Halo 5: Guardians may not have been the most critically acclaimed game in the space-faring franchise, but it did give fans of the series some interesting pieces of lore and some new characters to speculate over. One such character was Spartan Jameson Locke: Locke was heavily featured in the marketing leading up to the game, with TV spots galore showing him and Master Chief seemingly going head-to-head.
When Halo 5 finally released, players were quick to notice that Locke had more prominence in the game than they thought he would. Locke acted as the player-character for the vast majority of the campaign, resigning Master Chief to only three playable missions. As should have been expected, fans weren't all too happy about this. Unfortunately, Locke's character paid the price, with many fans writing him off as a dull and uninteresting, but that's not the entire truth.
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A Bit of Backstory
Born on the colony of "Jericho VII," Locke's planet was bombarded by Covenant forces when he was young. Barely making it off the planet alive, Locke was placed in an orphanage along with others who had lost their family due to the ongoing Human-Covenant war. Where most of his childhood friends expressed interest in joining the UNSC, Locke wasn't so keen, believing that the government's negligence was also to blame for his family's death. Instead, Locke went out on his own, becoming an assassin for hire.
It didn't take long for ONI (essentially Halo's human secret service) to notice his work, and they set about training him to become one of their top field operatives. Flash forward a few years and Locke has been selected for Spartan-IV training. The following years saw Locke leading Fireteam Osiris (the same team in Halo 5) in a range of covert and intricate military missions, leading right into Halo 5.
Where Is He Now?
The campaign of Halo 5: Guardians leaves Locke and Fireteam Osiris in a bit of a predicament: AI across the galaxy have been taken over by Cortana and are actively hunting down the ship they are on, the "Infinity." The crew decide to flee, using randomized slipspace jumps to keep Cortana off their scent.
Locke's story after this moment is a little unclear. In the novel Halo: Bad Blood, Osiris teammate Buck regroups with the Infinity after he leads a mission with his original Alpha-Nine team (the same team from Halo 3: ODST.) When he meets up with Locke in the ship's bar, Locke tells him that the missions he's undertaken with Osiris team are "Classified," and that's really all there is to go on right now.
Last year, though, there may have been a slight leak regarding Locke's fate in Halo Infinite. A promotional image for a Mega Bloks' set showed a Brute Chieftan wearing Locke's Spartan helmet as a shoulder pad. Now, this could just be a neat little reference that a Mega Bloks designer wanted to include, or the helmet might have no relation to Locke at all, as other Spartans do own the same type of armour canonically. However, if this leaked image is an indication of what's to come, then Locke may meet a grizzly fate in Halo Infinite.
Whether players enjoyed his appearance in Halo 5: Guardians or not, seeing a character they've spent quite some time with meet his end might be enough to change some opinions on his portrayal, especially if it acts as some catalyst for the Master Chief's next outing. Here's hoping that Halo Infinite can redeem a character that never really got his time to shine.
Halo Infinite releases December 8, 2021, for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.