The most successful games that are released each year are mainly campaign-based. Skyrim, Batman Arkham City, L.A. Noire, and loads more are praised over, because of the campaign. That was just from last year. Yes, multiplayer games like CoD or B3 are also successful but not nearly as good in quality. Most people in the community contradict themselves, saying the core mechanics should stay the same but the game should change. Any change without the core slightly altering isnt necessary change. Yes, the changes in Reach weren’t the best, but if it had as much development time as Halo 4 has it could easily become a masterpiece. Halo shouldn’t be any more simple ether, because a game with no challenge will lose more audience than it gains, like Reach.
The point is, Halo needs to be once again campaign based. The multplayer an extension of the main story. This is how Halo used to be, and it is how it should be.
Though I agree with everything mentioned, I would argue all Halos are campaign based, and at the very least are the most consistently focused on the story over the FPS competition. CoD has the most laughable attempt at a “story”; single player is basically just an avenue to implement cool mechanics that can only work once or twice in a game because they are far to scenerio-based (snow-mobile chase, AC130 missions, etc).
Halo has been the most constant in regards to having a strong focus on the campaign. Even Reach, the weakest of the franchise, has a well rooted, though poorly executed and previous-cannon-material-contradicting story that builds on the universe. Though it wasn’t the way I hoped bungie would go, it was still an interesting though unnecessary look at Reach in its last hours.
Once again, all this said, Halo 4 is the beginning of an already thought out and planned trilogy, even if the last chapter is yet to be written. Along the way I remember reading or watching an interview with Frankie who said they already knew the entire story of Halo 4 (this was no more recent then this past summer BTW), and had a solid foundation of how Halo 5 would be, with general plans for Halo 6. This is exponentially more planned out than any previous Halo game by bungie. Each Bungie halo, with maybe ODST and Reach excluded, was a down to the wire attempt to cram everything they planned in, which never ever came to 100% fruition, and was commonly far from it (cough Halo 2). Even with this, the stories were delivered in a very good, genre-leading manner.
Halo 4 will likely amaze us again in the ways Halo 1 did; providing an almost completely new environment/world to explore and innumerable unknowns to speculate on. Not only will we not finish the fight, we probably wont even know all the repercussions of the fight we are starting. Prepare to drop.
Redacted, sad I still cannot delete a post. 
> Though I agree with everything mentioned, I would argue all Halos are campaign based, and at the very least are the most consistently focused on the story over the FPS competition. CoD has the most laughable attempt at a “story”; single player is basically just an avenue to implement cool mechanics that can only work once or twice in a game because they are far to scenerio-based (snow-mobile chase, AC130 missions, etc).
>
> Halo has been the most constant in regards to having a strong focus on the campaign. Even Reach, the weakest of the franchise, has a well rooted, though poorly executed and previous-cannon-material-contradicting story that builds on the universe. Though it wasn’t the way I hoped bungie would go, it was still an interesting though unnecessary look at Reach in its last hours.
>
> Once again, all this said, Halo 4 is the beginning of an already thought out and planned trilogy, even if the last chapter is yet to be written. Along the way I remember reading or watching an interview with Frankie who said they already knew the entire story of Halo 4 (this was no more recent then this past summer BTW), and had a solid foundation of how Halo 5 would be, with general plans for Halo 6. This is exponentially more planned out than any previous Halo game by bungie. Each Bungie halo, with maybe ODST and Reach excluded, was a down to the wire attempt to cram everything they planned in, which never ever came to 100% fruition, and was commonly far from it (cough Halo 2). Even with this, the stories were delivered in a very good, genre-leading manner.
>
> Halo 4 will likely amaze us again in the ways Halo 1 did; providing an almost completely new environment/world to explore and innumerable unknowns to speculate on. Not only will we not finish the fight, we probably wont even know all the repercussions of the fight we are starting. Prepare to drop.
it felt like Reach was made for multiplayer. Though another point i forgot to make is length. The campaign should be fairly long, and have a bigger sandbox. Also, the multiplayer should be connected with the campaign somehow. Something along the lines of ACs multiplayer, you being a training member of abstergo, and you rank through it.
Maybe you start the multiplayer as a marine, and your rank will eventually get you to spartan. along the way you customize armor and effects. Anyways, the multiplayer should be connected to expand the story, not make a completely separate game within a game.
> Also, the campagin should be connected with the campaign somehow.
tee hee
But yeah, I agree with you. I like what Mass Effect 3 is doing - the campaign you play as Shepard, in the multiplayer you play as one of the soldiers in his army that is fighting against the Reapers.
> The most successful games that are released each year are mainly campaign-based.
MW3 campaign is the generic “America gets invaded” type, and yet that game is on top in terms of sales.
Care to explain?
> > Also, the campagin should be connected with the campaign somehow.
>
> tee hee
>
> But yeah, I agree with you. I like what Mass Effect 3 is doing - the campaign you play as Shepard, in the multiplayer you play as one of the soldiers in his army that is fighting against the Reapers.
whoops, i meant multiplayer should be connected to campaign lol.
To your point about connecting the two, this is not the way of Halo, but more the way of CoD. Not the connection of story, but the play more to get more mentality. Halo plays as an arcade shooter, and Reach broke that. By implementing loadouts, Reach took the biggest step away from previous Halos as it possibly could; it made the playing field uneven from the start. By implementing rewards for hitting officer/general/etc you further distance the level playing field that an arcade shooter is designed to be. By saying you cannot be at the level of a Spartan until rank X, you make it so no matter what the other variables are, in any given game, each individual starts at an advantage or disadvantage based on how many hours they were able to waste of their lives in halo. This comes from someone who will waste many hours in Halo 4 and benefit from this concept, lol.
343i will not compromise the Arcade style like Reach did. Any rewards based on time played and points/credits received will continue to be only aesthetic and have no bearing on gameplay mechanics. Unfortunately I don’t see a way to ever connect the multiplayer with campaign because campaign follows Master Chief, while multiplayer is nameless Spartans.
> > The most successful games that are released each year are mainly campaign-based.
>
> MW3 campaign is the generic “America gets invaded” type, and yet that game is on top in terms of sales.
>
> Care to explain?
im not talking about the popularity, but the quality of the game. Im not being one-sided, im going off of games ratings, awards, and length.
> To your point about connecting the two, this is not the way of Halo, but more the way of CoD. Not the connection of story, but the play more to get more mentality. Halo plays as an arcade shooter, and Reach broke that. By implementing loadouts, Reach took the biggest step away from previous Halos as it possibly could; it made the playing field uneven from the start. By implementing rewards for hitting officer/general/etc you further distance the level playing field that an arcade shooter is designed to be. By saying you cannot be at the level of a Spartan until rank X, you make it so no matter what the other variables are, in any given game, each individual starts at an advantage or disadvantage based on how many hours they were able to waste of their lives in halo. This comes from someone who will waste many hours in Halo 4 and benefit from this concept, lol.
>
> 343i will not compromise the Arcade style like Reach did. Any rewards based on time played and points/credits received will continue to be only aesthetic and have no bearing on gameplay mechanics. Unfortunately I don’t see a way to ever connect the multiplayer with campaign because campaign follows Master Chief, while multiplayer is nameless Spartans.
I question whether you even played Reach with the statements you made.
> To your point about connecting the two, this is not the way of Halo, but more the way of CoD. Not the connection of story, but the play more to get more mentality. Halo plays as an arcade shooter, and Reach broke that. By implementing loadouts, Reach took the biggest step away from previous Halos as it possibly could; it made the playing field uneven from the start. By implementing rewards for hitting officer/general/etc you further distance the level playing field that an arcade shooter is designed to be. By saying you cannot be at the level of a Spartan until rank X, you make it so no matter what the other variables are, in any given game, each individual starts at an advantage or disadvantage based on how many hours they were able to waste of their lives in halo. This comes from someone who will waste many hours in Halo 4 and benefit from this concept, lol.
>
> 343i will not compromise the Arcade style like Reach did. Any rewards based on time played and points/credits received will continue to be only aesthetic and have no bearing on gameplay mechanics. Unfortunately I don’t see a way to ever connect the multiplayer with campaign because campaign follows Master Chief, while multiplayer is nameless Spartans.
I never said the armor and rank gives you in-game bonuses.
Also, there are other spartans possibly being trained, and we probably will be seeing more of the UNSC in the future. Many possibilities are available to connect the campaign and multiplayer.
For Halo to be successful, it needs a great campaign.
MP also needs to be great. Just require great maps (Halo 2 Maps) and a Ranking and Social Play Lists.
= WIN.
Also game needs to be more like Halo 3 than REACH. I think the Halo 3 Equipment should return with all REACH AA as new Equipment.
> > To your point about connecting the two, this is not the way of Halo, but more the way of CoD. Not the connection of story, but the play more to get more mentality. Halo plays as an arcade shooter, and Reach broke that. By implementing loadouts, Reach took the biggest step away from previous Halos as it possibly could; it made the playing field uneven from the start. By implementing rewards for hitting officer/general/etc you further distance the level playing field that an arcade shooter is designed to be. By saying you cannot be at the level of a Spartan until rank X, you make it so no matter what the other variables are, in any given game, each individual starts at an advantage or disadvantage based on how many hours they were able to waste of their lives in halo. This comes from someone who will waste many hours in Halo 4 and benefit from this concept, lol.
> >
> > 343i will not compromise the Arcade style like Reach did. Any rewards based on time played and points/credits received will continue to be only aesthetic and have no bearing on gameplay mechanics. Unfortunately I don’t see a way to ever connect the multiplayer with campaign because campaign follows Master Chief, while multiplayer is nameless Spartans.
>
> I question whether you even played Reach with the statements you made.
Care to expand? Because I find nothing I said inaccurate to the Reach experience and have closer to 5000 games played. Loadouts and AAs broke the level playing field that Halo 1-3 has, which defines an arcade shooter. By having the option to have one perk essentially over another, and also choose a certain weapon over another at the start completely distances Reach from the core of Halo’s MP gameplay.
@Galactic - I misspoke if I came across as saying the armor did anything for in-game, but felt that your concept as starting out as a marine was along the lines of gameplay-altering mechanics. I do see your point about the other Spartans outside of those known via the games, it would be interesting to see a connection to something raised in one of the novels, which I think is what you are implying here.
> For Halo to be successful, it needs a great campaign.
>
> MP also needs to be great. Just require great maps (Halo 2 Maps) and a Ranking and Social Play Lists.
>
> = WIN.
>
> Also game needs to be more like Halo 3 than REACH. I think the Halo 3 Equipment should return with all REACH AA as new Equipment.
though i mostly agree with you, i think its safe to say Halo 4 should be like Halo 4.