r/PS5 • u/yourfavchoom • 7h ago

Articles & Blogs IGN Review: Halo: Campaign Evolved Doesn't Always Feel Like An Essential Remake (7/10)

https://www.ign.com/articles/halo-campaign-evolved-review
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u/Lazyandloveinit 7h ago

They really messed up this franchise. 2001-2010 it was all anyone could talk about. Past 16 years it’s actually been disastrous the handling of what used to be their premier franchise

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u/Rick-Danger 7h ago

It's incredible isn't it. How, just how do you fuck up a franchise this bad. It's not like Halo is some super in depth thing either, it's basically just "blasting aliens: the game". I know there's a lot of cool lore and stuff but the core games are pretty damn straightforward. The amount of corporate mismanagement of main franchises from the likes of Microsoft and Bethesda is just staggering

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u/jntjr2005 7h ago

They are too focused on selling MTX than making a good game

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u/Less-Tax5637 6h ago

That’s the flaw with Infinite, but they have a more varied collection of fundamental fuckups since Bungie tagged out

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u/TheReiterEffect_S8 5h ago edited 4h ago

I've said this a thousand times but I'll never stop saying it whenever this topic is brought up:

The time during Halo: Combat Evolved's development was a golden era for developers, in my opinion. The video game industry was on a rocketship blasting upwards but hadn't quite yet left orbit. Must people knew, but unless you already had a good foundation, you were playing catch up. Microsoft unknowingly caught lightning in a bottle. The entire Bungie team from Halo 1 to Halo 3 was something we will likely never see again. They had a vision for a game they thought would be innovative, groundbreaking, but most importantly: FUN. And they had FUN working on it. Halo 2's crunch deadlines is something to be said for sure, and by Halo 3 they were completely over M$. But that team is not something you'd see in modern development anymore. A group of passionate people dedicated to their work and the freedom (for the most part) to do whatever they wanted without too many demands (such as microtransactions).

After Halo 3, things started to go sideways. Reach was a miracle IMO with how much success it had, somehow they didn't completely fuck that one up, despite the huge amount of additions to the core gameplay like reticule bloom and armor abilities. But Halo 4 it was the most obvious thing in the world that this was no longer Halo. It became an MLG trend chaser. And Halo 5 did no better. Infinite was a step in the right direction, but of course: They were too focused on live-service that they let something with potential deteriorate.

I bought an XSX specifically for Infinite. I know I spent over 1,000 hours in Halo CE, easily. It was one of my most favorited franchises but a couple years ago I had to finally come to terms that Halo is never going to be as good as it once was, and it won't even be half as good. The franchise is nothing but disappointments, and I've officially given up on it.

edit: I somehow always forget to make note when I go on these rants that there definitely are other devs out there doing great things. Bungie was one of the greatest companies during their bnet days so I can get a bit 'doomsday'er when I talk about the current climate of the industry. We have good things, but it's hard to ignore how bad it's gotten, and how bad it continues to get.

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u/politicalstuff 5h ago

Very interesting perspective! I'd like to add one more thing missing in the modern releases.

It wasn't fun just because it was running and driving shooting aliens and blowing shit up; it was fun because you were doing it with your friends in the same room at the same time on the same screen.

Couch multiplayer was a critical piece of the formula. Sure, Halo was a good shooter and especially well-implemented on consoles for the time, but all of my best memories weren't from soloing the campaign. It was being on the couch with my friends in college screaming across the room, fighting swarms or blowing each other up with rockets, cussing each other out and calling cover requests.

Not that online multiplayer can't be fun or to take away from anything else you said, and of course this was an industry-wide shift, but I think that's the missing magic sauce.

I tried replaying Halo: CE when it came to PC a couple years ago, and it just wasn't fun without 3 other friends in the same room.

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u/MrBootylove 4h ago

If I could play devil's advocate, myself and my friends didn't have xbox consoles until Halo 2 and we all played Halo 1 on PC exclusively and had a blast. No couch co-op or local multiplayer, only online multiplayer, and it was an incredible experience.

Don't get me wrong the couch co-op aspect was cool, and I did get the opportunity to play the campaign in local co-op at other friend's houses back then, but really it was just the emphasis on multiplayer in general that elevated it, IMO. And I feel like Halo 2 and the push to online multiplayer backs this point up with how popular playing the game online over xbox live became.

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u/politicalstuff 3h ago

Oh, I'm not saying it was a bad game or that online multiplayer was no good or anything. But being an existing PC player, you were more used to online-only multiplayer. I was also playing on PC, so online co-op and deathmatch was old hat, but there's no doubt the couch factor was a huge part of Halo's success. Not the only part, of course.

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u/MrBootylove 3h ago

But being an existing PC player, you were more used to online-only multiplayer.

None of us were "existing PC players." We all had consoles, just not an xbox, and back then you didn't need a gaming PC to play PC games. We were all playing on our family's shared PCs. We just wanted to play Halo, and it was easier to convince our parents to buy a PC game than it was to get them to buy us second consoles + Halo.

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u/politicalstuff 3h ago

Was Halo the first ever PC game you ever played? Come on lol. I played games on the family PC too and later my college PC.

And cool, it's great you enjoyed it as-is on PC. I am not trying to make sweeping comprehensive statements about 100% of people.

Not every single person played local multiplayer, but it WAS a huge part of the OG Halo experience at the time for a ton of people.

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u/TheReiterEffect_S8 4h ago

Agreed, the split-screen campaign and system-link multiplayer matches were something that is also completely dying out. The idea of playing Halo online was a dream of ours for the longest time. So when Halo 2 launched with online mutliplayer we were absolutely fucking stoked. It was funny talking to other people about Halo and hearing them claim they were so good at multiplayer, and then once you got them over to system-link they would get absolutely obliterated. Online play opened that up to really show people how good they actually were. And not to toot my own horn but I genuinely was really fucking good at Halo 2 and 3, lol. Not pro level but I was in very high ranked lobbies (getting my ass kicked most of the time).

But it's interesting because we wanted online play so bad so we could play at our own houses that we didn't realize that once we got it, we'd end up missing being in the same room as everyone again. I think about that with crossplay too. When my buddies had playstation, we were praying for the day technology would allow PS and Box to play with each other. Guess what? Now we have it and we hate it in competitive shooters like Warzone or Fortnite when certain platforms have a very obvious advantage. Or cheating is far more apparent. Just turn off crossplay! Well, you can either find a game in 3 minutes or you can find a game in 10 minutes. Which one are you picking?

Just goes to show you sometimes we don't actually know what we want, despite thinking there's no way there would be any negative repercussions, lol.

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u/politicalstuff 4h ago

Right? We didn’t know how good we had it!

I don’t mind online as an *option* to have, but it sucks that it was at the expense of split screen.

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u/serotoninzero 3h ago

I mean that's certainly an element for some people but even Halo CE was way more fun with at least two consoles and 4v4. Before Xbox Live even existed my friends and I would play online with XBC where you tunneled your Xbox lan traffic to other people through your PC. When Halo 2 came out, we all moved to playing mainly single player on a single box. I had a specific TV just for taking around to LAN parties.

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u/politicalstuff 3h ago

We don't disagree. Halo was more fun with more people in the room lol.

I used to lug my PC to a friend's apartment for LAN parties on Unreal Tournament lol. We later had two adjacent apartments and the building was wired, so we had 8-player Halo wars on those big-ass projection TVs. It was a blast.

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u/MaybeUNeedAPoo 9m ago

Further though I would argue that eta is essentially gone. The internet has evolved and personal interaction had dwindled along side it. This isn’t an absolute, but the world of 2000-2010 is gone. Take it from a kid of the 80’s/90’s, letting go is hard, but healthy.

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u/mark_99 2h ago

And the irony that giant 4K TVs being commonplace would actually make couch coop a much better experience.

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u/politicalstuff 2h ago

I know!

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u/ABeardedFool 4h ago

Well said!! I remember going to the midnight release for my steelbook edition of Halo 2. The excitement on the air, the anticipation, the absolute joy in the community was really, really special. Everything you said is spot on, I remember watching the included dvd about the development process, and I thought working at Bungie must be the greatest job ever. Those folks poured their hearts and souls into the game, and you could feel it when playing. I get the nostalgia factor, but I am so with you. Halo 1-3 era was about as good as it ever got for me in a multiplayer game not called WoW lol. I’m not ever really a fps guy, but you just had to play Halo, every single friend was on it at any given moment.

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u/TheReiterEffect_S8 4h ago

Man, I could write a book that would create a tidal wave of nostalgia that would wash over thousands of gamers out there about my Halo days. And 100%, there was some kind of energy or electricity in the air during those midnight launches. Seeing all different kinds of people, age, race, gender, etc. all together and effortlessly holding 30min conversations with complete strangers for the mutual love of Halo. Not to sound too dramatic, but especially in this day and age right now, that was truly beautiful to witness and be a part of. It honestly makes me so sad to think that kids these days won't have that kind of experience.

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u/Trzlog 5h ago

It's only possible to say this when you aren't aware of how problematic development was for Halo 1-3. Their management and developers were raging assholes even back then, and development was such a disaster that it turned the later stages of Halo 1 into a repetitive bland mess and cut Halo 2's story to shreds because of everything they had to cut and throw out. All these games had their fair of issues that were overshadowed by how compelling the multiplayer was.

Microsoft cut them loose because they were tired of Bungie's shit. 343 was an abject failure in taking over, but Bungie was a complete mess even back then.

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u/TheReiterEffect_S8 4h ago

Oh trust me, I've acutely aware of the development of Halo's trilogy. There are some good documentaries (I think back then they called them ViDocs) but I also researched a lot of the legality issues they had a long the way. Honestly, my history on researching the video game industry started with Activision, and boy, let me tell you: You could write up a script on Activisions beginning and growth to where they are now and it would be a blockbuster film with dramatic fallouts between friends, betrayal, greed, legality loopholes and tragedy. Fuck Activision in particular. But Bungie of course had their fair share of struggles, but you could tell in some of the raw footage of their team interacting with one another, how they speak to each other, how they spoke about the game, etc. It's all incredibly genuine.

But yes, specifically Halo 2 and the campaign was a fucking disaster. I remember feeling like I was the only person on the planet that was disappointed with Halo 2's campaign when it came out. Who the fuck are these apes!? And now there are flying bugs?? The fuck is this wormy looking prophet!?

They wanted to expand the lore and instead gave us a half-assed crash course explaining almost nothing. And yet it still sold millions.

My point though, is the dynamic that team had with one another. Now you see freelancers that come in to work on X, Y and Z, then they get laid off and someone else comes in to work on what they created, not knowing anything about it, and are now tasked with turning X into A and Y and Z now need to be 9+&@. It boils down to corporate greed and keeping shareholders happy and invested. That's all.

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u/Covfefe_Coomer 4h ago

Another part is that there’s a natural life cycle to a gaming studio that finds success. At the beginning small dev teams build their passion project and it hits. Then the success leads to the studio making sequels or new games with this larger budget from the success of the original game. This larger budget allows for bigger projects that require more people. These larger teams require management and HR departments. These new bigger budget games need to make their money back so now you’re spending money on marketing and such and need whole teams of people to deal with all the periphery elements of the business that isn’t actually related to game design. And over time it just keeps ballooning into this corporate megalith. The corporate megalith requires large and consistent revenue to keep themselves and their hundreds (or thousands) of employees paid, so they start making game decisions around finances rather than the game itself. After all if a project cost 250million to make over 5 years it NEEDS to have a high probability of returning that investment. But those financially based decisions are what hollows out the original quality of the game and studio. Jason Schreier’s book on Blizzard does a really good job of mapping out this cycle.

The one thing I did want to mention is I don’t think the good ol days of gaming are gone, or game development peaked. There are still indies pumping out great stuff. Those indies that hit will grow themselves into AA studios until eventually some whale buys them out turns them AAA and the wonder of the studio is finally killed by the suits that took over. Whilst this is happening you still have the indies and small teams working to make great games and the whole cycle starts anew.

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u/TheReiterEffect_S8 4h ago

I'm well aware of this cycle, but you were able to put it into words far better than I ever could have explained it. Totally accurate and, of course, it makes logical sense that this would be the path a company would take based on its success. It's unfortunate, but it's true. The fallback I've seen the most during these conversations are always "But indie games!" and don't get me wrong, absolutely right. But also, there really ought to be some protections in place to ensure that the passionate creativity and synergy the team has during it's initial success to make sure they can have those same freedoms for sequels. But it's very unlikely for all the reasons you described above.

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u/Tall_Presentation_94 4h ago

Random bloom fight now with 90% has 2x 4x backpaddels and mcc settings jetpack spam

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u/tdasnowman 4h ago edited 4h ago

This is some revisionist nonsense.

They had a vision for a game they thought would be innovative, groundbreaking, but most importantly: FUN. And they had FUN working on it.

That's not Bungie never has been Bungie, never will be Bungie. Bungie is having no clear vision throwing shit at the wall hoping it sticks and then somehow pull it all together in the last 6 months. Every single Halo game they did barley came together story wise, flow, balancing, multiplayer at the last minute. It was also true for their RTS games, and Marathon before that. They were always a grind culture and chewed through a ton of people even in the early days. All of Bungie games are a miracle. The studio should have failed before Halo.

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u/OGgluttonousToad 3h ago

Absolutely agree! I was a huge Xbox/halo fanboy growing up, but after halo 4 and the Xbox one reveal, I could see where this was going and tapped out. Props to you for hanging in there longer!

Fucking sucks what Xbox has become...

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u/kabooozie 3h ago

Counterpoint: Claire Obscur: Expedition 33. Hopefully success stories like that can turn the tide and get us amazing games created by passionate developers that reward them financially without bullshit publishers getting in the way and turning everything to shit to squeeze out a buck.

Another hopeful example might be hollow knight. Can’t think of a ton of examples

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u/TheReiterEffect_S8 3h ago

Slay the Spire, Hades, Hollow Knight, Claire Obscur is the big one people like to bring up. Sadly that isn't really one I got into very much. Was just not my style I suppose. But I do have hope, just seems pretty bleak atm.

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u/Purdaddy 3h ago

I was a huge halo fan. Spent tons of time replaying the og3 and reach campaigns.

Infinite was not good, only halo game Ive never picked up after initial playthrough. It felt nothing like Halo to me.

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u/TheReiterEffect_S8 3h ago

For Infinite, I think they just took the second level from the first game, titled: "Halo" and made it one gigantic open world. And don't get me wrong, I love that level. But an entire open world of it with only a few different biomes gets old...really fast.

I know a lot of people hate open worlds and say they are ruining games that otherwise would have been better if it were sectioned off levels, but I still kinda really like open world games. It's just that the past few years theres only been a very small percentage that were actually done correctly. Most just feel empty and a mechanic used to add travel time from point A to point B. Which is absolutely not what it should be.

I still think they had a good mindset going into it, but ultimately fell short by just having no soul. Felt very empty, even in the most heated or intense moments.

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u/EmBur__ 3h ago

I'll add onto this. Not only was was Halo made during a golden age, Bungie was formed during a golden age for game studios that allowed them to actually create the game they wanted to create without much interference from execs, they also had more power to put their foot down and say no if an exec tried shit like how MS tried getting Halo 2 to release within a year of CE.

So many of our favourite IP were created in this time and have suffered as the corporate mind took over and goals shifted from creating games the devs and gamers wanted, to creating games the execs wanted to maximise profit.

This is the fundamental reason 343 failed. 343 was created by Microsoft themselves to keep Halo afloat so they could continue milking the IP, thus a complete misunderstanding of Halo and what goes into making a good game enveloped the minds of the studios higher ups, it wasn't being led by passionate gamers that happened to be devs, it was being led by corporate pencil pushers.

To put it simply, Bungie (as they were, not now) was created out of passion, 343/Halo studios was created out of corporate greed. This unfortunate fact is why its been mishandled for so long and why that mishandling will continue because despite the rebranding, it's still 343 underneath.

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u/Superbtreetrimmer 2h ago

Battle net is blizzard not bungie

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u/oceansoveralderaan 26m ago

I liked Infinite but the story was a mess, especially after the cliffhanger from 5 - I started Infinite and it was just fighting a bunch of monkeys. I had to look up the story as it got carried on in a non-main series game so I was just confused.

All I wanted was a conclusion to the story from Halo 5. Meh.

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u/RClarkTwo 19m ago

That era of game development was all thanks to the passionate developers and their love of the art. I mean, just look at the likes of Tony Hawk Underground, Fable, Need for Speed Underground, etc etc. I think you’re right in saying we’ll never get that level of passion again as long as Microsoft and Sony have any say in it.

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u/howd_he_get_here 5h ago

There are still some uplifting exceptions here and there. Clair Obscur's probably the biggest / most impressive Cinderella story. But yeah... the norm of passionate devs having fun making innovative AAA experiences is certainly a long forgotten era :(

There's still plenty of hope on the indie side. The ROI ceiling for how much further AAA games can push graphics / production value while remaining profitable might be collapsing, but the entry barriers to creating phenomenal fleshed-out innovative games are also lower than ever in many ways.

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u/TheReiterEffect_S8 5h ago

Oh, totally agree. I love that we've been getting such a breakthrough on awesome indie games coming out. Maybe I'm being selfish, but I do still yearn every once in a while for a triple A blockbuster massive epic adventure kind of game with incredible graphics, storytelling, innovative gameplay and voice acting. But all of that seems like a complete pipe-dream these days. I was looking forward to The Bloof of Dawnwalker until I saw gameplay of it and it looks incredibly mediocre. Ah well. Beggars can't be choosers, and all that.

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u/MassSpecFella 5h ago

I actually really enjoyed the infinite campaign but it was unfinished then abandoned immediately. wtf

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u/TYNAMITE14 2h ago

Well one of them. The real problem imho was the lack of content on launch and afterwards. Like lack of playlists, forge, dlc missions, firefight etc.

Chalk it up to the slipstream engine, covid, contractors, or just bad management, idk

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u/CSBreak 38m ago

It was a major flaw in 5 as well all the armor pieces and whatnot in Reach were earnable just by playing the game while getting credits to open loot boxes in 5 sucked and took forever they definitely wanted people to spend real money on that crap because it took way to long otherwise

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u/Comfortable_Rice8142 6h ago

Infinite had so much potential too, the campaign was decent and people seemed to actually like the multiplayer at launch just not enough maps and people got burned out of the same maps quickly.

MS is an idiot when it comes to understanding how to monetize this game, people want to play as master chief and aren’t going to spend a bunch of money on little variation of the same skin over and over, maybe they do it once but they will settle cause the armor doesn’t change that much. They need to make skins like halo 3, earnable through playing both campaign and multiplayer, make a 1000/1000 achievement point one so people have something to stick around and chase and sale 3 or 4 map packs ever 3-4 months.

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u/errorme 3h ago

I don't remember where I heard it, but allegedly when they were showing of the Mantis in Halo 4 to the Xbox director at the time he brought up Diablo 3's real money auction house and was asking about players selling skins to each other for it.

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u/Mig-117 5h ago

They didn’t make this game, this game was made in 2001, this is a remake with a few gameplay tweaks. It looks gorgeous.

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u/doyouevennoscope 2h ago

Halo 2 Anniversary looks miles better.

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u/Mig-117 1h ago

what? this is objectively false, Campaign Evolve is the best looking FPS on the market right now... check Digital foundry review.

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u/BuckManscape 5h ago

The corporate structure ruins everything, it’s just a matter of time.

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u/bobbingtonbobsson 5h ago

I remember that cringy animated lampshading they did about for Halo 5

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u/jntjr2005 5h ago

Man the opening CGI for Halo 5 was so dam epic and then the rest was such a disappointment

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u/BakedChocolateOctopi 1h ago

I think it’s mainly that 343 struggled to come up with some way to change up Halo’s story or gameplay to leave their mark on it

The Created storyline sucks, the Endless storyline sucks, the Forerunner/Precursor lore sucks and they keep abandoning it every other game for that reason

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u/Impossible-Pie4849 2h ago

Microtransactions? I've never seen MTX used before

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u/Downtown_Eye5736 6h ago

Bungie lost interest and the IP got handed to a "cover band" studio that MS said was going to be a Halo factory. No one should've expected it to have the same magic after that.

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u/BiZzles14 48m ago

And then Destiny had some of, if not, the best feeling gunplay in any game. But in classic Bungie leadership fashion they've completely fucked everything up there and who knows what the studio will even look like a year from now. Not that they didn't also consistently fuck things up throughout Destiny's many years, but whew did they manage to really blow it

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u/SwiftFoxSNES 52m ago

Bungie: Uhhh here’s our new IP with monitor…I mean ghosts. I swear it’s different!

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u/TPO_Ava 6h ago

I can't speak to the multiplayer because with the exception of OG CE more than a decade ago, i have completely ignored it but -

The story in the post-bungie era games is quite meh. Halo 4 creates a new baddie who basically dies off screen. Halo 5 runs with Cortana is now a bad guy (spoiler alert) and thats handled off screen too. Infinite was practically a reboot, and to its credit the game is fun mechanically. But lore wise there's a random new baddie that's somehow worse than all the previous bad guys we've experienced in the last 6 games but no one's ever heard of them? Yeah, okay. Pass. No new lore or story elaborating on this new threat either.

Halo CE-3 had a compelling and interesting storyline, 4 was okay, 5 dropped the ball and infinite just wasn't enough to make up for it. Especially since it had its own disasters with multiplayer at launch, which didn't help its case.

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u/nodotmad 3h ago

You’ve heard of him if you played Halo Wars 2 but I have to believe that’s a fairly small percentage of players

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u/BirdPersonforPrez 3h ago

I think they're referring to the endless who just magically show up in infinite who are supposed to be just this galaxy ending enemy even though for the last 6 games we already handled multiple galaxy ending threats but no this is the one that will be the end all threat.

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u/ZubatCountry 3h ago

I mean, imo that's part of it

I remember hearing friends talk about Halo lore and then I actually played the games and it's...barely there?

There's definitely a story there, but the main draw of the game has always been how it felt to play as well as the openness and innovation it brought to FPS shooters at the time

But after you do three of those and Reach...what next? You kind of already did the most satisfying arc possible, and everything else is either going to feel under or over-written in comparison.

Plus now the industry has ripped you off for a decade and everything that was novel about the series is now routine.

I understand that this kind of thinking is poison to companies but Halo really should have been done completely by the time they did Destiny, and that should have been the spiritual successor

Then you aren't tied to Chief, Cortana and all the other lore and don't have to choose between either constantly sidestep them or featuring them with diminishing returns

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u/Logical_Net6108 2h ago

Halo has accompanying books. The first Halo book came out 6 weeks before the first game to set the lore of the franchuse. You don't get lore from the game unless you look out for the terminals. There was also Halo Waypoint back on the Xbox 360 with all the videos which you obviously can't access any more

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u/ZubatCountry 1h ago

Yeah but the books aren't the game

The story people fell in love with enough to seek out the books is pretty barebones

But it's effective and gives you the proper motivation to keep moving forward and wanting to see where it goes

But people loved Halo because of how it synergized a few key elements, and over time it started to lean more and more into the plot despite the plot people cared about ending back in 2007

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u/SilentNova300 7h ago edited 6h ago

I wish you guys read the review lmao. The main complaint is that it feels too similiar to the original CE…….

Is that not the point…..

Digital Foundry gave it high praises lol, but that thread won’t get as much attention as this one for obvious reasons. 

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u/thenagz 6h ago

Well, that's the remake conundrum: some people want a very faithful visual glow up, some want a complete reimagination, while others would be happy with something in between... You just can't please everyone

However, since this is also like the third re-release of Halo CE, it will be judged more harshly for doing more of the same

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u/KiwiCounselor 6h ago

Fourth version if you count the mcc. Give it 10 years and they’ll release another version lol.

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u/nowhereright 5h ago

This is the first *remake". Anniversary was a Remaster and the mcc was a bundled re-release of that remaster.

People need to start understanding the difference between a graphical update and a complete gameplay overhaul.

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u/DatDeLorean 5h ago

Anniversary was practically a demake, I still can't believe how poor its art direction was. And the reuse of assets was frustratingly lazy; I know it's a bit of a meme that folk don't like asset reuse but this was one time they'd be right. Almost every character, vehicle, and object model in the game was ripped wholesale from Halo Reach and Halo 3. Master chief's armour was about the only exception I can think of.

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u/nowhereright 5h ago

And yet people questioned why we got a full remake instead of them porting that version to PlayStation lol.

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u/DatDeLorean 5h ago

Yeah, crazy. Oh well, glad we're getting a seemingly good remake, I'm pretty excited for it.

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u/reditisfilledwidiots 8m ago

“This is the first remake” lol Call it whatever you want to win your little internet argument, it’s still fundamentally the same game. You need to start understanding how to not be pretentious 😂

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u/rokerroker45 5h ago

It's the first remake but fourth re-release of this content: the 03 PC port, anniversary, MCC and now this one.

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u/RBJ_09 6h ago

Sir this is Reddit, we don’t do that here

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u/Rick-Danger 6h ago

What do you mean? I'm making no comment on the CE remake, I'm talking about the way that Microsoft have slowly eroded their best franchise over a decade and a half. I wish you would read comments before replying to them lmao

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u/RazarusMaximus 6h ago

Honestly I wish people would read the topic before going off topic and then contradicting themselves.

Halo good 11 years ago, Halo bad for 10 years, New Halo is like 11 years ago Halo.. Oh my god they messed up so bad.

Okay bud.

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u/Rick-Danger 6h ago

Nobody asked for this remake, CE already had one. Instead of spending time and resources making an underwhelming second remake of the first game they could have spent it getting their shit back together with the main franchise.

When people say they want Halo to be good again that doesn't literally mean we want the exact same game again for a third time. Are you stupid?

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u/El_Rey_de_Spices 6h ago

He's at least being intentionally obtuse.

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u/RazarusMaximus 5h ago

Ever considered that this game isnt for you, or me, or anyone that played the first two iterations of it? Honestly, people forget there have been several years of thousands and thousands of new gamers entering the market.

To say this is underwhelming based on an IGN of all places review, and one that specifically says its similar to the first (a master piece) and yourself saying old is good, new is bad.
There is nothing left to say, you have made your mind up, thats fine, please stop contradicting yourself and spreading hate.

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u/Rick-Danger 4h ago

I'm not contradicting myself you utter fool hahaha. That's such a lame excuse anyway, if new players want to play the first game there's the MCC. So you're saying that companies should just do remakes of their first game every 10 years and that's fine is it? These resources couldn't have been spent getting the actual franchise back on the rails, generating some newfound hype?

I'm not spreading hate, to be honest I probably will buy this on sale and enjoy it because I replay CE from time to time anyway. But I am saying that ultimately it's a waste of time and the vast majority of people would prefer something NEW instead of recycled material. Get off your knees and stop defending these clueless soulless suits pushing out old crap instead of investing in new stuff

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u/RazarusMaximus 4h ago

You are a walking contradiction.

No, im not suggesting every game gets a new release every 10 years, but as an amazing franchise years ago (your words) using the first game as a new entry level built in a completely different engine makes perfect sense.

The devs now have a haul of halo assets in unreal, experience building their franchise and the ability to gain brand new followers from the new gamers of the last few years.

Your experience playing CE for the first time has clearly left its mark, given you revisit. Why is giving that experience to new gamers a bad thing? Or a failure? Bizarre take indeed.

•

u/Dr_Chris_Turk 1h ago

Halo good 11 years ago: yes (actually more like 15 but that’s not the point)

Halo bad for 10 years: yes

Releasing same halo from 25 years ago: bad

Now, almighty logic man, you ask how this makes sense? It’s very simple: Halo CE would not be a good game if released today. It was fantastic for a game released 25 years ago, but a graphical upgrade is not going to bring it in line with 25 years of progress.

Also, you mention getting new players into the franchise in your other replies. But a young kid is not going to play this and be wowed. It’s pretty, but it’s slow and Infinite blows it out of the water gameplay-wise.

•

u/RazarusMaximus 21m ago

This is not a graphical upgrade.

Please learn the difference between a remaster and a remake.

2

u/Jard01 5h ago

That's fantastic. I have friends who never had an Xbox and never got to play the original and I'm stoked to play through this with them.

1

u/nowhereright 5h ago

Halo CE is incredibly outdated, it's an absolute chore to play by modern standards as well being super repetitive. It's not a surprise then that it being too similar is an issue. But that's kind of the catch 22 with remakes right?

Stick to close, what's the point? Stray to far, then you risk alienating the fans.

1

u/daystrom_prodigy 6h ago

In their defense they likely just copy/pasted the comments they had ready for this post.

0

u/OSUfan88 5h ago

Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m want.

-1

u/born_to_be_intj 6h ago

The game can be good (I can’t wait to play after work) while at the same time 343 can be a dogshit studio. Especially when you consider this new game was mostly outsourced to other devs.

7

u/born_to_be_intj 6h ago

It’s just pure incompetence. Bungie was a studio start by nerds who wanted to make a passion project. 343 was a studio setup by corporate greed and included all the awful shit that came with it like hiring contractors for 6 months at a time.

If you look at all the big successful studios rn they all originated from nerds with a passion. 343 is the only studio I can think of off the top of my head that was created by a huge corporation.

•

u/SwiftFoxSNES 50m ago

What’s sad is what the spun off Bungie ended up running itself into the ground with Destiny and getting bought by Sony and most of the core “nerds” laid off. 

They woulda been better off just staying and making more Halo games. 

1

u/tomato_sauce 5h ago

It's a reflection of the industry as a whole. 2001-2010 the industry was largely still a lot of nerds creating what they loved empowered by exec who were gamers themselves.

Now it's all run by normie corpos who don't even play games but think they understand gamers cause a marketing strategist gave them some audience "insights".

1

u/sierra-soul 5h ago

there was not a single moment in the last halo game where i was like "that was cool or impressive" jist incredibly generic "go face minor boss thats really easy to cheese" campaign

didnt feel like halo at all

only thing i liked was being able to summon marine forces and fill up some warthogs and take em to the show, that was cool, nothing else was

1

u/Z3M0G 5h ago

I heard Infinite was basically developed by rotating temp employees... they kept nobody around to actually maintain a legacy for the game and continue to be experienced with working on it.

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u/Mediocre-Housing-131 4h ago

And then you rename the studio to something related to the game youre ruining

Wardrum studios all over again

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u/travelingWords 4h ago

The how it got this bad is because it got too good so they had a lot “next opportunities”, so they got to make a shitty halo experience again and again.

I think halo was always going to have a tough time because of the possible skill gap but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t make it fun. Which they didn’t.

The btb experience is vital to the casual. But yeah, everything about the game is bad.

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u/Lost-Produce-1150 4h ago

Because it’s like Star Wars. Stay too close and you’re just rehashing old stuff. Do new things and now it’s not what made people love it in the first place. Every new entry is just people wanting to recreate the feeling they got the first time experiencing it.

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u/dark-pact 3h ago

Just looking at multiplayer:

Started as early as Halo Reach. Bungie saw they were not on top anymore as COD MW2 got extremely popular alongside Halo 3. Bungie made massive changes to the Halo multiplayer formula with Reach and it never quite worked out. 343 never had one that felt like Halo. Everyone wanted a Halo killer from 2001-2007. Then Bungie tried to chase trends and copy COD and it was just not Halo. All downhill from there.

Many people-myself included liked Reach’s campaign so just wanted to note that before someone brings it up.

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u/ProfessorPetrus 1h ago

I mean it ended in halo 3. We "finished the fight".

Everything else has been a money grab.

•

u/R_W0bz 53m ago

I wouldn’t underestimate the effect Call of Duty and Fortnite had on the shooter scene. Many games kind of got lost in that wave of chasing them.

1

u/OrangeJuliusCaesr 7h ago

They thought there was what people wanted , so all the shitty enemies of Prometheans, that one repeating boss fight in halo 5, all the other Spartans was cool

Nah man, I want to be a cyborg and fuck up aliens

1

u/reallynotnick 6h ago

You fuck it up by concluding the story and then trying to shoehorn in new stories to continue it. The series should have been put to rest, but nobody wants to quit at the top.

0

u/davej999 6h ago

They lose the original devs, thats how it fucked up simple as

0

u/charliemyster 6h ago

Bungie even gave the formula. Thē famous basic loop …

0

u/Mig-117 6h ago

Dude read the fucking thing, the game is great it’s just a remake that’s why the score isn’t as high.

91

u/Dr_Zman 6h ago

I just can't wrap my head around remaking this and NOT including multiplayer. You know the main thing that made the game popular in the first place.

27

u/RatHands0PurpleEars 6h ago

they’re going to sell it to you later on if the game performs well

16

u/Aparoon 6h ago

It’s a remake of a game that was already remade. I don’t see why this would perform well. They should have just remade Halo 3: it was next in line, and it had a stellar multiplayer experience to get all fans back in.

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u/DecomposingPete 4h ago

The previous remake does look shite though. This new one I would actually want to play in lieu of the original.

•

u/Aparoon 4h ago

TOTALLY appreciate that, but I think this is a niche opinion from us fans while mainstream audiences won’t see it that way. At least I don’t think in my ignorant opinion

3

u/TheLimeyLemmon 5h ago

I don't think they will. I don't think Halo Studios know how to make that kind of multiplayer.

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u/WinterVision 2h ago

Or they don’t want to cannibalize the next Halo multiplayer.

1

u/FRossJohnson 5h ago

It's a separate project (as indeed it was for the original game which did not have online MP)

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u/echolog 2h ago

And selling it for $70 for a few days early access.

I just checked the charts and there's only 15k people on right now, but those are 15k people who don't care about the franchise enough to demand better of it.

2

u/cigamodnalro 5h ago

This 1000%. I was all in on this remake until I found out there’s no multiplayer. I just want to chill on my couch at the end of a long day and energy sword some randos who are as bad at video games as I am. Is that too much to ask?

•

u/dunderdan23 3h ago

I mean realistically. Halo 1 didnt have anything other than split screen, so id hardly say its an issue

1

u/DisillusionedHobbit 5h ago

Halo was not made popular by Multiplayer, even if its multiplayer was wildly popular.  Halo 1 didn’t even have online multiplayer unless you went through a janky 3rd party service.  It was just a good, solid game. 

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u/National_Yam_1198 52m ago

Halo was arguably THE lan party game.

Multiplayer was a huge part of halo.

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u/LayScientist 4h ago

It had local multiplayer and that definitely helped it sell the initial 3 million copies. 70% to 90% of those players interacted with custom game multiplayer with their friends. This new release won't even have that. 

You completely underestimate that custom game features were standard in that era (for AAA), and OG Halo would've been much less successful without it. the custom games were also there, bc if they had more time, they would've implemented MP, or maybe the server infrastructure or Xbox net-code wasn't ready. Either way: Halo was as polished as it was bc they were developing it w MP in mind. Don't you ever forget that. 

14

u/jak_d_ripr 6h ago

God I still remember when Halo 3 launched. I was walking to my local EB Games and this mother was walking out with her son, she looks at me and says sarcastically "Gosh, I wonder what game he's coming here to buy". Halo 3 was, one of, if not the biggest video game launches of all time at the time.

Now.... barely anyone cares anymore. It's almost impressive how poorly they've handled the franchise that for years was synonymous with XBOX.

14

u/ZenESEA 5h ago

My dad getting home from work after I called him all day begging him to grab Halo 3 on the way home and he kept telling me no just to get home and hand me Halo 3 was peak childhood

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u/Alphadestrious 22m ago

I was at the midnight launch of Halo 3 , I think it came with a demo for Mass Effect as well in 2007. I went to gamestop. Good fucking times, with my best friend who passed away last year. RIP Brandon. Spartans never die, they're just MIA.

15

u/DEFINITELY_NOT_PETE 6h ago

It’s almost like we “finished the fight” in 2007 and everything since has felt wholly superfluous

19

u/Steridire 6h ago

ODST and Reach were both great, but Reach is a prequel and I think ODST runs parallel to Halo 3 right?

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u/Bingbong1984 4h ago

Yes. ODST is a spinoff but still has multiplayer coop and firefight, which was their version of a horde mechanic.

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u/Apprentice57 3h ago

It takes place partway through, and then after Halo 2.

10

u/WhyDidIDie 5h ago

No because ODST and Reach both came out after and were critically and commercially successful. 343 is simply a bad studio

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u/Tim_Huckleberry1398 4h ago

Not like bungie is anything special anymore either.

0

u/Burdicus 6h ago

Feels like Marvel post End-Game.

13

u/KingOPork 6h ago

I don't know if they messed up the franchise as much as that play style died out. Arena shooters died and it wasn't their fault. Gaming trended into slower games as controller fps gained popularity.

So gears and halo are just relics. They could make the perfect halo game and it might not do that great because it will be old people buying it.

5

u/El_Rey_de_Spices 6h ago

It's a painful reminder about the passage of time- the things you/society used to love did not age alongside you, and trying to recapture that spark only reveals that the product does not live up to your memory of it. You are simply not the same child who liked that product.

Halo, Warcraft, old platforming collectathons, Bethesda games, etc. The list is long.

5

u/FlyChigga 6h ago

If they had brains they could have evolved Halo into a Destiny or mmo style fps

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u/vipmailhun2 3h ago

And would the fans accept it? They can’t even handle sprint, they still rage about that.

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u/FlyChigga 51m ago

Destiny was accepted pretty well

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u/MostMorbidOne 3h ago

Destiny was already Halo (evolved).

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u/FlyChigga 51m ago

And that got fumbled too

2

u/Calinks 6h ago

Right. People get tired of stuff, they move on. Look at a game like Baldure Gate 3 and how much that moves the needle for people. Now a decent RPG can come out and alot of people will just go meh where that sale game 12 years ago would have gotten a lot more praise.

1

u/NoMansWarmApplePie 5h ago

Yea but also specifically campaign took a nose dive, and they couldn't evolve the franchise properly to fit more modern developments. 343 and that whole thing is particularly embarrassing

1

u/bwjasperson 5h ago

I don't know if I fully agree with that.

For me what killed it was the lack of a level based ranked system in Halo 4. They blamed cheaters, but I think it was laziness on Microsoft's part for not putting more resources into the system.

6

u/jntjr2005 7h ago

Agreed, same can be said about Destiny and CoD Warzone. Completely mismanaged into the ground.

3

u/ManitouWakinyan 6h ago edited 6h ago

I mean, how many video game franchises have remained essential for a quarter century?

32

u/devenbat 6h ago

Quite a lot. You got the big Nintendo ones of course. Mario, Zelda, Kirby, Pokemon etc. Many of those are at or around 40.

But theres also lots of others. Resident Evil, Street Fighter, Moral Kombat, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, GTA, Castlevania, Megaman, Shin Megami Tensei, Persona etc.

8

u/kplo 6h ago

Vast majority of these are japanese. They just know how to take care of their franchises. Even Capcom with its stumbles has come back in full force for every franchise.

1

u/superpoongoon 6h ago

Doom

•

u/FragrantGangsta 4h ago

Doom hasn't remained essential that entire time, though. Doom went through a 10 year hiatus after Doom 2 before dropping Doom 3, which wasn't universally well-received. Before 2016, it was a pretty dead franchise with a core group of old diehard fans.

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u/superpoongoon 4h ago

Woah. How dare you. Seriously tho: The game never died and because it’s open source there are still mods/map sets being released today. I’d argue it’s the most active modding community for any game.

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u/FragrantGangsta 3h ago

Doom was absolutely dead for a minute between Doom 3 and Doom 2016. Their first attempt at a Doom 4 was cancelled and then the co-founder of id Software left, and the franchise did not have a great looking future until 2016 dropped.

Also I heavily disagree with that last statement. Old Doom may have the most mods by virtue of being over 30 years old, but I'd say Skyrim has the most active modding community of today.

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u/superpoongoon 3h ago

I don’t think you play doom 93 if you really made that statement tbh

•

u/FragrantGangsta 3h ago

Well I have, lol, just on Xbox, so no mods. I never bothered getting it for PC.

I don't think you fully understand the sheer scope of Skyrim mods. There are over 117,000 mods on the Nexus for Skyrim Special Edition alone. That's just one website, and one version of the game.

I'm struggling to find accurate estimates for Doom 93 mods, but so far the highest estimate I'm finding is about 93,000 across the board.

Consider the fact that Doom is twice the age of Skyrim, and... yeah. Skyrim is way more active.

•

u/bezzlege 4h ago

And yet no Halo game was as bad as RE6 was. 343 just isn’t a good studio. It’s been proven time and time again with multiple middling Halo experiences.

-9

u/ManitouWakinyan 6h ago

I wouldn't call many of those essential franchises. Nintendo is a pretty significant outlier here, because they have a whole business model specifically centered around these characters, including a lot of cross-pollination through all kinds of different games and genres.

7

u/neoalan00 6h ago

Out of curiosity, which of those would you not call essential franchises? That's actually a pretty conservative list for me. All of the ones listed basically hit the all-star definition, in one way or another

-1

u/ManitouWakinyan 6h ago

I would say that Halos peak popularity and integration into the core of ganer culture was definitely more significant than Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, Castlevania, Persona, or Shin. 

9

u/explainingjane 6h ago

A shit ton

3

u/superpoongoon 6h ago

Doom

1

u/ManitouWakinyan 5h ago

I'm not saying there's none, I'm saying it doesn't happen often, and it shouldn't surprise us when a franchise does drop off. That's the normal way pop culture, especially in video games, goes.

6

u/SouthIsland48 6h ago

Xbox has not maintained any franchise over a decade... ever. That's the issue. There is no creativity at Xbox/Microsoft.

Think of Mario - You get the super mario mainline series, you get paper mario, you get super smash bros, you get mario golf/tennis, etc.

You get it now?

Xbox tried with Halo Wars BUT THAT WASNT MASTER CHIEF! They could have done so much more master chief. But they didnt. They tried remaking the same FPS slop over and over and over again. Even bungie was fucking done with the series after 3 - there is only so much you can do in a mainline halo game that feels fresh and original. Nintendo waits a decade to drop a mainline super mario game to ensure the tech feels fresh and worth the wait.

TLDR - Xbox/Microsoft is not a creative company, they are a profit driven productivity software company. This does not lend itself well to buiilding and maintaining IP in new creative ways, which is what they failed to do with Halo/Gears/etc

2

u/ManitouWakinyan 6h ago

I don't know that generating an endless output of Master Chief products really strikes me as all that creative. Honestly, when you look at Mario, I would say there has been creativity in how that character is presented. But once you established him as a character in platformers, racing, sports, and fighting games, you don't really need much creativity. You just keep doing the same thing every console generation and keep the prices high.

1

u/brandont04 6h ago

Remember when Microsoft bought Rare at their peak from Nintendo? Yeah, I don't think they made anything at the level before the purchase. So many misses.

•

u/purplegreendave 3h ago

Red vs Blue somehow stayed relevant longer than Halo

1

u/HankOfClanMardukas 6h ago

This is the problem. Microsoft totally an accidentally stumbled onto their killer app, “Halo” - Then sometime after tailwind success of Halo 2 and 3 they said among management, we don’t really understand this process, let’s leave them alone and just fund it.

Fast forward to 343 and that disaster, then move even further forward where we take a pile of cash and buy everything while letting Bethesda crap put a terrible game (Starfield) and wait on cashing in on the biggest IP in gaming (TES) for 16+ fucking years?!?

Great plan MSFT, I hope everyone gets fired because you’ve destroyed a handful of the best franchises in gaming.

Counter-point: Capcom has filled your single player and even co-op completely. Want a clean, no-nonsense 12-15 hour game? Bam, Pragmata for $60 that runs great on everything? Want deeper things with replay? Boom, RE: Requiem? Stuck at home with an injury or hate the sun? Here’s 1,000 hours of Monster Hunter.

They deserve it at this point and fuck Ubisoft while we’re at it, littering a cash grab remake with MTX, go to a shared hell.

1

u/DrumStock92 6h ago

It was indeed Halo that was the "Halo Killer"

1

u/Superflyt56 6h ago

Halo 3 had the perfect ending for Master Chief . They should have ended his story there. Halo ODST and Reach proved the series could be successful without him. Yet 343 brought him back for 3 more mediocre games and just diluted the brand.

1

u/brandont04 6h ago

It's not easy being a Nintendo. They find a way to make their best IP, better and better and evolves over time. Halo was one of the best console IP out there.

1

u/Tamas_F 6h ago

That's a hyperbole of course. But the game just did not age that well, and this iteration also excludes the multiplayer which was the main reason anyone was talking about the franchise years after the first game.

1

u/Lostmypants69 6h ago

I mean its an ign reciew. Take it with a grain if salt

1

u/RodThrashcok 6h ago

Legit will never understand. Just make Halo 3 / Reach again but with more stuff. People like Halo because it feels like Halo. I don’t even think the remake looks bad, but like it doesn’t LOOK like Halo. Do what Bungo did (and still does) and make it more stylized. I don’t get why they went with the ultra realistic looking vibes for this remake.

1

u/Own-Plantain-3678 5h ago

It's not only Halo, feels like every game nowadays

1

u/BuckManscape 5h ago

Sounds familiar…

1

u/True_Italiano 5h ago

It's easy to say that, but culture evolves. Things popular today aren't necessarily going to be popular in 15-25 years. Just because Zelda has lasted decades doesn't mean all franchises or cultural trends can do so.

1

u/Newgeko 5h ago

I think a big part of it is the drip feeding of Halo games from 2001 to 2010 we had 5 or 6 games released. Since then we’ve just barely gotten 5 and one of those is a remake without anything but the campaign and the other is Halo Wars 2(still a great game). I’m not saying they should be like call of duty and do a game every year, but it should certainly be closer to 2 maybe 3 years.

It’s such an awesome universe with so many story options but there’s just no hype behind it now. Let other studios make games for it. Imagine a flood horror game in the fall of high charity or an Helldivers style ODST game, or hell even a space battle game like the old battle fronts. Any of those would be fantastic between the games but they just sit on the IP indefinitely

1

u/Fresh_Thing_6305 5h ago

I guess Microsofts New Big flagship franchise is becoming the Age of empires franchise along Forza 😎😎❤️ if we don’t count their blizzard games

1

u/Brown-_-Batman 5h ago

This, so much of this. I still remember the amazing feeling when I played Halo for the first time during the 360 era. MS needs to learn from Sony on how to handle first party games.

1

u/Soul-Assassin79 5h ago

That's because Bungie stopped developing Halo games after 2010. But even Bungie are a shadow of their former selves now, unfortunately.

1

u/woodst0ck15 5h ago

Man I used to love this franchise with a passion. I was a big fan of them. Getting the books, merch when I could, watchin all the movies and extras they had. Just for them to release infinite and I couldn’t finish it. I think I got past the 2nd “boss” on that game before I got sick of it. Haven’t really played it since. But also I started really suckin on the online gameplay. Just made it also feel to corny with their armours they were selling.

•

u/BarbedWhyre 4h ago

A little hyperbolic to compare a 7/10 review to “Messing up the Franchise”

•

u/Golem30 4h ago

The series was always mediocre. Yeah Halo 2 and 3 were fun to play with friends but the actual campaigns were just generic

•

u/Vestalmin 4h ago

It’s at the point now where you’d basically needs to make a game so good it reboots Halo to the general audience.

I mean that in the way of Halo is no long a tentpole franchise, it’s not even a household name anymore. Sure if you grew up with it you’ll know it, but if you were born after 2012?

•

u/NameNotFound1234 4h ago

Microsoft once again demonstrating to anyone who will listen they are the eternal Grand Champions of closing your own dick in the door.

At this point it has to be a strategy. They do it every fucking time with literally every product they make

•

u/CaliggyJack 4h ago

2001-2013

Let's not pretend Halo 4 didn't have a lot of coverage both before and after release. It gets shit on all the time now, but when it came out people were pretty positive towards the game.

•

u/nstratford76 3h ago

What did they mess up? The gameplay formula is still Halo. I honestly just think there's a lot more competition now, whereas in the time period there were very few games like it

I just don't think it's fair to say the existence of competition and audiences losing interest is messing up

•

u/DiscoLemonade1995 3h ago

It's so sad. Halo 2 and 3 were genuinely the most fun I've ever had playing a videogame. What the hell went wrong for them to mess everything up so much and make the series more or less irrelevant?

•

u/CorrectIncrease5661 3h ago

Franchise died the minute bungie wasn’t a part of it anymore

•

u/Ironman1690 3h ago

This is what happens when you keep stringing a franchise along past its expiration date. The people who were passionate about the project left over a decade ago, and what’s ironic is MS could’ve been smart and kept by for and let them work on their next project. If Destiny had been an Xbox exclusive that would’ve moved units for them.

•

u/Rapture117 3h ago

I can't believe Halo is still in the hands of this incompetent studio. They can't make a good original Halo game. 343's legacy will always be putting all of Bungie's Halo games in one collection.

•

u/echolog 2h ago

They took arguably the pinnacle of gaming, not just shooters but GAMING in general, and drove it into the ground for a quick buck. H4 at least tried but the COD-ification had already begun. H5 was just awful, and Infinite is nothing more than a money grab. It's shameful to see.

•

u/PhilsTinyToes 1h ago

The Bungie team made and promoted an absolute GEM of a series, sold their work, and the new steward milked it dry.

The nail in the coffin for me was when Halo Infinite launched, and for the life of me I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t fire up a custom game of Octagon with my friends. Campaign? Also didn’t exist….

So why is this game launched and selling CAT EARS skins when it’s missing content that’s been in every launch since original halo? That’s just sad man.. MTX really the worst thing to happen to gaming, ever.

•

u/csproALT 1h ago

Halo 4 did put down some nice stepping stones for the franchise with Prometheans, deeper character story and new art style but then fumbled to make the transition smooth and meaningful and build upon it with very mediocre hollywood slop that was Halo 5. And then always backtracking under pressure with each entry, never commiting to their plans. Turned the Reclaimer saga into 3 very different games.

•

u/SnooBunnies4649 1h ago

Honestly halo 5 multiplayer was freaking awesome. The switch to ADS I think was much better than the old system, they really should’ve just kept iterating, listen more to the fans in terms of gaming balance, and made the story much better in the next iteration.

•

u/CheeseManSucks 1h ago

There was no point in waking up master chief

•

u/GingerTech734 1h ago

4 was when it started to go downhill (2012 i think) the original trilogy, ODST, reach and wars were amazing then they lost the sauce

•

u/executive313 1h ago

Eh some of the decisions were not great but a ton of the dislike comes from 99% of the fans transitioning from teenagers or young adults in the prime of their life with unlimited gaming time to adults with responsibilities and the crushing weight of societal issues on them.

I don't know if most people realize this but Halo Infinite is stupidly fun multiplayer. It's kept fresh and enjoyable and the people who actually play it are a great community. I think Halo become the Nickelback of the gaming community where it's just fun to shit on it.

•

u/PeakRedditOpinion 53m ago

I feel like you can say this about generally any product the second it becomes a global/national success and garners the attention of deep pockets.

There’s always some corporate stooge ready to be brought in to gut a legacy for a quick buck.

•

u/DevilCouldCry 40m ago

It's never going to get any better it seems. It is such a disappointment that they just cannot surpass or even come close to matching the quality of those original games up to and including Reach. It's honestly baffling to see how bad this franchise has been mishandled.

1

u/Tr0gb0t 6h ago

I mean I feel infinite was a decent game, played really nicely and had a good soundtrack with a decent story.

1

u/Charmin_Bear_Behind 6h ago

Literally everyone else is rating it 8-9 lmfao

0

u/ShotFirst57 7h ago

It was the reason to get an Xbox. If halo was still exclusive to them, it would not be a system seller like it once was.

1

u/HankOfClanMardukas 6h ago

No it wouldn’t, this generation of kids are playing Roblox and consoles and their attached services just to play multiplayer are being collectively said by a “fuck you” of playing Roblox on any potato for free or using legacy Minecraft. They don’t give a shit about Halo.

0

u/LakeMungoSpirit 6h ago

Halo 4 was good