Hello everyone. So I recently convinced a friend of mine to buy halo 5 to play with me. He bought it, and that’s when I realized how unwelcoming halo 5 is to new players.
He first started playing through the campaign. As expected from halo 5’s story telling, he didn’t understand a thing. I told him to just play the multiplayer, but he wanted to understand the story so he ended up buying the master chief collection. He played through the campaigns and a couple weeks later he went back to halo 5. He was still confused, but who’d blame him. There are a lot of things in the halo 5 campaign that are not present in any other halo campaign, not to mention some things that don’t make sense at all. I tried to explain to him everything I could and even so, he was still confused. He decided to just give up on the story and just play multiplayer with me.
We joined a game and the first thing I notice when we finished is that he was on the bottom of the list. He had gotten no kills at all and the entire game he was just desperately trying to keep up with the pace of the other players (keep in mind that this was an unranked playlist). Of course no one’s good the first time, but he seemed to be very frustrated. I told we should try warzone since its “the halo 5 game mode” and its supposed to be casual and just for fun. We joined a game and I noticed that every player in that 24 player list was doing incredibly good and everyone had at least 5 kills except for my friend. I realized maybe warzone wasn’t the best for him to play just yet. I was running out of options, I didn’t want him to feel frustrated all the time, this is a video game right? people are supposed to have fun. I told him that maybe if he practiced in the campaign, he would get better. So he went and decided he was going to beat the campaign on legendary (something I haven’t even done because of the game’s boring replay value) Eventually he did and was very proud of it. So, we joined the multiplayer and he still couldn’t manage to have fun. He was always the bottom of the list, even beating the campaign on legendary was worthless and he got so frustrated, one day I invited him, but he said “don’t worry about it” and did not play halo ever again. This happened about a month after halo 5’s release. At the end I almost felt guilty for talking him into buying halo 5. He wasted so much money and time in two games and was never able to enjoy them.
This got me thinking: How did I get used to halo when I first started playing? What kept me hooked for such a long time?
So, I started playing since halo 3. I absolutely loved the campaign and wanted to know more about it so I played through halo CE and halo 2’s campaigns as well, and also loved them. At first I didn’t know about multiplayer, and when I did I felt a little bit intimidated as this was my first time playing an online game. I went in and played one game, and was completely destroyed. That left me a little frustrated and I didn’t feel like playing multiplayer very much. So I focused more on the single player aspect of the game, you know getting achievements and so on. Later, halo reach came out, and I can understand why so many competitive players did not like it. It was a paradise for casual gaming. First thing I remember I did was play through some firefight. It was really fun, customizable, and a really good way to learn about the sandbox; the weapons, the enemies the maps it was a lot of fun, and actually helped me get better aiming. With so much customization for the game type I made some really cool clips on theater mode and posted them. Then I got into forge, so many things to do so much space to create whatever you wanted. I felt much more confident in my halo skill so I played through some matches of halo reach and I was able to get a couple of kills. Then I realized how fun it was and played more and more of it. I kept getting better, met many people online, and even joined a clan. It was so much fun! I specially liked game modes like infection, invasion, BTB and mostly the casual game modes. Then I really started getting into custom games, people made such amazing maps in forge and so many fun minigames to play with friends. I remember all the lobbies I hosted with my friends playing my personal favorite game modes and maps created by the community. That is my most precious halo memory. I couldn’t spend a day without playing halo after that.
In halo 5 the replay value for the campaign is really boring, the multiplayer is too competitive, and there is little to do besides this two. I can see why many new players would run away.
This post doesn’t mean to say that halo 5 is a bad game, but I really think they should work in a balance between single player, casual, and competitive gameplay in future titles. I just hope they acknowledge this opinion and consider making halo 6 more welcoming of new potential members for the community
