I remember a time in history when people litterally camped outside of retail stores, took time off of work and school to play Halo 2, with preorders and digital download, these days have long since past. Those were amazing times, with the December debut on the horizon i feel that this halo is going to come up short in the publics perspective. Not because the game is not all that it could be but because of a press pool that are journalists first and foremost and gamers second. The type to poke and jab at features that aren’t there and don’t make sense, the same type to complain when a developer doesn’t add their favorite game mode from their game, so as a suggestion to 343, skip the regular pool of gamer “journalists” to test your game, go with the committed lovers of halo, the lesser known but admirable content creators who beck and call at the lore and just double down on what they want, not some fortnight kids, not some Konami posers, not an IGN insider… find Spartans!
Yes! Halo has such dedicated fans, the ones who stuck through the thick and thin!
I’ll be taking December 8th as holiday to play through the game.
My partner is wonderful, she told me to take the day off and on that day she will take full responsibility for all of our dogs and baby so I can focus on playing the campaign.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been excited enough to book a day off work just to game. Something I used to do a lot when I was a teenager.
I get where you’re coming from in theory, but in practice it’ll likely be the same outcome. Let’s say they were to just give the game to halo players for first impressions. Those players are still going to point out the missing features on social media, just look at the forums and Twitter. The halo community isn’t exactly known for embracing short comings with open arms. There’s a significant amount who are disappointed that coop and forge won’t be there at launch and some who are calling for another full year delay. These are actual fans, not random games journalists. Instead of an IGN writer creating an article saying they thought it was lacking in features, it would just instead be an article about the fans first impressions with a headline along the lines of “Halo Community Impressed with Gameplay, Disappointed by Lack of Features”. It doesn’t matter who you give first access to, someone is going to point out that’s it’s, at the very least, a slight let down that the game isn’t launching with its complete suite of modes and features.
So you want the reviews to all be from biased Halo lovers that have already made up their minds to rate it 9/10+ no matter what and unfairly give credit where it may not be due? There will be plenty of Xbox and Halo content creator reviews for you to read/watch if you want validation. For the rest of the industry, reviews will rightfully account for everything the game does well, does poorly, and leaves out altogether.
I will be taking off for probably a week and be playing 24/7. I miss those old days, hope Halo Infinite brings that back .
A lot of Halo fans truly are more critical and nitpicky than the games press. Just look at Halo 5, that game reviewed pretty damn decently at launch, despite it’s lack of mp content and the weakest campaign to date.
I’m still not getting my hopes up for this game until we see more of the campaign, in that area it’s just been red flag after red flag. From the year-long delay following that lacklustre reveal last year, to 343’s dedication to hiding the campaign from us ever since (and no, a few screenshots aren’t good enough), to just recently having co-op delayed. Almost feel like we’re being set up to have a bag of burning poo on our front porch to open our door to on launch day.
There I just proved my own point lol.
I definitely get where you are coming from, nobody wants people that are blinded by halos majesty, I was just suggesting more on the side that 343 looks to halo content creators to do a bounce test in refrerence to not only the cannon storyline but also for a double check that things just ultimately “fit” within the universe we all adore. And the rest of you sound like you have immortalized halo into your own personal holiday, and I not only can relate but i couldn’t agree more. Ive been a Spartan a looooong time, so its a quite wonderful feeling to see so many just as passionate and sentimental about this beloved universe.
IMO:
National Halo day should be a thing.
Oh and whats halo 5? 
(Ive played it. It just had too much going on with it, the level designs had a lot of layers, but the campaign was a grind even on lower difficulty, but unlike earlier games it just didn’t feel like halo, and more importantly, it wasn’t fun, earlier halos had comic relief, they had characters you could love, a story you could understand and tbh im sure that 343 learned from that experience and thats why we had test flights of the various ai, to make sure they can at least fight properly as I know mine were to say the least… unhelpful…) and they put near true “ads” in halo… i think thats where the experiment went foul rather quickly with a large amount of the community.
Honestly I couldn’t agree more with the hype. I miss the old days where you always had great times playing the game, either with friends or just soloing the campaign. Although, I also respect the valid concerns. It’s good to balance the optimism with an appropriate dose of criticism. Having played the tech preview, I’d say the multiplayer is going in a great direction, so overall, that’s fantastic news even if the maps were limited. As long as there are more fun game modes and maps, plus the bugs patched, then at least that portion should be taken cared of quite nicely. At least for me. As for the campaign, as was mentioned by someone else, nobody really knows what to expect, so only time will tell. However, given that the Banished are the antagonists and how I personally enjoyed the lore of Halo Wars 2, I’m gonna have faith in Master Chief coming back with a bang. But as I said, only time and all us fans will tell.
“Wake me… when you need me.”
We need you now more than ever, Chief…