From the get go, I must admit I haven’t played Halo 5, but from what I gather, this fact won’t change much my point. I feel like I must also point out that I first got into Halo when I got Halo CE as a Christmas gift in 2002 when I was 12. I wasn’t there from the beginning, but almost. Needless to say, I was raised on Halo and am still quite fond of the series, hence the post. Since I don’t have an Xbox One and only watched a couple of Halo 5 campaign videos on youtube, it would seem like I shouldn’t be interested in a new Halo announcement. And indeed I wasn’t interested until I learned that the game would use a brand new engine (at least it’s what it seems). Because I think part of the reason why I became disinterested in Halo over the time is because of the engine. I might be wrong though, but I know enough the games to think this is likely. So I feel like talking about it and my hopes that 343 will use to new engine to its fullest to get a true “next-gen” Halo experience.
My main gripe with the way the franchise evolved over time is… that it didn’t evolve enough. The formula got stale. Don’t get me wrong, I love the basic Halo mechanics, I just primarily think that the level design and the game dynamics stagnated. The same old, same old medium-sized open areas separated by numerous corridor-type areas. There’s no point in playing the same game all over again but just with new fancy graphics, I’d rather play the old games again. Heck, it’s not just the same game, the latter Halo games are just a shadow of what the series once were, in terms of level design and storyline. They are like the Alien 3 of Halo. Instead of building up and reaching new grounds like Aliens did (although I prefer the original movie), the producers wanted to play it safe and basically offered a cheap remake of the original Alien, but with a less scary and less dangerous alien, amid boring characters and story.
While Halo 3 wasn’t the big step up from Halo 2 you would have expected given it was made for a new console, but it was definitely a step up. Vehicle encounters were especially a big notch over anything that was done before. Plenty of vehicles at the same time, a good variety of them and intelligent enemy AI meant that the fights were much more fun. That and the top-notch gameplay. But something that not a single subsequent Halo game managed to match, is the scarab battles. I can’t tell you how much fun I had trying to bring them down in any possible way, while trying not to be squashed by them. It was a definite step up from the Halo 2 scarab encounter. Fast forward to Halo Reach and… it’s like they put them in so they were in. But obviously this is not just about vehicle encounters. I generally quite liked Halo Reach, but the general structure of the missions were the same and they didn’t really upped the ante anywhere. On several occasions it felt like a toned down version of Halo 3 with smaller environments. Halo CE felt like a much bigger games at times. Winter Contingency reminded me of the Halo CE Halo mission. I liked the environment, but it really did feel like a toned down version of the latter. The enemy and ally AI in vehicles were actually worse than in Halo 3. It also didn’t help that sometimes certain missions or segments were over when you were starting to have fun.
Halo 4 actually had a certain Halo CE/2 feel in that the missions were longer and you didn’t feel like watching a movie as it was the case for Reach. But again, the level design was pretty much the same and it was frankly often boring. It didn’t help that the new enemies weren’t as exciting to fight as the covenant or the flood. And that the story was pretty poor. Please, don’t try to make Halo more “intelligent” or “emotional” than the source material can offer. It’s a videogame series about fighting aliens and saving the universe after all. This ain’t very intelligent stuff. It’s like asking for Commando or Predator the same thing. It’s mostly cool stuff you ask from these movies. I must say that I always liked the Halo stories (at least the original trilogy), in that they were no-nonsense, fun, but had this sort of thriller aspect that made you want to know more, to see what would happen, and this aura of mystery. The first two games were especially good at that, CE probably topping them all. Something interesting would happen with each new mission. Now it seems the story is there just as an excuse to make a campaign.
In a certain way, each Halo game feels like it is the same underlying mesh but with a new coat of paint. Same type of level design, of gameplay, etc. And it’s weird that Halo 3 feels like the optimal experience. Said differently, it feels like Halo 3 was the latest release, in that it is the one that feels the freshest (I must say that it is not my favorite though) and the technically most accomplished. Except maybe for a couple of segments here and there (the tower fight in the Tip of the Spear was nice for example), every other subsequent Halo game feels like a downgrade. I always felt that the reason for this is the engine. From what I gather, they pretty much only updated it, so it means that its most important limitations were always there. I suspect it might even have got worse over time, as the technical demands for graphics and AI for example might make it more difficult to do the same thing as before. I can’t find any other reason why they couldn’t up the ante more over the years, or at least not offer more exciting level design. If it was not for a technical reason, then the guys at Bungie/343 have an incredibly limited creativity to not come up with better, more intense encounters and fresher level design. It’s like they went on automatic mode.
I’m wondering if I’m the only one thinking along these lines. Personally, I think 343 ought to take advantage of the new engine to make sure we get a true evolved Halo experience. At times they hinted of huge battlegrounds and water vehicles for example, and I seriously think they should do both, among others. The level design has to change. I’m not for a sandbox Halo game at all, but each mission should be sandbox-y, so that they are not linear. You get dropped somewhere, and your mission objectives (which would change over time) ask you to cross the area, maybe going back and forth, or simply not asking you to go from point A to point B in a straight line. The Silent Cartographer mission is the closest the series have done to what I’m talking about (at least from memory), but I’m thinking of something much more elaborate. The scope of the missions and gameplay has to be expanded. Maybe fights all across the mission area even if you are not there, but fights which could impact what you are doing. Add in more vehicles and new types of vehicles. More elaborate terrain too, so you can be more creative in the way you fight and get across the area. Terrain that mixes different types of geography, lakes, rivers, hills, etc. You don’t need to change the core gameplay, maybe just tweek it a little. Just let the level design, terrain and AI do the magic. Counting ODST, Halo Infinite would be the 8th Halo game. It would be absolutely ridiculous that two xbox generations after the original xbox and that many Halo games, we get offered practically the same game yet again, bar maybe a different multiplayer experience… Halo has some of the best FPS gameplay around, 343 should be able to take the full advantage of this. What do you guys think?