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To Whom it may concern,
To begin, I am a very avid Halo fan. I loved it ever since that brilliant man climbed out of that tin can and clanked his feet on to the deck of the Pillar of Autumn back in 2001. This game accounts for more hours of my life than I care to admit. That being said I am just your average gamer. I never was a professional gamer. I never had my own twitch channel. I never even created much of a clan for Halo. All that being said I am still a believer in the Halo franchise and hope that this finds the right person. As many other people in the Halo community such as myself think, there seems to be concern for the next game in the franchise. In that 343 has tried to make Halo closer to the gameplay of other large game series such as Call of Duty, or Battlefield. While these games have their strengths and weaknesses just as any other game does, these are not to be the games that everyone needs to strive to be like. Halo was straightforward, yet brilliant in its storytelling. Halo was exciting and weirdly addictive at times. But most of all Halo was fun, pure and simple.
With the addition of Halo 4, and Halo 5 Guardians there was a downturn of those qualities, and this is fine. Industries, executives, and employees are all people at their root and people are most certainly allowed to make mistakes. I make mistakes every single day. This is why I don’t like the way many people in my generation like to handle their gripes; taking to facebook with a numerous amount of expletives, making an angry Youtube video, or something of that nature. I am choosing to voice my opinions via this outlet calmly. (btw, I was unsure of where else to write this seeing as there isn’t an open forum that I was able to find, but hopefully someone can read this) And this is more than likely too little too late, but I thought to write this anyway. Please think of how the Halo franchise began, and how it made you feel to play those games. A few of those attributes that I would like to highlight that I think made it rise above the rest are as follows…
Number 1: Multiplayer Starts
Everyone got the same look. Everyone got the same weapons. Everyone got the same abilities. While on paper some may seem to think that this would be “boring” this is quite the contrary. It was fair. And therefore nobody could complain when their buddy got to the rocket launcher and shoved it right up their -Yoink-, because that buddy was probably a bit better than the other to win the fight to the rocket launcher. And therefore, just because someone with a full time job cannot play as much as the next kid without a job, there were still no advantages to be had when the fully employed member of society finally gets to play on a Saturday night with his friends.
Number 2: Gameplay Nuances
To put it simply, please don’t put sprint into the next game. This takes much more away from the game than one may think. It makes the multiplayer experience have a much different feel and that is not what the OG Halo games did and therefore: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Number 3: No Money Grabbing
This maybe should have been number one but im writing this from the heart. DO NOT MAKE LOOT BOXES. This may make everyone a ton of money over there, but please remember the reason that zit-faced 16 year old decided to become a game designer… to simply make a great game! Make everyone happy, including yourself, and keep the game pure. This may be a hot button issue in the face of businessmen but a good businessman appreciates his product and appreciates the feedback from his customers.
Number 4: Storyline
I recently recited the entire story of the Halo Universe to my wife (yeah gamer’s find love too, and she listened to it because she truly loves me), and I passionately described the story right up until the middle of the story of Halo around Halo 4. Not that there was anything wrong with the story necessarily, but it just wasn’t as easy to describe as the others. That is where she lost interest in my story, and that is when a lot of others lost interest in the game. I don’t quite know how to crack the nut on this one, but just pop open the Halo CE and find some inspiration their if you can. I did indeed read some of the halo books, and loved them. However nobody should have to buy a book to understand a game. Thats why sequels usually suck at the movies, but it doesn’t have to be that way this time around for this game.
There. This may never see the light of day, but at least I can say that tried. I hope to one day come home from my full time job and pop in a truly fun game once again, and know that they did it right. If you read this far, then I tip my had to you my good fellow. Happy gaming, and happy developing.
Your Friend,
Demon XVI