So DOOM 2016 did surprisingly well. It brought back a franchise that had been all but dead for many many years, and was very highly received. DOOM sold itself as being a loveletter to the old days of gaming, very blatantly celebrating facets of the game like carrying all the weapons in existence at once, sprinting like a madman all the time, and having little to no story unless you find the hidden collectables. Every level has plenty of collectables to be found, including dolls, lore snippets, recorded conversations, etc.
So here comes the obvious question, can Halo do the same? Now, just to clarify, I liked Halo 4 and 5. A lot. They’re easily my least favourite Halo games but I’ve still spent way more time on them than any other non-Halo games. I’m not begging for a return to the “good old days” because, well, where would you define that? Besides Halo 2 to Halo 3, every Halo game has been rather different from the others. But there’s a lot of stuff in Halo 4 and Halo 5 that weren’t in any of the older games, specifically advanced mobility (which at the very least I would like to see less of in multiplayer but keep the options there in custom games). DOOM had no sprint, no thrusters, or anything like that. But it did have clamber and double jumps. DOOM had a classic style of game, but it added some things from newer games. That’s the route I’d personally like Halo to go down. See what goes well with the established formula and use that, rather than reinventing the formula.
Now, Halo Infinite looks like it’s doing the same thing. Of course, that’s entirely debatable because we saw a two minute teaser, but it did seem to celebrate a return to form. Hell, you don’t play the Finish the Fight piano with the reveal of the old Mark VI helmet unless you’re reeeeeeeeally wanting to draw attention to the fact that you’re going back to the old school game. So, can Halo revert to its past like DOOM did? Or is it too stuck in its ways? Will we see a hybrid of the two styles of games? DOOM was a blatant throwback nostalgiafest, but Halo could be so much more, and for the better. And if it’s better than DOOM? Sign me the -Yoink- up.
Yeah, the post ended up becoming another post about movement in Halo, but in my defence, it’s 1:30am. But I do want to stress the general idea of the topic I’m presenting, and that’s how DOOM came back to the forefront of gaming by returning to its roots so obviously it was basically the premise of the game. What do you think DOOM did well? What did it do badly? What other things can Halo learn from DOOM, if anything?