I feel that anytime a game requires you to do research to understand it, it is far too complicated. I don't want to go read the new series of books that was supposed to bridge the gap between Halo 3 and 4. I want to play the game and know what the hell is happening.
Completely and utterly agree.
Yeah, but what counts as "too much" varies depending on who you ask. I don't really care if Halo 5's story crosses your line and is too complex for you. It's still far away from crossing mine because I like a big complex story.
But even big, complex stories can be simple to understand.
Despite their mistakes, at least the Star Wars movies are really easy to grasp by themselves. There is a huge world of continuity behind them, but the movies are stand-alone, and break everything into easy-to-grasp chunks. The same goes for other really successful franchises such as Toy Story, Alien, and even games like Mass Effect and Sam & Max.
The point I'm making: You can and should have a detailed continuity, but the actual stories of your movie/game should be a well carved piece of the overall canon that is self-explanatory and actually has some kind of consistent theme behind it.
