Since the majority of people didn’t really enjoy Warzone in Halo 5, I’ve thought up a spiritual successor that could potentially be really fun and isn’t too far-fetched. Basically these would be match ups of a gargantuan scale- the ability to finally commandeer giant vehicles including Mammoth’s, ?Rhinos?, and Frigates and square up against an enemy team of Scarabs, Kraken, and Carriers.
Here is the concept in a nutshell: You have 12 v 12 teams, human vs covenant. Each team spawns on their vehicle, there are only 2 vehicles per map, so it’s always a 1 v 1. Ideally every person on the team should have an important role, a station to choose from to provide strategic planning. Positions could include piloting movement, primary weapons, or maybe defense/shield management.
Battles basically boil down to moving your vehicle in position and attacking specific weak points on the opponent’s vehicle to expose it. The whole vehicle health system should be intricate and very similar to the Scarabs in Halo 3, where there are multiple pieces you can damage and break off to stun or expose the vehicle. Once significant damage is sustained, the vehicle opens up for a boarding opportunity: it becomes a battle on foot of the vehicle. The attacking team moves to destroy the core, while the defending team has to decide who will continue operating the vehicle and who will move to defend the boarders. Since boarders will probably outnumber defenders, turrets and shields will be placed to give the defenders slight position advantages.
And without getting obsessed over details, that’s pretty much it. It would be fun, involve strategy, and bring an epic scale to multiplayer never before seen in Halo. Of course, at this point, if it hasn’t yet been tested and implemented for Halo Infinite, chances are it won’t happen and this is no more than hopeful speculation. But what are everyone’s thoughts?
I think the deck is stacked against this sort of innovation, unfortunately. Sounds fun, though, and a lot less of a chaotic mess than WZ in Guardians. The thought of a vehicle-focused big-team multi-player mode is nice because it plays to the strong vehicle sandbox in Halo in a way that never has really been done in any of the prior games, so I am impressed by that idea and generally like it for a fun social playlist.
However, and this is a problem the MP has had ever since 343i decided to canonize it: Playable Covenant is extremely unlikely in the event that 343i sticks to their guns on insisting that all multi-player modes are canon, in-lore training exercises.
I understand why 343 wanted to try to make that happen in Halo 4, and to a lesser extent in Halo 5 (although, let’s be honest, Warzone MP is about the most useless, idiotic and bizarre “training simulation” I can imagine for humanity’s best and brightest supersoldiers). Ultimately though, the MP of Halo wasn’t ever geared to be canonical. It was geared to be fun, and at times ridiculous and goofy. It had a very different personality from the Campaigns.
Invasion from Reach is the best example of a Halo game doing something fun with the premise of Human vs Covenant MP. Your idea sounds similarly fun- but unless 343i does (what I admittedly consider to be the right thing) step back from the assertion that all Multiplayer modes are Canon, it’ll be hard for them to justify the existence of a cool out-of-the-box idea like this in Infinite.
Not bad. Have you thought about maybe doing a base defends style one where it’s a scarab attacking a UNSC base or a Mammoth attacking a covenant?
Also bots! We need bots! Players control the Spartans and Elites of each team, and each player could command a squad of marines/grunts and jackals? Could even include spawn able boss AI like hunters and such (not sure what the UNSC could have as an equivalent?) to replace the Warzone bosses.
Oh another idea I just came up with, maybe as a side objective to destroying the enemies super unit/base how about having capturable outposts, minibases, that will spawn smaller vehicles and power weapons when captured?
I do love that every time we’re in the lead up to a new halo game there’s always a topic regarding some huge big battle type game mode with drivable scabs and pelicans etc.
One day they’ll listen!