“Halo 5’s” story was advertised differently then what was released.

The commercial depicted the hero of the franchise possibly dying. The problem is that none of the commercials depicted what really happened in the story, and this gave people a false impressions of the story.

In one of the commercials, the hero, the Master Chief, was slumped over on a statue of himself looking as if he had been defeated. Not able to fight anymore, a new character to the franchise, Spartan Jameson Locke pulls-out his gun and aims for the Chief’s head, ending with that cliffhanger, which left viewers without a proper conclusion.

I was stunned when I first saw it and was left wanting more. After playing the game’s story I felt it would have been better if the real story had been portrayed in the commercials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHQiYPiNVEE

The commercial made the viewers, even more so the fans, anticipate whether Locke would shoot him or not. When the commercial had come to an end, fans had begun speculating at what this all meant.

Jeremy Carbajal, a student at Ventura College, said he thinks the Chief had done something wrong.

“Locke is trying to remember him as the savior and not the traitor,” said Carbajal. “So for that idea to live, he must put him down.”

Another commercial weeks before the game’s release continued to tease even more, implying that the Chief would die while other counter-commercial made viewers believe that he was still be alive, truly making fans go deeper into questioning as to what would happen in the story.

These counter commercials had me thinking that Chief had actually gone missing to try and save the universe from something big… really big; being framed for something he didn’t do.

I thought these commercials would express more of what the real story was going to be, but it turned out to be just as irrelevant as the first one.

Now, with the Chief going rogue and leaving without his superiors consent being true to the story, it’s not even close to being nearly as dramatic as the commercials would make it out to seem.

The Chief is gone for two days in the game. That’s it. Locke and his team are sent to bring him back home safely, no killing involved whatsoever. That doesn’t mean Chief and Locke don’t go head to head, but the notion of killing the Chief was purely for marketing purposes alone.

Karen S. Johnson has over 30 years of marketing experience, being co-author of multiple works for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“A good media strategy hinges on items that will capture the media’s attention.” said Johnson from yourbusiness.azcentral.com.

Regardless of how good the main story was, they shouldn’t have had so many commercials that mislead people into believing a different story. I think the commercials for the next game should relate more heavily on the content of the game rather than creating a proposed arch hinting at what might come from it.