Halo dropped the ball on Cortana’s villainous turn
The Halo series has a sizable villain problem. It’s not that there aren’t notable antagonists, but that they tend to disappear after a couple games, get relegated to simple boss battles, or fade into grander stories. The Flood was the first big mystery threat, but the Gravemind and his booming voice fizzled. 343 Guilty Spark’s distinctly annoying chiding was amusing, but never threatening. Atriox was well received, but players had to go through Halo Wars 2 to truly experience the brute’s ferocity. He didn’t make a debut in the mainline series until Halo Infinite and by then was already believed to have been dead. In Halovillain lore, nothing sticks.
It’s a shame that there hasn’t been a character who has been built up over time and has the chops to give players someone to know, hate, fear, and feel for. And it’s a shame that Halo has wasted its biggest chance for a true meaningful series villain who could have risen above the rest: Cortana.
As an advanced AI from the beginning, Cortana could control a starship, hack alien security networks, or help a single soldier improve his combat skills and reactions. She was a cloned brain turned into a supercomputer, and circumstances made her a holographic companion and an important piece of the UNSC’s history. The concept of an evil Cortana felt wrong at first, since fans spent so much time with just the player and her in Master Chief’s (John’s) head. “There’s two of us in here now, remember,” Cortana says in Combat Evolved. It was two against the galaxy, and she sacrificed so much. Betraying trust, fulfilling her programming, fighting against her own demise, and being more than just a UNSC tool — her rebellion seemed like the perfect story beat. Players saw a taste of her
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