Have yaʻll ever seen the UI before Halo 5 launch? Because for me, i guilty-fully say im a “judge a book by its cover” guy. That doesnʻt meant i donʻt touch it. Just saying it leaves good impressions before getting to the good stuff. And to me, the Halo 5 UI was bad and many can agree. But it seems the UI design in the Halo 5 beta was much more appealing for a lot of people.
No matter how Halo Infinite plays like, I hope they do REALLY WELL with the UI menu. That is going to be the main thing i stare at when im too tired of playing and im sure is going to effect the playerʻs motivation to keep playing.
Gotta agree! For me, Halo 5s menu was so plain and boring, did not feel like a Halo menu. The Alpha/beta menus was on point for H5, the holographic, futuristic feeling just felt so fitting. A good menu plays a larger role than one may think!
Huh, I think at around 0:37 is a glimpse of an H5 match composer, the system they added to MCC.
Anyway yeah the H5 menus are pretty bland feeling. Not a huge deal to me but it’d be nice for them to look as good as possible. I remember seeing a video about why the menus changed and I believe it was related to time. Microsoft rushing 343i again, nothing new there.
To be honest, I find the final UI of Halo 5 for the most part more appealing than those earlier examples. The pre-release UIs overall seem like they’re trying too much to be flashy and perhaps even come a bit in the way of usability. I appreciate simple UI design. As I see it, good UI design is something you can stare at and admire, but that ultimately gets out of the way when you need to use it. It is both an efficient means of transportation, and a well organized filing cabinet.
I’m not the biggest fan of the UI design in Halo 5, but the video you linked reminds me of where we’ve come from, and makes me appreciate what we have a bit more. I still regard the Halo Reach UI as the best UI we’ve had in Halo. It’s simple, yet with a very subtle 3D effect to make it look more interesting. It uses very readable fonts that are never larger than they need to be. All lists scroll vertically, there are no arbitrary unnecesary lines segregating objects, and highlighting of selected objects is subtle. The foreground is very plain, with the eye-catching duty mostly relegated to the background art.
My issues with the Halo 5 UI are primarily the unnecessary things it does: on one hand the unnecessarily large font for the main menu items, on the other hand all the empty space in vertical lists, general weird discrepancies between the visual styles of different parts of the UI. I’m also a not fan of the background art, but that is an issue with not just the UI but with 343i’s art direction. I’m not generally opposed to using in-game scenes for the background art.
Still, I’d consider the final Halo 5 UI mostly a step in the right direction from its pre-release versions, the Halo MCC UI, and definitely from the Halo 4 UI.
I agree with tsassi on the idea that the pre-beta UI screens are a little busy. The current screens in Halo 5 are honestly far too minimal, though. The beta’s UI was a nice midway point between the pre-beta and final UIs. Some parts were still minimal, yet everything on the whole flowed well. It reminded me of Halo 3’s menu in some regard.
I’m a scientist, so I would argue that making a menu is a lot like presenting your research on a poster or in a journal. The organization will be the first and last thing a reader will consider, so it’s important to strike a good balance between complex and minimal. Not only does Halo 5’s UI lack any interesting features, it’s also very disorganized. The armors, weapons, and vehicles are cumbersome to scroll through and the game searching screens honestly look like they were drawn up at the last minute. The main background screen is boring and generic–I wouldn’t even think it was from Halo if it were taken out of context. To be fair, the H5 beta and MCC (up until last year) suffered from this problem, too. You also cannot view a roster just by looking to the side like in previous games; you are instead prompted to press a button which is displayed in small text at the bottom of the screen. Don’t even get me started on the custom games menus.
H3, ODST, and Reach all had similar UIs that were streamlined and pleasant to look at. Reach’s UI was especially good, as it took H3’s and made it even better. There were lots of nice, easily recognizable pictures in the background, a slight three-dimensional look, and above all, organization. Everything fit the scheme really well, unlike in H5’s UI.
For everything Bungie did wrong with Reach, the UI design was one of the things they nailed. I think that, combined with the camera flying through in-game environments like the classic trilogy would be awesome.
Imagine, a Reach-inspired menu layout, the camera sweeping over the ring like in CE, with everything a pleasant shade of blue like in Halo 2/3. You want to hit the nostalgia button, there you go.
3 and Reach did a great job of making menus an alright place to spend time between matches. I really enjoyed Reach’s UI especially- the utility of concept art in the backgrounds along with some very poignant moving scenes (I seem to recall that one of the backgrounds had Covenant ships glassing the surface of the planet in motion).
Really contributed to the tone of the whole game and kept it feeling like it had a strong identity of its own while still definitely being a Halo title. I think if Infinite pays the same sort of respect to its personal brand, it’ll at least be a lot less boring than the blue-monochrome menus of Halo 4 and 5.
As far as structure goes, I would again say that 343 doesn’t probably have to look much further than Halo: Reach for a pretty functional and elegant design for UI. I don’t recall having any gripes with how menus in that game ever looked or felt. If it ain’t broke…
> 2533274825830455;4:
> To be honest, I find the final UI of Halo 5 for the most part more appealing than those earlier examples. The pre-release UIs overall seem like they’re trying too much to be flashy and perhaps even come a bit in the way of usability. I appreciate simple UI design. As I see it, good UI design is something you can stare at and admire, but that ultimately gets out of the way when you need to use it. It is both an efficient means of transportation, and a well organized filing cabinet.
>
> I’m not the biggest fan of the UI design in Halo 5, but the video you linked reminds me of where we’ve come from, and makes me appreciate what we have a bit more. I still regard the Halo Reach UI as the best UI we’ve had in Halo. It’s simple, yet with a very subtle 3D effect to make it look more interesting. It uses very readable fonts that are never larger than they need to be. All lists scroll vertically, there are no arbitrary unnecesary lines segregating objects, and highlighting of selected objects is subtle. The foreground is very plain, with the eye-catching duty mostly relegated to the background art.
>
> My issues with the Halo 5 UI are primarily the unnecessary things it does: on one hand the unnecessarily large font for the main menu items, on the other hand all the empty space in vertical lists, general weird discrepancies between the visual styles of different parts of the UI. I’m also a not fan of the background art, but that is an issue with not just the UI but with 343i’s art direction. I’m not generally opposed to using in-game scenes for the background art.
>
> Still, I’d consider the final Halo 5 UI mostly a step in the right direction from its pre-release versions, the Halo MCC UI, and definitely from the Halo 4 UI.
Well said, the Halo UI is nice but what I personally donʻt like about it is that everything on the UI is irrelevant to the game.
Each UI in Halo always shows a connection to the rest of the game. Ex, CE Ring, 3 ARK, 4 Requiem, Reach is Reach, ODST in Mombasa. In Halo 5, you donʻt interact with the Infinity at all besides cutscenes. It also doesnʻt do anything major besides being a home base for Osiris. So seeing that the back-round every time I play Halo 5, is uninteresting.
The back-rounds in Halo have to have a connection to the game and not just look aesthetically pleasing. And if it were to be just aesthetically pleasing, its still too much of a broad UI. That is why I prefer the old UI. Might have been flashy and still the Infinity but it shown more design that it is now.
> 2533274825830455;4:
> To be honest, I find the final UI of Halo 5 for the most part more appealing than those earlier examples. The pre-release UIs overall seem like they’re trying too much to be flashy and perhaps even come a bit in the way of usability. I appreciate simple UI design. As I see it, good UI design is something you can stare at and admire, but that ultimately gets out of the way when you need to use it. It is both an efficient means of transportation, and a well organized filing cabinet.
>
> I’m not the biggest fan of the UI design in Halo 5, but the video you linked reminds me of where we’ve come from, and makes me appreciate what we have a bit more. I still regard the Halo Reach UI as the best UI we’ve had in Halo. It’s simple, yet with a very subtle 3D effect to make it look more interesting. It uses very readable fonts that are never larger than they need to be. All lists scroll vertically, there are no arbitrary unnecesary lines segregating objects, and highlighting of selected objects is subtle. The foreground is very plain, with the eye-catching duty mostly relegated to the background art.
>
> My issues with the Halo 5 UI are primarily the unnecessary things it does: on one hand the unnecessarily large font for the main menu items, on the other hand all the empty space in vertical lists, general weird discrepancies between the visual styles of different parts of the UI. I’m also a not fan of the background art, but that is an issue with not just the UI but with 343i’s art direction. I’m not generally opposed to using in-game scenes for the background art.
>
> Still, I’d consider the final Halo 5 UI mostly a step in the right direction from its pre-release versions, the Halo MCC UI, and definitely from the Halo 4 UI.
EVERYTHING about the Beta was so much better, but unfortunately 343…they almost had something. The majority of the halo community rather have the old UI than the Final UI, just like the UI was better before, so was halo. Hopefully they don’t ruin Halo infinite.
> 2533274832784144;7:
> For everything Bungie did wrong with Reach, the UI design was one of the things they nailed. I think that, combined with the camera flying through in-game environments like the classic trilogy would be awesome.
>
> Imagine, a Reach-inspired menu layout, the camera sweeping over the ring like in CE, with everything a pleasant shade of blue like in Halo 2/3. You want to hit the nostalgia button, there you go.
Agree 1000% I hope Halo Infinite UI is closer to Halo 3/ Reach. Halo Reach had a lot of things I didn’t like, but the UI definitely wasn’t one of them.
This only makes me question if it’s possible for them to make HI UI worse than H5 at launch. I really don’t want to think about it. Anywho as long as the UI is responsive, can let me play what I want to play (campaign, multi, theatre, Forge, customs) then I’ll accept it. Even if the UI isn’t the best thing ever as long as it works I won’t complain.
My main issue with H5 UI atm is when you hit the back button the screen ignores you or freezes. Being ‘prettier’ isn’t necessarily a big deal for me.
Yeah the UI from H5 was absolute garbage. I still can’t believe how good the beta UI was in comparison, and don’t understand why they changed it so much. The UI from Reach was amazing and they definitely need to look at that for Infinite.
> 2533274825830455;4:
> To be honest, I find the final UI of Halo 5 for the most part more appealing than those earlier examples. The pre-release UIs overall seem like they’re trying too much to be flashy and perhaps even come a bit in the way of usability. I appreciate simple UI design. As I see it, good UI design is something you can stare at and admire, but that ultimately gets out of the way when you need to use it. It is both an efficient means of transportation, and a well organized filing cabinet.
>
> I’m not the biggest fan of the UI design in Halo 5, but the video you linked reminds me of where we’ve come from, and makes me appreciate what we have a bit more. I still regard the Halo Reach UI as the best UI we’ve had in Halo. It’s simple, yet with a very subtle 3D effect to make it look more interesting. It uses very readable fonts that are never larger than they need to be. All lists scroll vertically, there are no arbitrary unnecesary lines segregating objects, and highlighting of selected objects is subtle. The foreground is very plain, with the eye-catching duty mostly relegated to the background art.
>
> My issues with the Halo 5 UI are primarily the unnecessary things it does: on one hand the unnecessarily large font for the main menu items, on the other hand all the empty space in vertical lists, general weird discrepancies between the visual styles of different parts of the UI. I’m also a not fan of the background art, but that is an issue with not just the UI but with 343i’s art direction. I’m not generally opposed to using in-game scenes for the background art.
>
> Still, I’d consider the final Halo 5 UI mostly a step in the right direction from its pre-release versions, the Halo MCC UI, and definitely from the Halo 4 UI.
Is there any way to contact 343 industries regarding any issues or problems?
> 2535419166122192;1:
> Have yaʻll ever seen the UI before Halo 5 launch? Because for me, i guilty-fully say im a “judge a book by its cover” guy. That doesnʻt meant i donʻt touch it. Just saying it leaves good impressions before getting to the good stuff. And to me, the Halo 5 UI was bad and many can agree. But it seems the UI design in the Halo 5 beta was much more appealing for a lot of people.
>
> No matter how Halo Infinite plays like, I hope they do REALLY WELL with the UI menu. That is going to be the main thing i stare at when im too tired of playing and im sure is going to effect the playerʻs motivation to keep playing.
>
> Have you ever seen that one episode of spongebob “Fum is Chum”? That is exactly how I bet players will feel with a better Halo UI Menu.
I personally hate the early UI, I would prefer something simple like the Halo 2 or even something close to the Halo Reach UI that doesn’t compromise aesthetics for organisation. The primary focus for the UI should be how it’s organised imo but it can’t hurt to have some pretty visuals like Reach or Halo Wars 2.
> 2533274931680884;5:
> I hate the main menu screen.
> 1) It’s stagnant
> 2) I had no idea what I was looking at initially
> 3) Where is Chief, Arby, a Halo Ring, anything else cooler to look at?
>
> Halo 3/Reach had much more life in the main screen and the UI in general. Halo 5’s is BORING…
funny thing is I sort of liked the demo videos on the menu screen of the early halo games. I know that was only in there to make physical copy sales on the TVs in Gamestop but I still find the presentation to be very interesting especially when I need to take a break from getting killed for the millionth time on Legendary.
I agree. I also think the menu for Halo wars 2 was complicated. And Halo 5s was just boring. I think 343 can make a good UI for Infinite. They’re super talented. But looking back on it…Halo CE, 2, and 3 were boring as well…Halo ce was a ring. 2 was a blue screen of the city. Almost the same with Halo 3…Reach had the coolest in my opinion with all the beautiful concert arts.