i have reasons why its bad, reason i dont have to explain. im no the only one here with poor grammer and spelling, and just because i dont put effort into my spelling while talk to people on the internet does not make me illqualification to talk about writing. if you think it does, fine ignore me. but you didnt so i guess it doesnt.

I shouldn't have to watch Thor to know why Loki in the Avengers is such a big deal. I shouldn't have to watch cartoons or read comics to know who Solomon Grundy is in Arkham City. I shouldn't have to read comics to understand the red lights in the end of Injustice: Gods among us.

The Halo universe is just one universe that deals with everything to do with Halo. You have games, books, comics, machinima, a movie, etc. They're all canon and they're all just as valid as each other... and technically since The Fall Of Reach was published before the game was released the games are actually the extended universe.

The person you told was wrong, was not, you were and they were trying to give you more information. That you won't accept it was just being argumentative. As for The Didact (not Diadact, just Didact) some people call him Didact but a lot of the chanting and conversation with him is simply "Didact" So you could reasonably infer that Didact is both his name and his title. Yes, you never get it clarified what a Didact is, except for someone important in the Forerunner military, but no one in the game ever explains what a Master Chief is either, we have to infer that it's a military rank and draw on our knowledge from other mediums.

The books and the games and Forward Unto Dawn are all written and designed to build on each other, they're done by the same people telling parts of the same story. If for whatever reason reading it too hard, or you're too lazy, or you just don't like books you can't blame someone for not telling you something when they tried. Yeah they should have explained the Didact better in the game for the casual Halo player but for those of us who actually read as well as game nothing was retconned and it was pretty much all consistent with the established canon.

As for being attacked for calling out the fact that it wasn't explained in the game, I'm sorry if you feel I'm attacking you but I'm not I'm just trying to suggest that considering the games the only "true" storey is wrong. Bungie/343 Industries simply can not produce a game that gives you the same background knowledge that a book can contain. Also did you access all the terminals in the game? They did actually give you some of the info you're upset you didn't get in the game.

Say you don't like something if you don't like it, don't say they're doing it wrong just because you don't like. At the end of the day if you can't write then you're not qualified to comment on the techniques they use to write their story.

 

[Ruley]

I think the biggest problem with Halo 4 is that 343i knew the content like the back of their hands but it seems they didn't listen to play test enough (maybe) and left out a fair few key details.

Actually no, the biggest problem is pacing. if all of these story revelations were made with more time to digest them, i feel the story would have been stronger. Thinking back, the slower paced cutscenes are between Chief and Cortana. The Librarian scene feels so rushed.

Honestly I felt the Chief/Cortana story was the main plot and the Didact was just a backdrop to it. How strongly you are against that idea is your own business, but I LOVE Halo 4's campaign mostly just because of the Chief/Cortana story. For the next game I'm really, REALLY holding out hope that we'll see the Arbiter return along with the other surviving SPARTAN IIs, but we'll see. I think it would be extraordinarily dumb for them to leave out the Arbiter completely considering that, as I recall, he's a pretty popular character. Halo 5: four-player co-op with Chief, Arby, Fred and Kelly? I'd play the shit out of that.

I'm not denying that. i liked Halo 4's campaign but i don't think it stands up against Halo 3 really, might be because its the start of a new story rather than a conclusion but who knows. And i agree, the focus of Halo 4 was cortana and chief but the Didact can't just be a backdrop, he has to have some presence in my opinion and that side of the plot wasn't handled well.

I agree, i'd like to see Halo 5 incorporate more of the expanded universe well, but i don't think we will be seeing any of the surviving spartan II's or III's. The games have often told the story of how Chief is the last Spartan II, not sure if 343i would want to drop that bombshell on gamers who haven't read the books? only time will tell.

 

[AuronFtw]

I'd say WoW, if not for the fact that the story in-game and the EU novels/manga/coloring books apparently exist in paralel universes with some slight overlap here and there...

The most hilarious thing with warcraft lore, aside from WC3 taking a massive shit all over canon and introducing dumb shit like bipedal cowhippies and trying to pretend that bloodthirsty orcs needed a pact with demons to be bloodthirsty orcs, was when Chris Metzen declared that all warcraft-universe books were non-canon.

It makes sense, they're terrible, but lol. Talk about building up years of "expanded universe" lore just to pop that balloon with a blowdart.

 

[Terramax]

What about Kingdom Hearts? It relies on you having seen lots of Disney films, and played a few Square Enix games too. The game is literally all about nostalgia and selling other media. Baffles me its so popular sometimes.

 

[Nadia Castle]

Any time a series is 'planned' as a multi-media expanded universe it has basically doomed itself. Look at the godawful 'After Earth' film that spent half a film telling us a much more interesting back story to encourage you to buy books, video games and comics, none of which exist because the film was terrible and no-one wants to waste their investment money.

Gears of War is probably the worst offender in video games. It was designed as a franchise and effectively forced the games to pretend they had a rich lore (they didn't), interesting characters (It had maybe two) and a wider universe in order to support the novels and comics.

Did anyone actually care about Marcus and his father? Does anyone understand why the locust were fighting humanity, where they come from, and how they lived under ground for so long without anyone noticing? What about the muck about secret government experiments that went nowhere in the second game and the awful 'rust lung' infection that go so much attention for a single level then vanished? All just random ideas mashed into the game to try and make it seem 'richer' because four lug heads fighting space orcs wouldn't have made for an interesting set of books.

Gears is probably the only franchise in gaming that managed to cripple itself by having too much damn story. It was an arcade spectacle shooter masquerading as some great epic just to spin more cash.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I didn't really care too much for Halo in general so the plot didn't really make me want to read the books...except for Fall of Reach because I wasn't expecting Halo: Reach back in 2008...or 2007...or whenever the Hell I read that book...why in the world wasn't there a mission in Reach that had you fight this anti-Government uprising thing that was in the book...?

Anyway, someone mentioned Gears of War so I'll take that as my signal to say:

"I played Gears of War and Gears 2...and not once did I realize Anya was a love interest. I didn't know what planet the game took place on or indeed, why The Locusts are a threat at all since this obviously wasn't Earth and the humans could easily just up-and-leave at any time. Yeah, the Locusts have decimated cities but they don't seem like a threat when the support cast is never in danger...and the only people dying are the ones in face-obscuring masks...and the guns your beefy ass uses are just as good at killing them as anything else."

...Did they explain what the Locusts were by the way? I think I got what The Lambent were...kind of...wait, is Lambent a disease that any species can get or does it only super-monster-fy Locusts? If this isn't Earth and humans have lived there long enough to build a large civilization then how come nobody discovered The Locusts before? Did The Locusts just come up filled with blood-lust or, was there ever some kind of peace talks...at all?

---

All that aside: I played World of Warcraft for about...I dunno, 3 months back a year or two before Pandera or so. I assume I would know more about the world, the races, the big characters, the past conflicts, etc if I played Warcraft proper...or read the tie in books...

 

[The_Echo]

Skyrim has far too much expanded universe media stored within the in-game books. Thankfully, those books are in-game.

Unfortunately, The Elder Scrolls very, very, very rarely uses all of the lore it's built up over the years.

Yes, you get books upon books. But none of it comes up in NPC conversation, or is ever acknowledged by anyone, really.

I mean, you'd think you might see a Redguard ruminating on the sinking of Yokuda, or a mother worrying how her son looked more ill than a Thrassian Plague victim. Or anyone saying anything about Akavir. The closest you get most of the time are weapons which bear Akaviri titles.

But no. You don't get any of that. I love lore-diving on UESP, learning more about the universe, the mythology, the races (many of which haven't even been in the games). I just wish Bethesda would actually use some of it.

What about Kingdom Hearts? It relies on you having seen lots of Disney films, and played a few Square Enix games too. The game is literally all about nostalgia and selling other media. Baffles me its so popular sometimes.

That's... not true at all. You don't need to have seen any of the Disney films or played any Square to enjoy Kingdom Hearts. Basically, the borrowed characters that appear in Kingdom Hearts are Kingdom Hearts-specific versions of those characters (this is especially true of the Final Fantasy characters). And in KHII specifically, you actually see the events of the Disney films unfold in their respective worlds.

The game is about much more than nostalgia. It's to the point where Disney's part in the franchise is cosmetic at best. The original characters have long since stolen the spotlight.

 

[BNguyen]

Okay, maybe I'm missing something here OP but I'm guessing that you did not even once watch the cutscenes, at all. Because they explain just about everything you need to know in them - Halo 2 explains how he got back to earth using the jet at the end of Halo 1, the arbiter was an elite captain from Halo 1 who let the Halo blow up, hence the trial, Halo 3 is essentially a direct continuation of Halo 3 - the prophet of truth uses the forerunner ship to warp jump to earth, and the covenant are already there since Halo 2. And Halo 4 - right near the beginning, Cortana says "rogue covenant fleet" - the proof that they're enemies lies in their actions against you - only the elites showed an alliance to humans, every other race in the covenant was still fighting you in Halo 3 - and probably the reason why the humans did not mention anything in Halo 4 is because their building up the story for the rest of the trilogy.

 

[Buster]

I'd say WoW, if not for the fact that the story in-game and the EU novels/manga/coloring books apparently exist in paralel universes with some slight overlap here and there...

The most hilarious thing with warcraft lore, aside from WC3 taking a massive shit all over canon and introducing dumb shit like bipedal cowhippies and trying to pretend that bloodthirsty orcs needed a pact with demons to be bloodthirsty orcs, was when Chris Metzen declared that all warcraft-universe books were non-canon.

It makes sense, they're terrible, but lol. Talk about building up years of "expanded universe" lore just to pop that balloon with a blowdart.

Can you provide a citation for that? I stopped following them a while ago, but a quick google search still brought up no evidence to support that claim. It seems to me you have confused the D20 RPG books to be "all warcraft-universe books".