If Halo 5: Guardians was just named "Guardians"

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

If Halo 5 didn’t have Halo on the cover, and they reskinned the weapons/spartans to be other original futuristic weapons/soldiers,

  1. Would you think it was a Halo clone?
  2. Would you like the game more or criticize it less? Or would you like it less and criticize it more?

Please try to remain unbiased, difficult as it may be

EDIT: rephrased the first question, as I realized it didn’t actually make much sense

2
  1. No.
  2. Most likely, I wouldn’t have heard of it. Or if I had heard of it, I wouldn’t consider picking it up to play it. There are far too many shooters which have similar gameplay.
  3. Everything wrong with Halo: twitch gameplay. I’ve tried to be as unbiased as possible in my reasoning.

Edit: 4. It would have to have a seriously good story, memorable characters, and beautiful art/music for me to even hear of it in the first place. Geez, I only started playing video games for campaigns. Stuff multiplayer.

3
  1. No. That’s how brand recognition works.
  2. First I would be inclined to treat it as a new IP, but I’d treat it as any other Halo title once I find out that it is indeed a Halo title.
4
  1. No
  2. IDK (I don’t know)
5
  1. yes because playing halo 5 regardless of the title or graphics still player like a halo game with out a doubt.
  2. i think i would like it because i like playing halo. But i might criticize it because it would pretty much be a halo knock off, and wonder if someone might get sued
6
  1. A Halo clone? With sprint and ADS? I’d not even recognise it as something remotely similar to Halo.
  2. I’d like it less, because I’d know I’d dislike the gameplay (just as I do now) but I could no longer assume I’d like the story of the campaign anymore.
    But I’d probably not criticize it at all, as I wouldn’t have any previous bonding with the series. I’d just ignore it.
7

I’m not sure I would give it the time of day, there hasn’t really been anything announced about this game that would spark my interest in it as a new IP. It would have to stand out more, bring something new to the table, it wouldn’t just be able to rely on brand recognition. The gameplay seems too generic in the current market.

8

[deleted]

9

  1. There was Sony’s franchise that was called for being Halo-clone (even it’s devs admited that Halo was their main source of inspiration) called Resistance. Especially second game (Resistance 2) felt like Halo as it had exact same mechanics with regenerating health, 2 weapons at once and even it’s own BR. It was set in alternative 50s of 20th century, it had sprint and ads, but believe me or not, most people doen’t care about that stuff at all, when it just feels like Halo.

  2. …and Resistance was still very good franchise. Especially 2nd and 3rd part was enjoyable and praised by both critics and players. Being “clone” isn’t a bad thing at all when game’s just good. I think that for “Guardians” it would be even better as all these Halo purists who are making bad press all over the internet would be left with any point to moan about.

10

> 2533274820093296;9:
> 1. There was Sony’s franchise that was called for being Halo-clone (even it’s devs admited that Halo was their main source of inspiration) called Resistance. Especially second game (Resistance 2) felt like Halo as it had exact same mechanics with regenerating health, 2 weapons at once and even it’s own BR. It was set in alternative 50s of 20th century, it had sprint and ads, but believe me or not, most people doen’t care about that stuff at all, when it just feels like Halo.
>
> 2. …and Resistance was still very good franchise. Especially 2nd and 3rd part was enjoyable and praised by both critics and players. Being “clone” isn’t a bad thing at all when game’s just good. I think that for “Guardians” it would be even better as all these Halo purists who are making bad press all over the internet would be left with any point to moan about.

Interesting thoughts. Something to note: Resistance didn’t have nearly the following or competitive presence that Halo had at that point. Critical acclaim/player acclaim and how successful a game is are two very different things. Also note here, Halo 4 was not very well acclaimed, but could be considered a success in terms of at least sales.

11

I always found it funny when people would call Resistance a Halo clone. I know that this opinion is widely accepted and I also know what the developers said, but honestly: I never saw the similarities. To me, Resistance always felt waaaay more like TimeSplitters than Halo, at least in terms of gunplay. If anything, I would say Killzone is more of an Halo clone than Resistance, and even this, I admit, is a longshot.

12

> 2533274840212973;10:
> Interesting thoughts. Something to note: Resistance didn’t have nearly the following or competitive presence that Halo had at that point. Critical acclaim/player acclaim and how successful a game is are two very different things. Also note here, Halo 4 was not very well acclaimed, but could be considered a success in terms of at least sales.

Sure, mostly because Resistance wasn’t backed up with Microsoft’s marketing machine (that was absolute juggernaut at that time) :wink:

At the same time I wouldn’t judge Halo 4 reception, just by hearing what vocal minority of Halo purists has to say. Most people just doesn’t care about Halo’s multiplayer, even less about it’s 4v4 gametypes (where vocal minority is discussing small stuff, like sprint, loadouts etc.). Halo 4 online population dropped, but even in it’s absolute peak, there was just around 400k players interested in matchmaking (which is 1/3 of what Halo 3 was receiving many months after release) and this kind of drop is something normal for games nowadays (e.g. out of 3-2,5 million of players who have bought CoD:Ghosts on PS4 or Titanfall on XO, just 1/1000 of fanbase is actually playing the game as we speak).