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343,
I know I am just a fan. I know, based off the title of this post, you probably expect to hear the same nostalgic rant that you’ve likely been given thousands of times prior, but I am going to do my best to be as helpful and honest as anyone who has ever given their opinion to your studio.I’ve been on these forums only a few times in the last 5 years. Even while juggling engineering, a fraternity, a girlfriend/fiance, and learning C++ in my free time, I’ve always found time for gaming in my life, which is why I know that people of my age are still a big target audience for you.
In my opinion, people of my age, or maybe even older, are you’re biggest target audience, which is the basis for my post.
Last night, I decided to wind down on my computer chatting with some friends in discord. There were 4 of us, all college graduates and still heavy gamers. I had been playing League of Legends and Counter Strike with these guys since I’d moved back to my home town two years prior, and never once had any of us talked about Halo as we had all been gaming on PC. One of them brought up Halo, because of the E3 demo, and a huge discussion erupted about the franchise.You guys can probably guess how the conversation went, given our ages and the fact that we no longer even use the Xbox as our gaming of choice, so I won’t go into detail on all the points, but I would like to highlight a few area’s that I found interesting and beneficial for a gaming studio.
- We were all excited about a new Halo game. Excited isn’t even the right word, we were ecstatic… jumping with joy. Although Halo didn’t bring us together, all four of us could name 5 different multiplayer maps on H2, and debate whether or not BxR’ing was a glitch or the most genius thing to ever add to a game! Purely by coincidence, we were all beyond fans of the franchise.
- I’m not being sarcastic when I say that although we were all ecstatic, every one of them agreed they’d definitely buy the game, but would likely play it for less than a week before they went back to Counter Strike… COUNTER STRIKE! The game that hasn’t changed its formula ever. It is the most basic shooter in the history of shooters.3. Purely by coincidence, Halo was brought up in a CS:GO discord channel, and everyone agreed on what they, as lifelong Halo fans, wanted from a game. And sadly, we all felt that you guys would never give them to us.
-----------3. This is the meat of the post. I know it, you know it, and anyone on these forums with an average IQ knows it, so I don’t feel bad saying it in this post: The reason that Halo is still a heavy-weight game franchise are not because of the younger gamers who grew up buying your games along with every other AAA game that came out the same year.
THE REASON HALO TAKES CENTER STAGE AT E3 IS BECAUSE OF THE OLDSCHOOL DIE HARD GAMERS AND ITS NOT EVEN REMOTELY A SECRET. Every single person working at 343 knows that yall wouldn’t make a splash in the market if it wasn’t for the millions of people just like me. NOT the newer generation who plays the fad game of the month and move on to the next. -----Why are you targeting them when you own the rights to one of the most beloved franchises is the world?----- We lived by it. We were the generation of gamers who texted our buddies on the bus-ride home from middle school every day asking if they were getting online when they got home. We played Halo 2 every day of its life until Halo 3 came out and then we played H3 everyday until we could get our hands on the next Halo game. We didn’t play other games because we loved Halo. We thought it was perfect. It was… to us. It was just Halo. It was original. There was nothing else like it. There still isn’t anything else like Halo, or how it used to be. Today’s Halo is just a big blend of every single successful shooter to come out in the last 10 years and no one cares about it. There are MILLIONS and MILLIONS of people just like me all over the internet who would kill to have a Halo game with original Halo mechanics.
- We all agreed that sprinting has never had any business in Halo. It messes with the scale of the maps, and even more so, the basic game-play mechanics. I don’t want to let my deep emotions Halo seep into this post, but how is it still in Halo? One youtube search could bring up hundreds of die hard halo fans ranting about sprint. The fact that you KNOW that we don’t want sprint, yet you put it in your games, is just a big F&*% YOU to the people who truly care about your games… Now sure, there will be people who come on this very thread and say they love sprint, but how many of them are there? The people who frequent these forums today are the people who love your game today, and I understand that. Surely you’d agree that the number of people who love your game today should be a lot higher, and maybe its time to quit listening to the people who love your game today, and start actually listening to the people who would kill to see Halo be what it once was again.I want to help you. I think I could help you. I love Halo and it really will always be a big part of my life, no matter how good or bad the franchise becomes. My adolescent years were in a big way influenced by the friendships and experiences manufactured by Halo, and there are so many people like me. You guys hold the IP for one of the most beloved gaming franchises in History, and its time to go back to what made it that way. Make decisions to preserve Halo’s unique formula, not to change it. I genuinely hope that someone with some pull at 343 sees this thread, and although I let my emotions for the game seep in a little while writing, I just want to help.