Dear 343,
As your loyal fan-base lies in waiting for you to destroy these community forums, I’ve reflected on the Good, Bad, and the Ugly of your time running Halo. The likelihood of you seeing this post varies but I hope this doesn’t fall on deaf ears. As a Halo fanboy since I was 9, I have been excited to see how this franchise would turn out. I followed the story of the Master Chief, he was one of my heroes. I loved Bungie’s work with the original Trilogy, Halo: Reach, and Halo 3 ODST. I am grateful for the opportunity to post my feedback here. I am thankful for the Halo 4 campaign, which was different but acceptable. I am thankful for how you’ve shown up for the fans in the past but now we feel as though you don’t really care anymore. Halo has brought me through rough times and it has been a blessing to be able to play this game for as long as I have.
The Halo Infinite multiplayer is compelling, and as I watch your company improve that portion of the game I feel good about the direction of it. Now there have been and still are issues with the Shop and multiple needed patches, but overall Season 3 is shaping up to be the best so far. My main gripe is with the campaign. It blatantly spits in the faces of OG Halo Fans. I would gladly trade open world and real-time cutscenes for a campaign that made sense, pleased the fans, and was satisfying. The ending of Halo 5 left me with so many questions about Cortana, Chief, The Arbiter, and the end of Halo. But Halo Infinite has not only killed off Cortana off screen, pretended the promethians and guardians don’t matter anymore, and that the Mantle of Responsibility was short lived. Blue Team and Fire team Osiris are nowhere to be seen. Locked might have been killed off screen come to think of it. Halo 5 made more sense than Halo Infinite. As aesthetically pleasing as Halo Infinite was, it lacked story. The pilot is annoying and petty, Master Chief shows no emotion, the Banished have been shriveled down from the greatness they were in Halo Wars 2. And you’re keeping the Chief alive too long. 343 face the music: you can’t make Halo games the way they used to be. You have lied to us, stolen from us, and taken advantage of us. We were promised a DLC and now you say THERE WON’T BE ONE?!
Now I’ve heard the news about you switching engines but SERIOUSLY. Will it take ANOTHER 6 YEARS for a Halo Game to be released?! Because I will not still be here if it does. The campaign is INCOMPLETE, is NOT lore accurate. THE ENDLESS ARE PATHETIC. You make worse sequels THAN DISNEY. DISNEY. The cutscenes in Halo Infinite are horrible compared to the beautiful ones from Halo Wars 2, Halo 5, Halo 2 Anniversary. WHICH CAME OUT YEARS AGO. At this point you need to hand this franchise to the fans because you aren’t making Halo Games, you’re riding on the success of them.
You fired almost all of your employees, including the one pushing for cross-core armor customization. “Halo Infinite will have the most advanced customization yet.” MY -Yoink!-. Halo Reach did a better job at seamlessly putting your customized spartan into cutscenes and DO YOU KNOW HOW OLD THAT GAME IS??? Meanwhile we get sneak peaks at the potential of pre-rendered cutscenes and you only have 2 of them.
343, I appreciate what you’ve done so far. BUT LETS KEEP GOING. PLEASE LISTEN TO THE FANS. Don’t silence us by destroying these platforms. I saw your tik tok account that is advertising shop items we are paying 20 DOLLARS FOR. I want the old Halo back, I want Halo Reach anniversary, Halo 3 Anniversary, Halo 3 ODST Anniversary, Halo 4 Anniversary. Not a flawed campaign with a “free to play” multiplayer.
Also Noble Six isn’t dead, contrary to your post on Tik Tok. He’s MIA. Please bring him back. Here I’ll translate it to your language: HAPPY FANS = $$$$!!! 343 you need to stop retconning, rebooting, and ruining this franchise.
YOUR HALO SHOW WAS HORRIBLE TRASH. No one likes it enough to watch it anymore. And please don’t copy the fricken mandalorian with Master Chief. How about this: Make a cinematic universe for Halo. See? If The Last Of Us can then you can too. Start with a Halo Reach movie based on the game (NOT SOME HORRIBLE REBOOT), Then make Halo CE the movie, Then Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 4, Halo 3 ODST, Halo 5. All you need to do is hire good writers, directors, and actors and you have your own MCU to make millions off of.
343, since this is the last post I made before you put the forums to rest, I leave you with one final message: Leave it Alone, Let it end, Listen to the Fans, and don’t be cheap. I hope you listen or at least skim this post. There is wisdom in the Fan’s observations.
Spartans Never Die, They’re just missing in action.
Make Halo Great Again
HOOO RAH MARINES
This is Sierra 117, signing off.