Game Study

Last time I was talking about how we associate colors and shapes to identify factions of people or organisations. I decided to look into this further by studying the main factions in Halo 4. The reason for this is that in the previous Halo games, developers had already created two extremely opposing groups that had been designed well to appear as polar opposites from each other in almost every way; Humans and the Covenant
However in this game they had the challenge of integrating a third faction which would be the focus as the main enemies this time, instead of the Covenant.

Beginning with Master Chief and the logo, as the human side is the faction you assume control of the character in, the focus is military- You are at war. Green is a common color used in the military nowadays, however this color is given to the Master Chief alone in order to clearly set him apart from any other military-based character you may be fighting alongside.

Looking at the human faction as whole, the color code is blue, which has been introduced into the main characters design as blue lights that glow on particular parts of his armor.
All posters and the logo exampling the main character or the human faction always have blue as the dominating color.

As the game is in a futuristic setting where the advancement of technology is a strong theme, Blue applies to almost everything technological from such as computer panels, the players' HUD, weapon displays and even main characters.

In terms of form and shape, the human side for the most part takes a very primitive turn. Designs from architecture to ships and the main character himself have adapted bulky, blocky shapes.  I believe the intention of using bulk and rectangular shapes to display primitive-looking designs is to show the Humans at a certain stage of evolution, to visually stage them at a disadvantage to their opponents.

In every game before Halo 4, the Covenant have been the main antagonist, showing to be very alien as species and shows large variaty in opponents. As there are over 5 different alien races within this covenant, it is evident the developers thought it important to visually unify such different-looking aliens. As a result, all the armor the aliens wear have the same high-gloss, shiny texture, in turn which reflects back on their environment and ships. In surprising contrast, the covenant often sport brighter colors in their designs unlike the largely grey and blue color palette used by Humans.

Most colors used by the covenant range between iridescent purples and greens, which give's their equipment and vehicles an alien feel. Everything used by the covenant is smooth, and looks streamlined, right down to their armor. And most ships and weapons have a bulbous physical shape in comparison to the Human's very blocky ships and equipment.

The Forerunner are the main antagonists of Halo 4. Visually there are some similarities between the forerunner and two other factions, however this is because within the narrative of the game the forerunner pre-date both humans and the covenant by billions of years. 

The color palette is one of the main design links between human and forerunner, as all forerunner weapons, ships and technology sport grey metal tones, as well as using both blue and orange as their defining colors.

Commonly re-occurring shapes in their factions designs has been triangular, and demonstrates this through an entirely new level of alien to the player more-so than the covenant as most shapes of weapons and architecture are erratic and unpredictable.

The three main factions in the halo universe lend well to each other in other to define their own personal traits and set design rules while not stepping on the feet of the other. Each faction is vastly different and more unpredictably alien than the next.