This post is about how the hype surrounding Halo 5 could possibly be the death of Halo. This is not going to be one of those posts telling you not to pre-order; I am not one of those people. The Halo 5 Guardians hype is real, and it is huge. Ask yourself, what if Halo 5 doesn’t deliver on the hype, I don’t mean a bad game, but what if it’s just “eh”? This is what I think you can expect, and why nothing short of a phenomenal game will suffice when considering the future success of Halo in the direction it’s going.
The first scenario is a broken game, and this means the death of Halo. (No, I don’t think Halo 5 will be broken, because Microsoft/343i knows this). If Halo 5 is broken, then nothing 343i can do will save Halo 6. At that point, even if Halo 6 runs well, people aren’t going to buy it at launch, and the less people have a game, the less people buy it. Not to mention how game sales go down as time goes on regardless. Right now, if Halo 5 is perfect, 343i can pick themselves up from the fall that was the MCC, but they will lose that chance if Halo 5 breaks. Then, not only would Halo 6 have to redeem the fails of its two most recent predecessors, but that would be nearly impossible since 343i’s budget is dependent on their sales figures, and there’s no way to get around that.
But what if Halo 5 isn’t broken but it isn’t great? Many people who enjoyed the beta (myself included) still were not greatly impressed by it. The only outcome I can see this scenario produce is simply delaying the downfall of Halo. And that is by far the saddest thing I have ever written, cause it wouldn’t be 343i’s fault for making Halo 5…but it would be 343i’s fault for launching the MCC. If Halo 5 works, and it’s fun but not marvelous, it will suffer from playlist drops in the same way Halo 4 suffered. This time, however, more severely. And then more so in Halo 6. A slow death, in my opinion, is worse than if 343i killed Halo right now, because the latter would cause Halo to be remembered as the giant slain by 343i, but the former would leave Halo to be forgotten, not in the hearts and minds of us, Halo fans, but to all gamers in general. And it’s the hype that’ll cause this slow death. People who’s expectations are too high will inevitably be disappointed by the game and that will directly impact the games’ success.
LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENED TO BATTLEFIELD! Battlefield 4 launched in a state comparable to the MCC. In fact, Battlefield 4 runs, and has always run, better than the MCC. But EA still delayed the launch of Hardline because people were not satisfied with it. And it has payed off, Hardline was accepted well, but I still feel as if the success of the Battlefield franchise is lingering over the success of Star Wars Battlefront this year.
Halo 5 needs to be epic. All of me is cheering 343i on because I know their task is hard. I don’t know if it’s possible for Halo 5 to be mind-blowing, but I think it could be good enough so that 343i will make enough sales for a strong budget, and for people to continue to play it until Halo 6. That’s what I’m hoping for.
TL;DR Halo 5 needs to blow us away to make up for the decline of Halo 4 and the launch of the MCC or else the decline will continue.
but the xbox one is selling better than the 360.