A possible consequence of being an open world game

Games Halo Infinite
1

TL;DR at bottom, look for the bold letters

Yep, another open world topic…but it was something I’ve been thinking about and something I personally haven’t really seen anyone talk about yet concerning the subject

Let’s say Halo Infinite does turn out to have an open world campaign. Not just a more open ended one like the missions Halo and Silent Cartographer from CE, but full-on open world. Let’s say it does it quite well and the majority of players like the new direction 343 has taken with the campaign

What could this mean for the future of the franchise?

Let’s look at another series that has technically always been open world but has only recently taken that several steps further than where it used to be: Assassin’s Creed. AC has always been an open world series as I previously said, but the current style of Assassin’s Creed, the style leaning more towards being a massive RPG versus an open world action/stealth game, only recently started with AC Origins. Many people do miss the old AC style from years ago, but overall the last two entries in the series, Origins and Odyssey, have both been well received, and it seems like AC Valhalla will mostly be following suit with a few changes here and there. So we’re talking 3 games in a row that have a particular style that differs from the previous entries in the series, with no current signs of going back to the traditional AC style prior to Origins with the exception of the return of the one-hit-kill hidden blade

If you ask me, as someone who loves both the old and new styles of the Assassin’s Creed games, I feel like if Uibsoft were to drop all aspects of the recent and upcoming games and revert back to an older style when they’ve already done so much to expand the series and take it to new heights, it might feel like the series would be moving backwards rather than forward, and you never want to feel like the next game in a series is a stark downgrade from the previous entry(ies). Assassin’s Creed 4 is one of my favorite games in the series as well as Brotherhood, but to go back to that AC style, even with modern day game sizes, would most likely feel…lacking, barebones, compared to more recent entries

Could Halo Infinite’s possible open world success cause the Halo series to have the same fate?

Could Halo Infinite’s new open world direction be successful enough that 343 can’t really go back to a simple mission-based campaign presentation? Would it feel like a downgrade to lose the amount of content and replayability often offered by open world games in favor of linear missions that play the exact same way time after time?

Could this be the future of Halo, and the Halo campaign format we once knew could be gone forever?

Now of course this is totally hypothetical as 1. we obviously don’t know anything about the gameplay yet, and 2. the Halo titles can see pretty large shifts between titles, like the more squad-based style of gameplay seen in Halo 5’s campaign with Blue Team and Osiris, so we have no idea if Halo will ever have an open world campaign and it’s always possible that 343 could just decide to go back to the linear style in the next game even if the open world style is well received in Infinite. But I think this is the problem with making such a dramatic change to the formula in a main entry in the series: they might be stuck doing it if it is successful the first time. We’ve already seen a semi-open world campaign in ODST and it is loved by many Halo fans, but it was in a spin-off title, meaning Bungie were not forced to expand upon that style of gameplay in Reach. They could make ODST however they wanted to and continue to make the usual linear, mission-based campaign in the next main entry (Reach)

Perhaps this is 343’s best way to go about experimenting with massive shifts in storytelling and gameplay. They could make a spin-off game that is fully open world and maybe even single player/coop only as that would allow them to build a massive and detailed world full of interesting content without also putting in all the time and effort to make a fun and balanced multiplayer, which they could do in the next main entry in the series. This is something I’ve always wanted to see with the Halo series, a huge open world game where you play as your own customizable Spartan and is separate from the main story. With this route, 343 would not be expected to continue making open world campaigns for future main entries and instead they could keep making the usual engaging and detailed linear campaigns we’ve come to expect in Halo games

TL;DR Similar to the shift in the gameplay style of the Assassin’s Creed series, the success of a massive shift in gameplay and storytelling may cause 343 to have to keep making open world games in the future as the usual linear, mission-based campaigns may feel like a downgrade in comparison, even to longtime fans. 343 may be better off experimenting with something like making an open world Halo game in a spin-off game instead to avoid that possibility

What do y’all think? Could open world Halo be the future of the series if Halo Infinite has a successful open world campaign? Would you be fine with seeing such a massive shift in gameplay in the main Halo games or would you rather have 343 experiment with it and other major changes in spin-offs instead?

2

I don’t think I would like gameplay in the style of the assassin’s crees series, an open world Halo game in my opinion would only further alienate the legacy Halo fanbase more than 343 have already done.

I would rather they keep the open world game idea to a spin off Halo game, similar to ODST.

3

Experimenting in a spin off is the first thing I thought of when open world speculation started to come up. I’m totally fine with open world but I wanted them to try it in a spin off first to get some experience and learn from any mistakes so that they wouldn’t mess up the mainline series. At the end of the day though I love open world games so if it ends up being good I’m totally fine with it. Maybe the mainline series could be open world and then they could do more linear spin offs.

4

I believe that there is a correct approach 343i could take with open world. I’ve speculated before that, if Infinite was to become open world, it would have to resemble Combat Evolved’s formula… which is not open world.

Let’s get things straight. Halo CE is a linear game which FEELS as if it isn’t a lot of the time. The way it achieves this is by having large, open-ended maps and does little, if anything, to restrict the player -Silent Cartographer being a prime example. What I would suggest with Infinite is simply an expansion upon that formula.

For example, wouldn’t it be awesome if every level in Infinite was a singular open-world map, like Cartographer but bigger (but not too big), which you would have to explore in whichever way you want in order to progress. Say your goal is to gain entry into a facility on Zeta Halo but you get there and, after fighting a bunch of Covenant or Banished or whatever, discover the doors are locked, so you have to go out and find a way to open them. During your search, you discover new vehicles or weapons and maybe run into a stranded group of marines you can try and rescue, then come back and proceed to a new area of the map etc. This is a timeless formula IMO if done right and it suits Halo like a glove since the original employed the same design principles.

I’ve heard complaints that this kind of design could feel empty and arid but, honestly, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Let’s take the now infamous Ubisoft games as an example. Many games nowadays suffer from what I like to call “Ubisoftication” and a lot of people know what I’m talking about when I use that word. There is a common trend nowadays, which started with Ubisoft, that dictates that every open-world game needs to have a specific formula in order to engage the player. This is where the concept of “completionism” stems from. Basically, go around the map and tick off every marker by completing the same, repetitive mini-objectives over and over again.

This is not fun.

I would prefer to have multiple, smaller open world maps in which there are fewer encounters but every one of them is hand-crafted instead of being copy-pasted. Not only that, I wouldn’t make it a requirement to do anything other than pursue primary mission objectives. Whatever else the player decides to interact with and how they interact with it is up to them.

On a different note, Halo never struck me as something that needs to be all action all of the time. The reason CE is so memorable, IMO, is because it allows for a ton of breathing room and doesn’t shy away from withholding action in favor of setting a mood every now and then. I refuse to believe that the average player lacks the patience to sit back and soak it all in every once in a while and, by the looks of things, Infinite is going to look good and sound good -so all the more reason to exploit this concept.

Lastly, the core game loop is what is going to have to set Infinite apart from any modern shooter. In CE, every enemy behaved differently and required a different approach, every weapon served a purpose and vehicles meant something. This simple concept became muddied with the introduction of things like Spartan Abilities, an arsenal that became too vast and nonsensical and a lack of focus on enemy design and their roles (among other things).

5

we definitely also need actual missions in the similar way at least to previous titles otherwise it changes the flow of action into something very start stop. An entirely open world with no linear missions isn’t a direction I think will please people