It…depends.
The whole idea here is, we have seen this before, twice now, with Halo 4 and 5.
Halo 4, everyone was excited but what we got was…Halo slapped with a call of duty system and mario kart eqse killstreak system. No one asked or that, wanted that, or enjoyed that. While a system like that could work in a PvE setting like Spartan ops or firefight, it was just uncalled and unessessary for how Halo had been up to that point. We expected the whole arena style for the aspects of timing, map knowledge, weapon and vehicle control to be paramount. Instead, combat was dictated by loadouts and mario kart elements that even if you did good, you could get a measly needler while they got an incineration cannon. Loudouts became redundant too, everyone could get a plasma pistol, no vehicles could even leave spawn. Only precision weapons and a boltshot were every class. It was just, utterly bad design all around.
The gameplay itself? Yes it was very functional, it worked, it had vareity, weapons were solid and the forerunner weapons had some good elements too. But this was all drowned out in a sea of just, utterly bad trend chasing aspects. We wanted to play Halo, not call of duty, theres a reason why even with the MCC, people dont get into these modes.
Eventually, Halo 4 did get a classic style playlist, with even starts and spawns and weapon tuning. However…by that time, like 6 or so months after, people just left, no one cared.
Halo 5?
Halo 5, actually got one thing right in that regard, it did involve classic even starts. It did have more of a solid basis by which people could play. But…when it launched it was bare bones, many modes were not yet in, and despite a better balance, it was better than 4, but that is more along the lines of, they just removed the loadouts, not fix every other issue.
Warzone…was just not good. The entirety of weapons and vehicles, with such variety, that could only be obtained via the req packs only to lose them in mere moments after 1 death…thats such a waste. And these varient weapons and vehicles, they were not even options to fool around with in the forge editor. Some like the prophets bane sword, was a staple in its own arena over the regular sword which was nice, but we wanted those options at the start.
Warzone firefight was better in terms of, usage for these weapons and vehicles, but to just keep playing a mode to stay…impactful in a mode you need a tank more or less in late game to even help against a warden or super wratih…it got old.
Many playlists people enjoyed just came in and out too much as well, stuff would stick around only to vanish. Halo 5 offered variety but also just couldnt seem to contend with itself over its gameplay vision and map design.
Not to mention all the inheriant abilities. While Infinite scaled these back, Halo 5, all those other powers, sprints, slide, clamber, thruster, hover, ground pound. It was all fun in some cases, but it also felt…bloated
You needed to somehow have a controller with more options or really sink that time in to hardwire all these other traits to your mind. Skill was rewarding but it could really be unusual to remember how other actions could chain.
I think infinite did one thing right, we have a more simplistic element to our base abilities with slide, clamber and sprint with the others just being the ability to mark, AI scan, and just drop weapons.
Halo 5 was again, better than 4 in terms of just not having the loadouts, but 5 basically had the same issue.
“It took time to get better”
And once again, the population just shrunk because of those same options. It took…frnakly too much time. By the time forge was a fully functional and let us use the variant weapons and vehicles, most had left.
The difference with infinite and the others?
4 was mauled on release because of really bad design choices.
5 was better in some aspects but the REQ system killed it for many on how warzone worked and others just got bored.
Infinites biggest issues, have been said a miliion times by now, but the battlepass+store and the lack of even being able to play the modes we want.
Its not ideal and to some fans, they have been down this road before and in most cases, 343 should have known, they shouldnt make the same mistake. But here we are.
And its amazing how an industry, thats had to go through this same song and dance time and time again, tries pushing out these same ideas thinking it will work, but isnt it funny how the modern age of info works? Doing the stuff that drives people away and having it backfire…its not going to help anyone in the end.
I mean good grief, look at EA, BF5 was a mess because they ran their mouths, the sales suffered. Their head at the time had to step down. BF2042 was supposed to fix this, then they produce one of the outright worst games in shooter history, it was so bad, another head had to step down and their own in game shop was closed down because of this disaster. And the funny thing is, they seriously thought it would work? They honestly thought it would succeed? We have history to learn from, VERY RECENT HISTORY.
Thats the funny thing with illusions, they dont work as well after the first time.
343 can fix this, but it seems like infinite could be regulated to that same fate as 4 and 5 sadly…just a niche shooter that could have been far better than it turned out.
