In my opinion, the Halo game with the best campaign is hands down Halo 2’s campaign. A lot of it has to do with how long the actual campaign is. It’s definitely the longest campaign out of all the Halo games and I have to say I’ve been very disappointed with every game that has come out since. Am I the only one who would like to have another long-lasting campaign? Halo 2 also had the best cut-scenes, they really helped the gameplay become much more engaging and dramatic. I wish 343i would really try to make the campaign more worthwhile rather than having us rush through the story witch is exactly how I felt playing Halo 4. It would help to bring back the Arbiter as a playable character in the story and I mean like in Halo 2 not Halo 3 where he has his own story aside from the Chief’s. Hopefully Halo 5: Guardians gets a great campaign that is as good if not better than Halo 2’s. Especially since this will be the second part in the Reclaimer trilogy just like Halo 2 was in the original trilogy.
I would absolutely love for the campaign to be as long as Halo 2’s, if not longer. That game had a perfect length. More of that, please!
Halo 2 also didn’t have a proper ending and I do believe its run-time is less than Halo CE’s (H2 has more discrete missions but each is essentially half of a CE mission). If we’re to look at any game to inspire what Halo 5 becomes I would actually turn to the original, not the sequel, because while it wasn’t as cinematic CE had a much better approach to fun. For one, more open levels and multiple objective pathways (in some cases).
A longer campaign is of course hugely desirable, but we shouldn’t forget to make it replayable as well.
Halo 2 is an epic of a hero’s rise, and a villains fall. It’s length is hauntingly unparalleled. ODST, which doesn’t even take place on the Ark, effectively expanded Halo 2’s campaign in Glorious detail.
Since it’s open I expect a vast sprawl to explore. A city that holds deadly secrets and premonitions of the next Eternity.
> Halo 2 also didn’t have a proper ending and I do believe its run-time is less than Halo CE’s. If we’re to look at any game to inspire what Halo 5 becomes I would actually turn to the original, not the sequel, because while it wasn’t as cinematic CE had a much better approach to fun. For one, more open levels and multiple objective pathways (in some cases).
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> A longer campaign is of course hugely desirable, but we shouldn’t forget to make it replayable as well.
Thing is, I don’t want Halo 5 to recycle environments over and over again throughout the Campaign. Anyone remember the Library? That was literally the same three rooms repeated like four times.
> Halo 2 also didn’t have a proper ending and I do believe its run-time is less than Halo CE’s (H2 has more discrete missions but each is essentially half of a CE mission). If we’re to look at any game to inspire what Halo 5 becomes I would actually turn to the original, not the sequel, because while it wasn’t as cinematic CE had a much better approach to fun. For one, more open levels and multiple objective pathways (in some cases).
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> A longer campaign is of course hugely desirable, but we shouldn’t forget to make it replayable as well.
Halo 2’s campaign isn’t replayable? 
OP I completely agree. I would love a campaign as massive in length as Halo 2’s. The way 343 is talking about it Guardians could be what we’re looking for. I hope the campaign has a lot of big battles and cutscenes.
> Halo 2’s campaign isn’t replayable?
Honestly, I only really enjoyed the early Chief levels.
> > Halo 2 also didn’t have a proper ending and I do believe its run-time is less than Halo CE’s. If we’re to look at any game to inspire what Halo 5 becomes I would actually turn to the original, not the sequel, because while it wasn’t as cinematic CE had a much better approach to fun. For one, more open levels and multiple objective pathways (in some cases).
> >
> > A longer campaign is of course hugely desirable, but we shouldn’t forget to make it replayable as well.
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> Thing is, I don’t want Halo 5 to recycle environments over and over again throughout the Campaign. Anyone remember the Library? That was literally the same three rooms repeated like four times.
It also didn’t make much sense. I always get frustrated at how Spark didn’t call in an army of Sentinels or teleport Chief into the Index chamber. I get why that didn’t happen, but it still doesn’t make it any less weird.
Asking too much but:
MC campaign.
Arbiter campaign.
Campaign for our own Spartan.
Campaign for the new guy?
Yeah, I like to ask too much…
> > Halo 2’s campaign isn’t replayable?
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> Honestly, I only really enjoyed the early Chief levels.
Really? The only level I found less than enjoyable was The Oracle simply because I try to keep my grunts alive the whole time and the Flood slaughters them with turrets.
> > Halo 2 also didn’t have a proper ending and I do believe its run-time is less than Halo CE’s (H2 has more discrete missions but each is essentially half of a CE mission). If we’re to look at any game to inspire what Halo 5 becomes I would actually turn to the original, not the sequel, because while it wasn’t as cinematic CE had a much better approach to fun. For one, more open levels and multiple objective pathways (in some cases).
> >
> > A longer campaign is of course hugely desirable, but we shouldn’t forget to make it replayable as well.
>
> Halo 2’s campaign isn’t replayable?
Not as much, no. There’s nothing comparable to the silent cartographer and yet there is a lot that’s on par with the Library. Look at metropolis, one bridge, a little street fighting, and a rail-based scarab fight. In the next mission there’s a little free-flying but that’s strictly on a scripted phantom’s terms.
Halo 2 addressed the issue of endlessly recycled rooms but in simply trying to create the fluff necessary to populate unique set pieces it did loose sight of what made Halo CE so enjoyable despite the repetition (a sandbox approach to level design and gameplay.) And this is something that no Halo game has ever rectified (even ODST. There’s non-linearity in an obscenely technical sense but with insufficient depth to make that meaningful.)
> > > Halo 2’s campaign isn’t replayable?
> >
> > Honestly, I only really enjoyed the early Chief levels.
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> Really? The only level I found less than enjoyable was The Oracle simply because I try to keep my grunts alive the whole time and the Flood slaughters them with turrets.
That’s easily compensated for when you actually DO get one of those grunts to survive the whole mission (then it becomes the best mission of the whole -Yoinking!- campaign. :P)
Halo 2 wasn’t perfect but the nearly sandbox-level exploration made up for both thematic inconsistencies and filler events.
Actually it just streamlined the original Halo’s formula, as a successful prototype Halo 3 further built upon.
> Halo 2 wasn’t perfect but the nearly sandbox-level exploration.
But it didn’t have “sandbox” level exploration, or at least any more than your typical FPS. There’s no mechanic and hardly any part of any level (besides skulls and those reside in the realm of “gimmick”) that encourage the player to do anything but take the most direct path to the next pile of things to shoot. In that its very much like Jedi Knights, Shogo, or any other late 90’s PC shooter except perhaps in having just a bit more intricacy than those more primitive titles.
A sandbox can be said to exist however for CE because there’s very noticeable attempts to create multiple objective pathways or at least multiple ways of handling a single engagement. Assault on the control room for example provides the classic choice “rocket or sniper” right before plopping you down with a selection of vehicles. There’s a lot of ways to handle that segment (given that each is in some way viable) which creates the “sandbox” environment. But when you approach Halo 2 you don’t have any comparable setups. There’s the tank section, the banshee section, the warthog section, and the sniping opportunities which are occasionally broken up by the odd supplemental rocket launcher or shotgun but that hardly forces you to make real choices because there’s a much finer range of viable strategies to Halo 2’s gameplay.
On the one hand, you have just about a uniformly linear structure and on the other you have a “sandbox” that makes much more direct arguments for using, say, a battle rifle over a plasma rifle. Its a very canalized game and even if you make another Halo like it, but with greater length, you won’t have achieved anything more playable.
As long as Guardians is longer than Halo 4 I’ll be happy. If I recall, I beat Halo 4 in just under 4 hours on Heroic or Normal. I’d like a 6-8 hour campaign at least.
That said, I wouldn’t want 343 to add “filler” in just to make it longer. They should strike a good balance of Narrative and Gameplay. I enjoyed Halo 4 for what it was, I just wish it had been a few missions longer, and had more open environments. With the new hardware, I see this as a possibility. I can’t wait to see what they’ll make.
I certainly wouldn’t mind a longer campaign, but I think that 343 erally got the emotion right in halo 4’s campaign
Yeah, I agree with you one-hundred percent. Although I’d like to point this out, halo 2 was actually supposed to be longer than it ended up being (I believe bungie was having some financial troubles, but feel free to correct me).
I really enjoyed Halo 4’s campaign, the only thing that I didn’t like was that it was too short and most of the levels were too linear, for Halo 5 I’d like a little more open areas and a longer campaign, more than 8 missions please, something like Halo 2 would be alright.
I’d like Halo 5’s Campaign to be as long as Halo 2’s and Halo 3’s combined; 22 playable full-length missions. As for gameplay and overall quality, it should be better than Halo 2 and CE combined and have at least 2 playable PoV characters; Master Chief and the Arbiter. I love the depth their separate plot threads added to the story. Halo 3’s and 4’s Campaigns felt too linear and limited to one perspective for me. I also loved the cinematic space opera element of Halo 2 and all the backstory and exposition. Halo has too big of a universe to be confined to one character.
Well okay then.
I was on about the utter lack of invisible walls and kill zones making the gameplay hours on each level ridiculously over-the-top, but no I can’t be metaphorical. Sorry?
Hopefully it’s a long campaign but I don’t want it to be a rushed mess like Halo 2.