Halo needs an identity

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

Halo needs to find something fresh. Something to differentiate itself from the now well-established sprint-based, advanced movement centric shooters of today. This formula is all too familiar to the average FPS gamer of today, and I don’t see Halo lasting for another 30 years or whatever if it continues down the road of follow-the-leader.

Before you get me wrong, this doesn’t mean completely reverting back to Halo 3’s gameplay. While I personally enjoy the original trilogy more, 343 doesn’t need to simply retread old ground. I think what they need to do is create a gameplay style that is really THEIR Halo. I know 343 has claimed to be doing exactly that, but when I look at their Halo games, I don’t see Halo. I don’t see a fresh, new game either. I see a weird Frankenstein of modern fps mechanics and sci-fi aesthetics, with the name “Halo” on the cover.

I’ll say that Halo 5 definitely works. It works very well, in fact. I don’t think I’ve played a big budget FPS with as much depth and balance behind it in recent years. But there’s a problem in that it all seems just too much like other FPSs out there right now. The whole game is built to work around sprint and advanced movement mechanics, but that’s exactly what COD and a plethora of other shooters are doing. Not to mention, the game is just visually boring. Objectively, the game looks pretty good, but the art direction makes it look like another bland, bright, sci-fi game.

Let me make a comparison for a minute. In the late 90s/early 2000s, mascot platformers were all the rage. The success of Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon and the like drove lots of other smaller devs to develop their own 3D platformers with their own mascots.
Now, how many of you have heard of Ty the Tasmanian Tiger? A few? Cool.
How about Scaler? Not as many?
Ooh. I know. How many people have ever heard of Vexx?
…

The similarity between these games is that they didn’t really do a lot of things differently from other big platformers at the time. Most of them were sub-par platformers that used beat-em-up sections or mini-games to shake things up. So, they faded into obscurity. They weren’t relevant, and I feel Halo is already down the path of irrelevance.

So, what could 343 do to make a fresh, new, exciting shooter? They probably won’t pull a crazy new idea out of their heads for Halo 6, given that I imagine they will be given very little time to make it.
One idea killmachine91 suggested in a video is to sort of create a hybrid of old and new gameplay by combining the principles of classic Halo with a few select advanced movement mechanics (Cough: lazy link - YouTube). I don’t think that this alone could draw in the crowd Halo needs to survive, but I think it could work within this community, at least.

What do you think?

2

Gee just another sprint thread who would have thought???

3

Another sprint thread.

Halo is plenty unique as it is since it doesn’t play like any other game.

4

You say that halo 5 is a Frankenstein game, then say we should do a hybrid of old and new. That’s what halo 5 is (and hybrid and Frankenstein pretty much mean the same thing with a different connotation). You also said that what 343 is doing is working so why would they change that? I think halo 5 is that hybrid you were talking about and I don’t see anything wrong with what you said about Frankenstein. Favyn, a guy who wants halo 3 style gameplay back said that Titanfall took things from other games, but it’s the culmination of things that makes it unique and that’s what halo 5 has done.

5

Sometimes I forget if I’m play Halo 5 or Super Mario Bros. 3. The mechanics are just so similar. I mean like, I can jump in Mario and Halo. Why does Halo have to copy other games’ mechanics.

Mario Bros. did it first. Why can’t Halo just have its own identity?

6

> 2533274809541057;5:
> Sometimes I forget if I’m play Halo 5 or Super Mario Bros. 3. The mechanics are just so similar. I mean like, I can jump in Mario and Halo. Why does Halo have to copy other game’s mechanics.
>
> Mario Bros. did it first. Why can’t Halo just have its own identity?

And we can run and jump too! I hope to one day get the -Yoink!- tail feather req so I can fly.

7

Halo’s thing has always been “Arena Shooter With Vehicles!” We need a supermassive version of Invasion mixed with Warzone with maps on the scale of Forge World.

8

HALO needs an identity? HALO? … HALO?? If Halo walked into a bar would anyone ask for an ID? No. This is one of the most famous games ever.

9

To late OP.

10

HALO HAS AN IDENTITY!
It’s just that Halo 5 wasn’t up to the standards as the bungie trilogy like the community wanted.
Halo 6 is the next step, it will hopefully be as loved by the community as the bungie trilogy.

11

The reason people want to go back to the original trilogy is because there is no game recently released in that plays like it.

12

> 2533274809541057;5:
> Sometimes I forget if I’m play Halo 5 or Super Mario Bros. 3. The mechanics are just so similar. I mean like, I can jump in Mario and Halo. Why does Halo have to copy other games’ mechanics.
>
> Mario Bros. did it first. Why can’t Halo just have its own identity?

Well we do jump on things heads to kill them now just like mario :wink:

13

Halo had one, then Halo’s perants divorced and it got a new daddy which left Halo unsure if it was Halo’s own fault or the perants so Halo tried to change himself to get appreciates again and hopefully Halo will someday realise it wasn’t Halo’s fault and an find its true place in the world again wether that’s old or new.

14

Halo is love Halo is live

15

Halo does have an identity. Master Chief was listed 8th on an All Time Video Game Hero list out of 50.

16

> 2533274803562826;13:
> Halo had one, then Halo’s perants divorced and it got a new daddy which left Halo unsure if it was Halo’s own fault or the perants so Halo tried to change himself to get appreciates again and hopefully Halo will someday realise it wasn’t Halo’s fault and an find its true place in the world again wether that’s old or new.

Hahahaha oh my yes.

17

> 2533274809541057;5:
> Sometimes I forget if I’m play Halo 5 or Super Mario Bros. 3. The mechanics are just so similar. I mean like, I can jump in Mario and Halo. Why does Halo have to copy other games’ mechanics.
>
> Mario Bros. did it first. Why can’t Halo just have its own identity?

Sometimes I forget if I’m playing Halo 5 or shooting at the rifle range. Why is Halo copying real life?

Love your sarcasm.

18

> 2535455681930574;4:
> You say that halo 5 is a Frankenstein game, then say we should do a hybrid of old and new. That’s what halo 5 is (and hybrid and Frankenstein pretty much mean the same thing with a different connotation). You also said that what 343 is doing is working so why would they change that? I think halo 5 is that hybrid you were talking about and I don’t see anything wrong with what you said about Frankenstein. Favyn, a guy who wants halo 3 style gameplay back said that Titanfall took things from other games, but it’s the culmination of things that makes it unique and that’s what halo 5 has done.

Ye but Titanfall copied elements from COD that Titanfall developers helped developed when they were employed at Infinity Ward.Respawn Entertainment is more than likely going to crush it with Titanfall 2.Should be good :slight_smile: Favyn is fighting a losing battle.Sprint doesn’t need to go anywhere…I was anti-sprint for years but the more I play Halo 5 the more I realize that it does fit and is balanced properly.

19

> 2533274818114287;18:
> > 2535455681930574;4:
> > You say that halo 5 is a Frankenstein game, then say we should do a hybrid of old and new. That’s what halo 5 is (and hybrid and Frankenstein pretty much mean the same thing with a different connotation). You also said that what 343 is doing is working so why would they change that? I think halo 5 is that hybrid you were talking about and I don’t see anything wrong with what you said about Frankenstein. Favyn, a guy who wants halo 3 style gameplay back said that Titanfall took things from other games, but it’s the culmination of things that makes it unique and that’s what halo 5 has done.
>
>
> Ye but Titanfall copied elements from COD that Titanfall developers helped developed when they were employed at Infinity Ward.Respawn Entertainment is more than likely going to crush it with Titanfall 2.Should be good :slight_smile: Favyn is fighting a losing battle.Sprint doesn’t need to go anywhere…I was anti-sprint for years but the more I play Halo 5 the more I realize that it does fit and is balanced properly.

I agree and I honestly don’t usually agree with anything that Favyn has to say. I like sprint and think it should stay, I was just using him as an example.

20

Why does sprint make it too much like other games, Halo 5 is waaay different than other modern games with sprint. It would be like saying that Halo is a Gears of War clone because they both use guns.