So right off the bat I’m gonna say I HATE Halo 5: Guardians. It is the worst Halo game ever made. Period. A lackluster campaign with terrible writing, pay-2-win microtransactions, RNG lootboxes, laughably simplistic armor customization oversaturated with skins and variants that no one wanted (looking at you, Seeker) and the most inaccessible variant of Forge of any Halo game. The list goes on.
The biggest challenge in bringing Halo 5: Guardians to The Master Chief Collection is fixing the bulk of these. Halo 5 can NOT be added to MCC in it’s current state. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today.
- Campaign
While nothing can be done for Halo 5’s embarrassing story, there are ways 343 could at least improve gameplay.
One is Anniversary Skulls. They recently updated Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST to include skulls from Halo 2: Anniversary, such as Bandana, Acrophobia, and many, many more. While Acrophobia wouldn’t be that great in Halo 5 because of the absurd number of invisible walls, Bandana and the others could certainly spice things up.
I would also add a new skull specifically for Halo 5: Guardians: The “Fiesta” skull. When enabled, this skull would activate dozens of new, randomized weapon and vehicle spawns with content from Multiplayer and Warzone appearing throughout the campaign. If you’ve ever wanted to play Halo 5’s campaign with, say… the Halo 2 Battle Rifle, this would be one way you could do it. Combine it with Bandana to pick your favorite weapons and have a ball.
Another cool feature they could add is the ability to choose your player character in single-player. Want to play as Buck instead of Locke even when playing solo? 343 could make it so.
But that’s all I’ve got to say about campaign. Moving on…
- Armor Unlock & Customization
Obviously, for Halo 5: Guardians to become part The Master Chief Collection, REQ packs and REQ points have got to go. That means we need a new way to unlock armor, in addition to improving the armor customization in Halo 5.
Armor unlocks would work the same as they did in past Seasons for MCC, except a single tier would unlock a full armor set, plus any additional skins. This would be a good way to condense Halo 5’s 200+ armor sets into 100 unlockable tiers. One tier would cost 1 Spartan Point, same as always. Weapon skins would be offered as full sets as well, likewise condensed into a single tier for each set.
Armor customization would be upgraded to offer the same range of options as Halo 4: Helmet, Visor, Chest, Shoulders, Forearms, and Legs. All of the original armor variants and skins from Halo 4 would also be usable in Halo 5: Guardians, provided you’ve already unlocked them in Halo 4. This would be especially important for Halo 4 armors that (for whatever reason) did not make the cut for Halo 5: Guardians, such as EOD, Mark V, ODST, and Prefect.
- Warzone Requisitions
Now this is where it gets tricky. Like I said, REQ packs need to be ripped out entirely for Halo 5 to fit into MCC. But then how will you unlock weapons, vehicles, and perks for use in Warzone and Warzone Firefight? Let’s see if we can figure it out…
Since Spartan Points are being monetized, and we need to remove the pay-2-win element from Warzone, REQ points would need to be brought back as a form of currency that can ONLY be earned by playing Warzone and Warzone Firefight.
After earning REQ points, you would then go to an in-game Requisition Vendor that contains every REQ item in the game; Weapons, Vehicles, Perks, and Certifications. Everything would be available to buy right away, so either grab the items you want as you earn points, or save up over time to get the most valuable REQs as quickly as possible… that’s up to you. Certifications, when unlocked, would permanently reduce the price for purchasing a specific REQ item and also give you a handful of that item when you first purchase it.
For example, say you want the Phaeton. It costs 100,000 REQ points by default without the Certification. You earn 10,000 REQ points per Warzone match completed, meaning you would have to play 10 games to get 1 Phaeton. Getting the Certification would bring the cost down by 50% (50,000 REQ points) but costs 250,000 REQ points. You’d have to play 25 games in Warzone to earn those points, but afterward you’d be able to access the Phaeton more often.
That’s just one example of how it could work. There are a lot of factors to consider… you don’t want every player to be able to access the Phaeton in Warzone 24/7. I would set limits on the number of times you can use power weapons and vehicles in a match; a vehicle as overpowered as the Phaeton, for example, could only be used once per match regardless of how many you have in your inventory. Warzone Firefight would have no such restrictions, being that it’s a PvE mode and is punishing enough as it is.
This would be without a doubt the biggest obstacle 343 would face in bringing Halo 5: Guardians to The Master Chief Collection. All I know is that the pay-2-win element needs to be removed in order for this work; having a form of currency that can only be earned by playing the game, and completely removing the RNG element by letting players pick-and-choose what REQs they want to buy would be a good place to start, if nothing else.
- Customization & Offline Play for Warzone and Warzone Firefight
Warzone Firefight in it’s current state is a grueling chore at the best of times. Bullet-sponge bosses, long respawn times, and aimbot enemies make it more frustrating than fun, and the inability to play solo or in custom games further hampers the experience.
Some basic customization options like those that were added to ODST Firefight in Season 3 of MCC would go a long way to making Warzone Firefight more enjoyable. Wanna play Warzone Firefight Turbo solo with Infinite Ammo and Invincibility enabled? Go ahead.
It goes without saying that you would have unlimited REQ items in Warzone Custom Games, and all REQ items would be unlocked by default as well. Using REQ items in customs would not affect your inventory for matchmaking.
- Addendum & Mod Support
And… that’s all I’ve got. Like I said at the top, I HATE Halo 5: Guardians, and I won’t lose any sleep if it’s never added to Halo: The Master Chief Collection. It is extremely unlikely that it will ever happen. But if in the event 343 does decide to change their mind and bring Halo 5 to MCC, this is what I hope they’ll do to make it more enjoyable. Otherwise, I wouldn’t even bother installing it.
Beyond what I’ve talked about here, the only other thing I could think of it to improve Halo 5: Guardians for MCC is to add mod tools for the PC version, which is pretty self-explanatory. Every other game in the collection has or is getting mod tools, so it stands to reason that Halo 5 should get them as well.