[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] BlackKnightKanos Since this is turning into an "I hate Halo 4" thread. I'll answer this one seriously. I would say that Halo 4 is about triumphing even in defeat. Master Chief's whole journey in Halo 4 has been nothing but countless defeats. He loses Cortana, his contributions are not acknowledged by Infinity, he failed to save the people in the Ivanoff Research Station. Lastly, all the civilians of New Phoenix were composed and he had to destroy the Composer. In turn, killing all the civilians that became digital AIs. It's about what you're willing to do for a cause. How far are you willing to go for a cause.[/quote] This was pretty prevalent to me. It was unusual for John to lose, and above everything else entirely, to lose Cortana (apparently). I think this would fit in as an effect with the motif of John's aging. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] xAT 117x I personally think the the theme was Man (humanity) vs Machine. As Cortana becomes increasingly rampant she becomes increasingly human, and in contrast the Chief has to become more machine like and hide his emotions (more than he usually does) to make sure they both don't fall apart. At the end you're not meant to be sure whether Cortana's "death" has brought Chief back to his humanity or pushed him completely over the edge into machine territory. That is what I got from it anyway...[/quote] I felt this was the main theme. I did see their personalities become respectively more machine or human, which I thought was nice. John was the one who was helping Cortana, not the other way around, which I also thought was nice for an ironic change. On a side note, repetitiveness is what you get when you have to stick with a series. Enough change to be new, but not so much that it isn't anything like the others. Yes, it is owned by Microsoft. Yes, gameplay is quite the same. But we're talking about story here, and I found nothing repetitive about the story. 343 gave it a nice, concise (some would even say short) story.