Halo games split between story and multiplayer

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

This is not a suggestion, just something to discuss.

How would you guys feel about halo story mode and multiplayer separated into 2 games? Before you go crazy on me, please know that I too hate yearly releases as much as most of you do. I’m tired of COD and Assassin’s creed games rehashing year after year.

But I’ve been reading Fall of Reach and all the descriptions of Spartans fighting, it just sounds so epic. I’ve also been playing through Reach again, and although the campaign is great, I just can’t overlook the shortcomings. The music, atmosphere, dialogue is just so badass that gameplay doesn’t really do it justice. Not that the gameplay is bad, it’s always top-notch in halo games, but the missions could’ve been SO MUCH better. And I’m just thinking if they focused a full game’s budget and resources to just the story mode, how epic it could get.

I don’t think I need to mention how much of a piss-off it was not being able to fight a scarab in Reach. More than half of the campaign locations were re-used in firefight and multiplayer maps, which killed the sense of exploration for me when i first played it. Remember the into to Tip of the Spear mission? With the warthogs taking on the banshees, imagine being able to play that.

There’s just so much more than can be done with the campaign. I have high hopes for Halo 5 so I won’t dismiss it. But it’s going to be limited in terms of length. I can only imagine how insane a 20-25 hour campaign would be, that’s just full of epic sequences, huge battlefields, etc etc. I always raised an eyebrow when people talked about a halo rpg, but now that i think about it, if it’s setup like Mass effect. Not too long and without boring side missions to lengthen the game, but straight up epic missions covering all aspects of great FPS games, that would be just amazing!

And don’t forget multiplayer could would expand just as equally. 32 vs 32? Driveable Scarabs? Seamless land/Sea/Space battles?

2

I think the economies of scale present in developing both the campaign and multiplayer segments at the same time means splitting the development cycles doesn’t really stand to provide much benefit. On the contrary, it would serve to provide some really messy organizational issues for the developer, and whatever segment comes second would be working off “old” mechanics and developments.

3

> 2533274805497312;2:
> I think the economies of scale present in developing both the campaign and multiplayer segments at the same time means splitting the development cycles doesn’t really stand to provide much benefit. On the contrary, it would serve to provide some really messy organizational issues for the developer, and whatever segment comes second would be working off “old” mechanics and developments.

But not if you have two teams and release campaign in one year and multiplayer in the next, and alternate. Kind of like Treyarch and Sledgehammer games with Cod, although that’s 2 different studios.

Regardless though, i wasn’t really trying to discuss the practicality of this happening, just the potential of how cool it would be.

4

No.

5

When I was at work just the other night I was thinking of this exact same thing, it would be very interesting to see what could be done with halo campaign and multiplayer wise if they could seperately use the systems full power, if they did it right it could only mean the scale and content would get a boost and maybe performance as well, maybe even slay the dragon that is 1080p 60fps and gasp…split screen?

6

Just a silly idea.

7

> 2533274800972322;1:
> This is not a suggestion, just something to discuss.
>
> How would you guys feel about halo story mode and multiplayer separated into 2 games? Before you go crazy on me, please know that I too hate yearly releases as much as most of you do. I’m tired of COD and Assassin’s creed games rehashing year after year.
>
> But I’ve been reading Fall of Reach and all the descriptions of Spartans fighting, it just sounds so epic. I’ve also been playing through Reach again, and although the campaign is great, I just can’t overlook the shortcomings. The music, atmosphere, dialogue is just so badass that gameplay doesn’t really do it justice. Not that the gameplay is bad, it’s always top-notch in halo games, but the missions could’ve been SO MUCH better. And I’m just thinking if they focused a full game’s budget and resources to just the story mode, how epic it could get.
>
> I don’t think I need to mention how much of a piss-off it was not being able to fight a scarab in Reach. More than half of the campaign locations were re-used in firefight and multiplayer maps, which killed the sense of exploration for me when i first played it. Remember the into to Tip of the Spear mission? With the warthogs taking on the banshees, imagine being able to play that.
>
> There’s just so much more than can be done with the campaign. I have high hopes for Halo 5 so I won’t dismiss it. But it’s going to be limited in terms of length. I can only imagine how insane a 20-25 hour campaign would be, that’s just full of epic sequences, huge battlefields, etc etc. I always raised an eyebrow when people talked about a halo rpg, but now that i think about it, if it’s setup like Mass effect. Not too long and without boring side missions to lengthen the game, but straight up epic missions covering all aspects of great FPS games, that would be just amazing!
>
> And don’t forget multiplayer could would expand just as equally. 32 vs 32? Driveable Scarabs? Seamless land/Sea/Space battles?

That was just bungie being lazy and half their crew moving over to the then recently founded 343. in fact splitting the franchise into 2 separate things would result in the same exact thing… or worse. The chances of a big FLOP would increase greatly. Just look at TitanFall or Evolve. They are multiplayer only games and they suck.
When console developers focus on only multiplayer, the game just sucks for some reason. All that stuff could be done for 1 game if 343 and Microsoft weren’t so damn lazy.

Did you know that the ACTUAL cost of developing a game is just the cost of your computer (a good dev machine is 5,000) and about 300 days of normal life? that’s not as much as they make it seem, they make it seem like 10 or 20 times that. AAA developers have just become too lazy. any indie dev would do any of that stuff for free just to show off. seamless land/space battles? child play. 100 v 100 battles? done (just give me a big server). Driveable halos? that’s surprisingly even easier, you just push one button. Driveable anything? That’s ridiculously easy. Playable all covenant species with awesome unique abilities? pf like that’s hard. you just reuse 15 years of animations and models and map it to the player. (or simply just the ones you already made for this game)
The only hard part to actually do is just WRITING a good story, but halo has tons of writers that do an excellent job. and they could totally just adapt every single book. it would be quite easy if they wanted to do it. (easy and time-taking are totally different things)

So no. A split between campaign-only and multiplayer-only would only make it worse. we would get bad stuff for both. they would become Ubisoft. Halo would be 20 times as cheap (I mean, it currently isn’t cheap, halo 5 doesnt seem to be). The real problem has nothing to do with splitting budgets and stuff. The real problem is lazy devs that while do very good stuff, refuse to go over the top. just look at GTA V. They did both campaign and multiplayer FLAWLESSLY. and they didn’t need to split.

Now, quite certainly, it seems Halo 5 is going places, its not the same bungie laziness we started to get since ODST. That seems to have gone with Halo 4 (Which had nothing to do with bungie, but wasn’t jaw dropping at all. maybe its because it had to set up so much stuff for the sequels…) 343 is doing good with Halo 5. even though they still wont go over the top and Microsoft probably put some dumb executive in charge of some decisions (NO Splitscreen?? what are they thinking?? NO Disc?? Well they fixed that, but the same happened with Xbox one, lots of shortcomings, that got fixed later; STILL NO Sangheili??? SERIOUSLY? Everyone wants Sangheili!!)

BUT 343 is doing right so many things like graphics, new squad gameplay, crazy awesome hype causing story, awesome new gameplay modes.

now, you wanna talk about crazy over-the-top devs? KOJIMA… That guy is crazy. His last job, he says is going to be 100+ hours of campaign. it has rpgmmo-like multiplayer. it has FPS or TPS gameplay, whatever you want. Any vehicle you can ride. at least 2 huge open world maps 4 Km by 4Km. A dog with an Eye-patch. you even get to use an electric prosthetic hand that basically lets you do the bioshock. You want to kill everyone or spare everyone? you choose. You choose EVERYTHING, except story. This guy just doesn’t give a thing about whatever any corporate dude tells him. He just does Whatever in the world he wants to do. He is a real Dev. Imagine if 343 hired that dude? he would push everyone and everything to its limits and beyond. right trough the ceiling. to the moon. pierce the moon, make it explode. pull the whole galaxy along. 343 should learn from this dude and just get out of their comfort zone. go make some crazy stuff like every vehicle driveable, every story translated into a game, crazy giant servers that can do 100 v 100 or 32 or 64 whatever. crazy space/land battles, crazy sword duels that are true mini-games not just sword bumping…

They already took the first steps by adding lots of crazy moves and going back to dual campaigns, and adding new game modes. but that’s still baby steps, they still need to improve. do more crazy stuff. stuff they have never done before.

8

> 2533274838638802;7:
> That was just bungie being lazy and half their crew moving over to the then recently founded 343.

Only a small handlfull of Bungie employess moved over to 343 (roughly 5 or so if memory serves correct) and not all of them are still there.

9

> 2533274813317074;8:
> > 2533274838638802;7:
> > That was just bungie being lazy and half their crew moving over to the then recently founded 343.
>
>
> Only a small handlfull of Bungie employess moved over to 343 (roughly 5 or so if memory serves correct) and not all of them are still there.

lol, I thought more moved… still those who moved were the ones that loved halo the most…

10

Yeah it’s a crazy myth that just keeps doing the rounds. At least we still have Frankie <3

11

Personally, one of the best selling points for Halo has been having both a stellar campaign and enjoyable and replayable multiplayer. Some Halos, like the mobile games and Halo 3: ODST have focused on telling new stories, to which I ended up loving ODST. Regardless, I’d prefer to have the complete Halo experience on one disc on one given date.

12

> 2533274800972322;3:
> > 2533274805497312;2:
> > I think the economies of scale present in developing both the campaign and multiplayer segments at the same time means splitting the development cycles doesn’t really stand to provide much benefit. On the contrary, it would serve to provide some really messy organizational issues for the developer, and whatever segment comes second would be working off “old” mechanics and developments.
>
>
> But not if you have two teams and release campaign in one year and multiplayer in the next, and alternate. Kind of like Treyarch and Sledgehammer games with Cod, although that’s 2 different studios.
>
> Regardless though, i wasn’t really trying to discuss the practicality of this happening, just the potential of how cool it would be.

It’s not really cost effective to make two studios though. The split teams would still be working off of shared mechanics, engineering, and art. The development cycle doesn’t go “work on this thing for one year, release it, then start over at this other thing for a year, then release it”. So it really isn’t practical.

The cool factor would simply just be in getting really good games. Which is still possible on the 3 year development cycle (but damn does that feel like a long time).

13

> 2533274853333611;11:
> Personally, one of the best selling points for Halo has been having both a stellar campaign and enjoyable and replayable multiplayer. Some Halos, like the mobile games and Halo 3: ODST have focused on telling new stories, to which I ended up loving ODST. Regardless, I’d prefer to have the complete Halo experience on one disc on one given date.

That’s been the seller for me. I came to Halo for the lights out campaign. When I got to college and had access to broadband internet, I started playing a lot more multiplayer (my friends got tired of getting whipped in splitscreen) and it really grew on me. I love the balance Halo has there, and really haven’t played any other franchise where both the story mode and the multiplayer are equally strong draws.

14

> 2533274853333611;11:
> Personally, one of the best selling points for Halo has been having both a stellar campaign and enjoyable and replayable multiplayer. Some Halos, like the mobile games and Halo 3: ODST have focused on telling new stories, to which I ended up loving ODST. Regardless, I’d prefer to have the complete Halo experience on one disc on one given date.

But that’s assuming the “stellar” campaigns we’ve been getting are as stellar as can be. I’m just interested in seeing how much bigger and crazier it could get.

15

Id love to see a free to play MP only halo game that uses the LoL model.

With classic halo gameplay, of course.

And a telltale halo game!

16

> 2533274813317074;10:
> Yeah it’s a crazy myth that just keeps doing the rounds. At least we still have Frankie <3

And Frankie has the Halo Story Bible that was originally made by Bungie, in a safe under lock and key. That is an important piece of material right there, like the Codex Astartes to Warhammer’s Space Marines.