Halo Infinite needs Battle Royal to stay Relevant

Games Halo Infinite
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Halo Infinite needs Battle Royal mode to stay relevant & retain multiplayer player count. BR is not a fade, it will be one of expected mode to successful FPS going forward, even Call of Duty & Battlefield are implementing their own version of BR. Fortnite, as worldwide sensation is becoming one of first FPS they played for lot of audience, not to mention PUBG. That audience will eventually look for other similar games, CoD & BF is doing just that. If Halo does not have BR, they loss the opportunity to bring part of that huge & growing audience, which will be hard to ignore. Halo has a great opportunity to bring futuristic BR mode which no AAA game currently offers.
One of main problems I see in Halo today is that it is held back by huge baggage of nostalgia, those modes that no longer is relevant & trying to appeal to older generation that no longer plays the game. Grief ball & addition of jet pack is prime example of this. Grief ball which community demanded to be added, which no one plays anyway & jetpack & dash that players hated, which turned out to be great addition to the game. If the game tries to appeal to the old & ignore the upcoming players, it will ultimately fail to capture enough audience to stay relevant.

Update: 7/2/2020

It has been 2 years since the question was asked if BR is required for Halo to stay relevant.

  • Activision Blizzard released Call of Duty Warzone, EA released Battlefield 5 Battle Royal, Apex legend is doing great - Ubisoft released Hyper Scape Tech test today - Fortnite is still the king the BR - PUBG still maintains top 3 most played game on Steam chart - CoD Warzone & Fortnite remains the most played game on XboxDid your opinion changed after 2 years of seeing where the industry is today? Do you think still Halo needs/doesn’t needs BR to stay relevant? For me, I still think they do after seeing the popularity & interest in BR even today and that it will continue for years to come.
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Halo isn’t held back by nostalgia lol. Try it’s failure to do anything new and offering something unique, some BR mode won’t do that when it’s just going to end up being an oversaturated market, taking away BRs popularity as it thins out between franchises, effectively ending the trend it has started.

I don’t mind it being a tacked on mode, but it shouldn’t be prioritized nor will it keep it relevant, how will it stay relevant once BR loses popularity? All you did was trend chase something that was popular and once it’s not popular you go back to being irrelevant because you’re not doing your own thing.

“CoD and battlefield are doing it” and has it proven it’s working? It’s not even out yet and people have issues with them. CoD threw away a campaign for it, :+1: great way to piss people off. What will Halo sacrifice for it if they choose to add it?

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> 2533274923562209;2:
> Halo isn’t held back by nostalgia lol. Try it’s failure to do anything new and offering something unique, some BR mode won’t do that when it’s just going to end up being an oversaturated market, taking away BRs popularity as it thins out between franchises, effectively ending the trend it has started.
>
> I don’t mind it being a tacked on mode, but it shouldn’t be prioritized nor will it keep it relevant, how will it stay relevant once BR loses popularity? All you did was trend chase something that was popular and once it’s not popular you go back to being irrelevant because you’re not doing your own thing.
>
> “CoD and battlefield are doing it” and has it proven it’s working? It’s not even out yet and people have issues with them. CoD threw away a campaign for it, :+1: great way to piss people off. What will Halo sacrifice for it if they choose to add it?

The trend started with PUBG & is continuing with Fortnite and will keep going with CoD & BF. Internet loves to hate on popular games, so one can get a false image of how well the game is doing. Fortnite & PUBG remains Top 5 most played game on Xbox constantly despite the narrative meme pushed on the internet. Same for CoD, which internet loves to hate on, but campaign became irrelevant as majority of players skip it & go straight to multiplayer because it is amazing. Halo 1~4 's multiplayer does not appeal to younger audience, hence why it fails to gain new audience, addition of jetpack & dash is a needed improvement to bring Halo Multiplayer into today’s standard. Addition to GamePass is great way to get others to try the game. When Halo Infiniti releases, majority of gamer will experienced BR mode on Fortnite, PUBG, CoD & BF. They will look for BR mode, instead of thinking why Halo have BR mode?

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I don’t think games should aim to relevant they should aim to be the next best thing. They should be breaking boundaries with new concepts and ideas.

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> 2533274807802500;4:
> I don’t think games should aim to relevant they should aim to be the next best thing. They should be breaking boundaries with new concepts and ideas.

Once a BR is becoming one of staple mode of a FPS game & one must keep up to date with industry standard. There is no arguing that CoD & BF is the industry standard of FPS, PUBG & Fortnite came out of no where and change the status quo, which is the reason why CoD & BF is implementing BR to their future games to keep up with the new standard. I am confident to say that all future CoD & BF games going forward will have BR mode. If Halo does not keep up to date, it will again become a game where they fail to gain significant new audience, while trying to appeal to aging Halo fanbase & those whom have irrational rejection of BR mode.

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Yeah just like advanced mobility was going to be the new standard, or was it cover systems? Modern Military shooters? Hero Shooters? I lose track sometimes… Its almost like so many of these trends are going to be the “standard” going forward, right up until they aren’t. CoD and BF haven’t even released yet, there is no telling how the public is going to respond to them. I’ve seen this movie before, numerous times in fact. Its ends with a small handful of franchises finding success with the new trend and a huge pile of failures lying in their wake. It happens over and over and over again but the game industry never learns.

If Halo honest to god can’t survive without playing follow the leader then it should be allowed to die with some dignity, desperately chasing the leader is how we have gotten into trouble in the first place, if you have to abandon your identity to survive every few years, than what is the yoink!ing point? What value is there in keeping a franchise alive in name only?

It is such a short sighted arguement that ignores so much history its almost comical.

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I don’t think Battle Royale is as important as you think. PUBG started losing popularity when Fornite came out, because everyone saw the difference in polish and it was still a pre-release for a long time, and is never really recovered from that. Recently, Fortnite’s popularity has also slowed; I think it saw a large decrease in growth in the last two months compared to previous months. Battlefield V is wracked with controversy, despite having announced a BR mode. BlOps 4’s BR mode beta has made positive impressions thus far, but we have yet to see how the absence of a campaign mode will affect sales, or how popular the full release of the Blackout mode will be.

If anything, by not having a BR mode, Halo will separate itself from the pack, something that many fans want to see, as the “CoD-ification” of Halo in Halo 4 and Halo 5 have been some of the most common complaints. And it looks like 343 is thinking the same thing, given the statement they made about BR.

Also, technically the trend started with ARMA 2 mods.

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> 2533274819446242;6:
> Yeah just like advanced mobility was going to be the new standard, or was it cover systems? Modern Military shooters? Hero Shooters? I loose track sometimes… Its almost like so many of these trends are going to be the “standard” going forward, right up until they aren’t. CoD and BF haven’t even released yet, there is no telling how the public is going to respond to them. I’ve seen this movie before, numerous times in fact. Its ends with a small handful of franchises finding success with the new trend and a huge pile of failures lying in their wake. It happens over and over and over again but the game industry never learns.
>
> If Halo honest to god can’t survive without playing follow the leader then it should be allowed to die with some dignity, desperately chasing the leader is how we have gotten into trouble in the first place, if you have to abandon your identity to survive every few years, than what is the yoink!ing point? What value is there in keeping a franchise alive in name only?
>
> It is such a short sighted arguement that ignores so much history its almost comical.

I wouldn’t be surprised that Halo Infinite will be the last of main Halo franchise with Master Chief as main character, as it is held back by too much nostalgia & fans expecting much of the same old style of gameplay. 6th in a series is too much to keep up in any medium that be game, movie or literature with story & gameplay expectation while keeping up with modern shooters. My guess is that next Halo Infinite will conclude the story of master Chief & going forward they will focus on either the past stories or something like Halo Reach, which branches off from the main storyline while updating to modern gameplay standards.

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If I go by your reasoning, one could argue that 343 have been following trends since H4 and they also said that sprint was expected in modern FPS games and look where that’s got us.

The flaw in your argument is that Fortnite and PubG are dedicated BR games while Halo’s version would just be a gamemode. We don’t know if more people are going to buy COD or BF games because of the BR mode or if the same amount of people will buy it and having a BR mode is just a bonus. To go back to my first comment, putting something in your game because it’s “what’s expected” isn’t a guarantee that more people will buy your game.

> 2533275029938773;8:
> I wouldn’t be surprised that Halo Infinite will be the last of main Halo franchise with Master Chief as main character, as it is held back by too much nostalgia & fans expecting much of the same old style of gameplay.

Aside from completely disagreeing about Chief, what the hell are you talking about? The last 3 Halo games have been modern gameplay mechanics and people wanting old gameplay have barely gotten a bone thrown at them with a more classic playlist every once in awhile. If you’re referring to 4v4 etc, there’s some truth to that, but 343 has implemented new gametypes (extraction, dominion, regicide etc). If anything, 343 have been catering too much to the fans wanting modern mechanics and gameplay.

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> 2533274817408735;7:
> I don’t think Battle Royale is as important as you think. PUBG started losing popularity when Fornite came out, because everyone saw the difference in polish and it was still a pre-release for a long time, and is never really recovered from that. Recently, Fortnite’s popularity has also slowed; I think it saw a large decrease in growth in the last two months compared to previous months. Battlefield V is wracked with controversy, despite having announced a BR mode. BlOps 4’s BR mode beta has made positive impressions thus far, but we have yet to see how the absence of a campaign mode will affect sales, or how popular the full release of the Blackout mode will be.
>
> If anything, by not having a BR mode, Halo will separate itself from the pack, something that many fans want to see, as the “CoD-ification” of Halo in Halo 4 and Halo 5 have been some of the most common complaints. And it looks like 343 is thinking the same thing, given the statement they made about BR.
>
> Also, technically the trend started with ARMA 2 mods.

There are lot of BR before PUBG, but PUBG refined the gameplay & made the stable of what is BR today. As it was rushed to the market, it is still suffering from performance glitches but even with all that, it still maintains one of most active player base. Media loves to put negative spin on PUBG, but combining Steam, Xbox, China, mobile worldwide, it has one the largest player base. Same for Fortnite, which reached 140 million downloads on all platforms, PC, consoles, mobiles & still growing as Android version is still in beta. As you pointed out CoD BR is getting a good reception, even when it had irrational rejection from gamers when it was announced. BF BR will improve as it will take account Beta feedback. As any fanbase, they have fear of change & want things to stay as the same with tint of nostalgia, which holds back innovation especially in interactive medium such as game and will slowly kill a franchise because it fails to appeal to new players.

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I don’t want BR. Halo should come up with its own big mode. We already have Warzone, hopefully that can evolve into something bigger and better. I mean who wouldn’t want a mode with 100 players in one match? BR isn’t it though, chief. Atleast for Halo.

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> 2533274807802500;4:
> I don’t think games should aim to relevant they should aim to be the next best thing. They should be breaking boundaries with new concepts and ideas.

I agree with this 100%.

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> 2533275029938773;1:
> Halo Infinite needs Battle Royal mode to stay relevant & retain multiplayer player count. BR is not a fade, it will be one of expected mode to successful FPS going forward, even Call of Duty & Battlefield are implementing their own version of BR. Fortnite, as worldwide sensation is becoming one of first FPS they played for lot of audience, not to mention PUBG. That audience will eventually look for other similar games, CoD & BF is doing just that. If Halo does not have BR, they loss the opportunity to bring part of that huge & growing audience, which will be hard to ignore. Halo has a great opportunity to bring futuristic BR mode which no AAA game currently offers.
> One of main problems I see in Halo today is that it is held back by huge baggage of nostalgia, those modes that no longer is relevant & trying to appeal to older generation that no longer plays the game. Grief ball & addition of jet pack is prime example of this. Grief ball which community demanded to be added, which no one plays anyway & jetpack & dash that players hated, which turned out to be great addition to the game. If the game tries to appeal to the old & ignore the upcoming players, it will ultimately fail to capture enough audience to stay relevant.

I’m very much an older generation, and I’m not playing Halo at the moment. However I’m not playing Fortnite or PUBG either. I’m playing Warframe and Titanfall mostly, and a bit of Inquisitor / Martyr. I stopped playing Halo 5 because of it’s req system, and one or two other things, and I’m not playing MCC because the gameplay is like treading water compared to Halo 5 and Titanfall.

I don’t think Halo needs a BR mode, but I’m not against it either, whilst it’s true I’m not playing PUBG, I have tried it, and being honest I enjoyed it. Another thing, Fortnite an PUBG were designed as BR games, Halo was not. I don’t think a BR mode would instantly make Halo super popular again, look at the bad press BF 5 is getting and it’s not down to BR mode.

I’m curious about Halo Infinite, but my decisions on whether I buy the game or pass on it do not center around the inclusion of a BR mode. I’m more concerned about art style, the pace of gameplay, the story, will it include the same predatory req system, the ability to find matches easily, the progression system, how much of the game will we get at launch etc etc ?

The inclusion or exclusion of a BR mode is not a deciding factor for me.

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Frankly, you don’t really know what you’re talking about. There is still a market for Arena multiplayer, as proven by the recent success of Doom. Trying to copy other, more popular franchises would only make Halo another cheap knockoff in a vertible sea of them. What 343i should be doing is evolving the series and breaking new grounds in Arena gameplay, rather than mirroring the most recent trend. Halo 4 is prime example for why that does not work.

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I agree with others here and I’ll add, I play Halo for the Halo experience. I want that style of gameplay. I barely played Halo 4 because it changed what Halo was. If I want to play BR or a game with loadouts or whatever the current market trend happens to be, I’ll play one of the many games that have it in.

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I’d rather get banged by two Hunters than play Battle Royale in my Halo.

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I don’t think it needs BR, but I think it would help. If it wants to be relevant again, it needs to regain its identity, plain and simple.

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> 2533274923562209;2:
> Halo isn’t held back by nostalgia lol. Try it’s failure to do anything new and offering something unique, some BR mode won’t do that when it’s just going to end up being an oversaturated market, taking away BRs popularity as it thins out between franchises, effectively ending the trend it has started.
>
> I don’t mind it being a tacked on mode, but it shouldn’t be prioritized nor will it keep it relevant, how will it stay relevant once BR loses popularity? All you did was trend chase something that was popular and once it’s not popular you go back to being irrelevant because you’re not doing your own thing.
>
> “CoD and battlefield are doing it” and has it proven it’s working? It’s not even out yet and people have issues with them. CoD threw away a campaign for it, :+1: great way to piss people off. What will Halo sacrifice for it if they choose to add it?

I agree with this^
Halo doesn’t need to add a Battle Royal mode because other games are doing it. If Halo does that, how will it stand out? It will just be another game with the same modes as every other games. Why would the average non Halo player be attractive to Halo for a mode already offered by Fortnite(Free), CoD, and Battlefield? I actually believe that BR is a fad. In a few years, we will probably be tired of it. Honestly, I never got into Fortnite. I guess I’m more of a Halo guy.

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The only BR we’re getting is the Battle Rifle. Hopefully the 55 model or 85H/85L.

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> 2533274919781308;19:
> The only BR we’re getting is the Battle Rifle. Hopefully the 55 model or 85H/85L.

Exactly. We don’t need Halo to turn into a copy of Fortnite.