> You will be hearing this a lot from Halo and Halo2 fans but remember that 343 is making the game more complex to adjust to the changing market. Today’s newer gamers in the under-20 range view the classic FPS as archaic, ancient and even boring to them, although it isn’t to us given the history of playing it when back it was brand new.
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> It is imprtant to remember that video game variants have an average life cycle of about 20 years. What you are witnessing is the sunset of the classic shooter, that is games where aiming is the #1 skill that is used to play. Historically, the end of the classic, simple FPS is no different than any other genre. For example
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> The first popular video games were text based, turn based games. These were called MUDs (multi-user dungeons) although they weren’t always set in a dungeon. These lasted from the middle 1960s until the end of the 1970s, and were mainly played on University mainframes and sometimes on home built systems.
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> The next series of video games were the 2D planar based scrollers and table-based games. These began with games like Pac-Man, Williams Defender, Space Invaders, Galaga, Tempest, and finally ending in the home market in popularity with games like the Sonic series, Mega Man and others. They lasted from the latter 1970s until the late 1990s, again, about a 20 year cycle.
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> The last series of games were the 3D based classic point-and-shoot first-person shooters, which competed with three-quarter overhead RPGs. For both, they were still 3D environments but the UI and end user concept were the same: Move your character, aim the reticle, and shoot as best as you can. This series lasted from the early 1990s with games like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem all the way to the last generation of Call Of Duty and Halo.
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> As with the others, the life cycle for the classic, simple FPS was about 20 years, and we are now at the tail end of that cycle.
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> The next generation of games will be, and are, more complex to play with a wider array of options for the player. These will be in a 3D environment, but the actual gameplay will be (and is starting now) a hybridization of aim skill, strategy, and intelligent deployment of various in-game assets. Also, the world will be open, as seen in early examples like Grand Theft Auto and carried forward in monster hit titles like Skyrim. The concept of getting into the head of your opponent in order to predict their next move, once found only in the competitive FPS world will become as common a gameplay skill as reloading a weapon is to you. This will be true for 3D based first person perspective games and third-person overhead (or removed camera) RPGs, both.
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> This is not speculative on my part but simple observation. There is not one single shooter on the entire roster for MLG. Classic shooter title releases for all consoles have become anemic and noticeably few in number in 2012, the main ones being carry-overs from previous titles like COD or Battlefield or Halo, catering mainly to ever-aging crowds who are now in their middle 20s and 30s. The few FPS titles that did make it out the door for 2012 fell flat on their faces in the market. One example is with Rage, created by the once-all-powerful-all-mighty, the great legend of ID Software (creators of Doom and Quake and Wolfenstein), now barely even making it on the radar forefront. Personally, it was sad to see such a giant fall so very badly this year.
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> ID Software’s mistake was that they simply did what they have always done since the early 1990s: Force the player into a series of walled-in corridors, with pointing and shooting as being the primary mechanic in the game. The weapons sounded and looked quite visceral and impressive on all fronts: The environments themselves were ridiculously detailed, even in places that they didn’t have to be decorated. There was only one problem: Nobody’s really buying tickets to see this particular show anymore, excepting the most die-hard ID fans and some people who thought that RAGE was going to be as good as Borderlands.
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> The biggest complaint, most publishing houses found out in 2011 and this year, were that the younger gaming market (under 20) complained about things like “repetitiveness” and “being boxed in” to a narrow environment. For the original 2001 Halo campaign for example, the game mechanics of shoot-a-grunt, walk, shoot-a-jackal, run, stick-an-elite, rinse, repeat is terribly mind numbing and gets old, real fast for them. Not for you or me, no, but for them, absolutely. They may play Halo CE just for its historical significance, just to say that they played it, but rest assured, all that wonderment and amazement and all-night-long gaming sessions that we remember, all those years ago, do not happen any more, for someone under 20 today playing one of the old Halos.
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> So, for those of us who enjoyed Halo and Halo2 (and hell, even H3), you were part of the tail end of the last generation of the classic, point-and-shoot craze that lasted from about 1992 to 2011. Opinions vary of course, but I feel that the last really great shooting Halo was H3 (I know most of you think H2 and thats fine too) Whatever the case may be, the days of the shooting Halos are done. If 343 ever does continue with Halo5 and 6, rest assured you will see games that will kind of, sort of look like Halo, and they may even have that special X Factor that makes Halo what it is, but the mechanics and assets will be so different by then it really will feel like a totally different game, far more so than Reach made H2 feel and vice-versa.
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> Getting the generation ahead of you guys (the under-20s) to fall in love with Halo2 as a serious, go-to title for a template for what they should love in a game would be like having someone try and convince you back in 2004 that Quake is the best competitive game ever, since it was so pure and elegant. Would you have listened? Probably not. So, in the end, they probably won’t listen either, and may play through Halo2’s campaign or even on XBC simply because their older brother or cousin or even dad played it once, or maybe had it gathering dust in the basement or attic in some forgotten, web-laced corner of the house.
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> And that is about where were are, my friends. So, “too much new stuff” to us? Sure. But not to them, no.
This guy from The Halo Forum gave a lot of insight. I feel some people here should read this. Lets face it guys. Times are changing…
