Infinite Possibilities: The Truth of the Matter

Hey so I know everyone’s hyped about Halo 6, and chances are if your a Halo nerd like me, you would loose an arm an a leg to have Halo 6 be a good solid game. We see 343 going back to the old art style, kicking off halo 5 developers and reaching out to old long since left bungie developers. I wanted to know all your thoughts with Halo Infinite though because if we lay all the pieces out on the table: 343 is trying to go back to the old halo style as well as make it interesting to new audiences to hook them in… What I feel a lot of us are concerned about is 343 trying to deliver something to please everyone, myself for one don’t care which route 343 takes the game and generally enjoy everything they create as well as halo being my favorite game series. (I’m writing this while waiting for Halo Reach PC to finish downloading XD) I cant stress enough that we being the next generation of consumers to the halo franchise need to give 343 time to “make halo what it was” generally speaking I hear a lot of non halo fans that don’t play halo say halo reach was an amazing game, so I’m not sure why 343 has been trying to change halo to… some unknown new audience that wants something different. its kind of like the “if you replace a boat one wood plank at a time is it the same boat or a completely different one? metaphor” Halo 5 honestly is a completely new type of game compared to older Halo games: sure there master chief and Halsey and Cortana, but there much different from what we used to see. I’m not saying that’s bad, but if we really want halo to go back to what it was, like so many popular halo consumer voices we need to also consider (back to the metaphor) 343 also being still 343 but switching staff, bungie leaving and new members of the fanbase as well as old ones leaving makes it impossible for 343 to just “make another halo reach type game” so if we want halo to be something of nostalgia or as a “-Yoink!- new game” on the market drawing new people, we need to not blow each other up in a toxic rant against each side of the community as to weather we should remove sprint and make jumps like they were(just a single example of a single aspect of the game), but old members and new alike need to settle with different things, I think personally 343 will do a great job at making the transition, but for the love of god: if we don’t stop arguing over what’s better it will make it harder for 343 to make its own decisions and try to make a hybrid game which would be the downfall of the game because it just doesn’t work… so yeah I wanted to know some other people opinions to know how others in the community stand on the issue

  • chow

Lot of valid points, here. Ever since Halo 4, 343i has been trying to prove to the world that they aren’t Bungie. They do this by shifting things about the series narratively and mechanically when they really didn’t need such alteration. Promethians had to come about narratively because you couldn’t fight Forerunners in the prior Halo games (nobody really asked to, but whatever). The Uber-popular and endlessly replayable arcade Firefight mode from Reach was replaced with the linear retread of Spartan Ops, which had a questionable story and felt to me less replayable than the regular campaign. Nobody I recall wanted Firefight to go away (I think with the return of Reach in MCC, we’re seeing from a lot of us how much it has been missed), but 343i thought they knew what we’d want even more than what we expected we’d get or would have asked for. Other examples are how hard they doubled down on Loadouts in H4, the rather bad forced co-op mechanics in H5, the way the armory progression/unlock system has newly been redesigned in Reach MCC, and so on.

I understand that new things need to be tried with a series like this. I didn’t hate Reach for introducing AA’s to Halo (a lot of people do, though- and a lot more did when that game first launched). I just really dislike how 343i assumes they know what we’ll prefer to the “old way,” and instead of taking a cautious approach by limiting how many risky changes they make and leaving a solid foundation there, they make the sort of changes that redefine the entire experience. You couldn’t play Halo 4 MP without getting involved in the Loadouts mess. You can’t play the H5 campaign in anything resembling the sane way you could all the campaigns before it (bad co-op/squad mechanics and no splitscreen). You haven’t been able to play with a PvE sandbox mode like Firefight in this series for almost a decade. And these are all choices 343i has made deliberately to define their Halo as different and “better”, “more contemporary,” whatever, than Bungie’s. I’m not saying that Bungie made perfect games, because they didn’t. And they’ve certainly moved on to make bigger mistakes than they ever did on Halo with Destiny, so I’m not even saying they’d be doing better things with this series if they were still shepherding it.

I’m just saying that this one new feature added for two old and well liked ones removed approach to Halo has not been appreciated much on my part. I’d like very much for Infinite to return to a more basic feel, structurally resembling the more classic games with a few new meaningful and well thought out changes to contribute going forward.

What Bungie devs are they hiring? I haven’t heard about this.

> 2533275031939856;3:
> What Bungie devs are they hiring? I haven’t heard about this.

Its not that there “hiring” bungie devs but there getting in touch with some to help them figure out the coding for halo reach since it was a mess and the coding for it back in the day when it was made was kind of pieced together and very custom if that makes sence…

> 2535410704700107;1:
> Hey so I know everyone’s hyped about Halo 6, and chances are if your a Halo nerd like me, you would loose an arm an a leg to have Halo 6 be a good solid game. We see 343 going back to the old art style, kicking off halo 5 developers and reaching out to old long since left bungie developers. I wanted to know all your thoughts with Halo Infinite though because if we lay all the pieces out on the table: 343 is trying to go back to the old halo style as well as make it interesting to new audiences to hook them in… What I feel a lot of us are concerned about is 343 trying to deliver something to please everyone, myself for one don’t care which route 343 takes the game and generally enjoy everything they create as well as halo being my favorite game series. (I’m writing this while waiting for Halo Reach PC to finish downloading XD) I cant stress enough that we being the next generation of consumers to the halo franchise need to give 343 time to “make halo what it was” generally speaking I hear a lot of non halo fans that don’t play halo say halo reach was an amazing game, so I’m not sure why 343 has been trying to change halo to… some unknown new audience that wants something different. its kind of like the “if you replace a boat one wood plank at a time is it the same boat or a completely different one? metaphor” Halo 5 honestly is a completely new type of game compared to older Halo games: sure there master chief and Halsey and Cortana, but there much different from what we used to see. I’m not saying that’s bad, but if we really want halo to go back to what it was, like so many popular halo consumer voices we need to also consider (back to the metaphor) 343 also being still 343 but switching staff, bungie leaving and new members of the fanbase as well as old ones leaving makes it impossible for 343 to just “make another halo reach type game” so if we want halo to be something of nostalgia or as a “-Yoink!- new game” on the market drawing new people, we need to not blow each other up in a toxic rant against each side of the community as to weather we should remove sprint and make jumps like they were(just a single example of a single aspect of the game), but old members and new alike need to settle with different things, I think personally 343 will do a great job at making the transition, but for the love of god: if we don’t stop arguing over what’s better it will make it harder for 343 to make its own decisions and try to make a hybrid game which would be the downfall of the game because it just doesn’t work… so yeah I wanted to know some other people opinions to know how others in the community stand on the issue
> - chow

Halo 1-3/ ODST are my favorite campaigns. Reach is my favorite multiplayer and all around favorite game of the series. I don’t like 4-5 much at all.

Love or hate Reach, what is undeniably considered a turning point in the community, you can’t deny that it didn’t take the original Halo formula and overall style and give it a new twist, which is interesting enough considering it was a prequel. It also delivered the most content at launch in the history of Halo, and delivered a solid campaign. I personally enjoyed the game as it was at launch, felt like it was an improved Halo 3. Most of the people on these forums don’t hold that opinion, but outside of the forums and amongst everyone I’ve ever physically spoken to we pretty much felt the same. But regardless, I think we can all agree that if you made a few small gameplay tweaks, Reach feels just a like a classic Halo. And that’s all it was ever meant to be, a classic Halo with a few new twists, and it nailed it in that regard.

In my opinion, where 343 has been floundering is they took Reach and it’s popularity and success as a signal to go crazy with the changes. When 4 arrived, it didn’t look, feel, sound like it even play like a Halo game. Only Master Chief and Cortana and a few other elements looked relatively familiar, and still yet foreign. They took Reach’s gameplay and took it to an extreme that made it unrecognizable, while also somehow managing to water down armor abilities. Combine that with Bleedthrough on shields again back from Halo 3 and the ability to spawn with whatever weapon you wanted, and earn kill streaks, and they basically had created Space COD.

Then when that didn’t blow over very well, despite a decent campaign, they went back to the drawing board again with 5, and in my opinion made the same mistakes just with slightly different/better results. This time they removed split screen, thinking fans probably cared more about graphics and performance than couch co-op after 4’s poor performance on the 360 hardware and they removed it. They again tweaked abilities, this time to a more sensible compromise, but they kept sprint as a built in ability and added ADS. And they did nothing for the rather awful art style and mediocre soundtrack. The campaign story was terrible this time, despite a pretty playable multiplayer.

I feel like Infinite is where they have finally realized that the evolution of Halo is a LOT more successful when it’s subtle between titles. Reverting back to a more classic look after roughly 7-8 years of this other style is going to be jarring, but warmly welcomed. Hopefully they took what they learned from 5’s decent multiplayer and they will take a classic “but with some spices from past experience added” approach instead of making large and sweeping changes between titles.

> 2533274857642512;5:
> > 2535410704700107;1:
> > Hey so I know everyone’s hyped about Halo 6, and chances are if your a Halo nerd like me, you would loose an arm an a leg to have Halo 6 be a good solid game. We see 343 going back to the old art style, kicking off halo 5 developers and reaching out to old long since left bungie developers. I wanted to know all your thoughts with Halo Infinite though because if we lay all the pieces out on the table: 343 is trying to go back to the old halo style as well as make it interesting to new audiences to hook them in… What I feel a lot of us are concerned about is 343 trying to deliver something to please everyone, myself for one don’t care which route 343 takes the game and generally enjoy everything they create as well as halo being my favorite game series. (I’m writing this while waiting for Halo Reach PC to finish downloading XD) I cant stress enough that we being the next generation of consumers to the halo franchise need to give 343 time to “make halo what it was” generally speaking I hear a lot of non halo fans that don’t play halo say halo reach was an amazing game, so I’m not sure why 343 has been trying to change halo to… some unknown new audience that wants something different. its kind of like the “if you replace a boat one wood plank at a time is it the same boat or a completely different one? metaphor” Halo 5 honestly is a completely new type of game compared to older Halo games: sure there master chief and Halsey and Cortana, but there much different from what we used to see. I’m not saying that’s bad, but if we really want halo to go back to what it was, like so many popular halo consumer voices we need to also consider (back to the metaphor) 343 also being still 343 but switching staff, bungie leaving and new members of the fanbase as well as old ones leaving makes it impossible for 343 to just “make another halo reach type game” so if we want halo to be something of nostalgia or as a “-Yoink!- new game” on the market drawing new people, we need to not blow each other up in a toxic rant against each side of the community as to weather we should remove sprint and make jumps like they were(just a single example of a single aspect of the game), but old members and new alike need to settle with different things, I think personally 343 will do a great job at making the transition, but for the love of god: if we don’t stop arguing over what’s better it will make it harder for 343 to make its own decisions and try to make a hybrid game which would be the downfall of the game because it just doesn’t work… so yeah I wanted to know some other people opinions to know how others in the community stand on the issue
> > - chow
>
> Halo 1-3/ ODST are my favorite campaigns. Reach is my favorite multiplayer and all around favorite game of the series. I don’t like 4-5 much at all.
>
> Love or hate Reach, what is undeniably considered a turning point in the community, you can’t deny that it didn’t take the original Halo formula and overall style and give it a new twist, which is interesting enough considering it was a prequel. It also delivered the most content at launch in the history of Halo, and delivered a solid campaign. I personally enjoyed the game as it was at launch, felt like it was an improved Halo 3. Most of the people on these forums don’t hold that opinion, but outside of the forums and amongst everyone I’ve ever physically spoken to we pretty much felt the same. But regardless, I think we can all agree that if you made a few small gameplay tweaks, Reach feels just a like a classic Halo. And that’s all it was ever meant to be, a classic Halo with a few new twists, and it nailed it in that regard.
>
> In my opinion, where 343 has been floundering is they took Reach and it’s popularity and success as a signal to go crazy with the changes. When 4 arrived, it didn’t look, feel, sound like it even play like a Halo game. Only Master Chief and Cortana and a few other elements looked relatively familiar, and still yet foreign. They took Reach’s gameplay and took it to an extreme that made it unrecognizable, while also somehow managing to water down armor abilities. Combine that with Bleedthrough on shields again back from Halo 3 and the ability to spawn with whatever weapon you wanted, and earn kill streaks, and they basically had created Space COD.
>
> Then when that didn’t blow over very well, despite a decent campaign, they went back to the drawing board again with 5, and in my opinion made the same mistakes just with slightly different/better results. This time they removed split screen, thinking fans probably cared more about graphics and performance than couch co-op after 4’s poor performance on the 360 hardware and they removed it. They again tweaked abilities, this time to a more sensible compromise, but they kept sprint as a built in ability and added ADS. And they did nothing for the rather awful art style and mediocre soundtrack. The campaign story was terrible this time, despite a pretty playable multiplayer.
>
> I feel like Infinite is where they have finally realized that the evolution of Halo is a LOT more successful when it’s subtle between titles. Reverting back to a more classic look after roughly 7-8 years of this other style is going to be jarring, but warmly welcomed. Hopefully they took what they learned from 5’s decent multiplayer and they will take a classic “but with some spices from past experience added” approach instead of making large and sweeping changes between titles.

Yes!! someone else who thinks like me XD that’s what iv been alluding to with the if you replace a ship one piece at a time thing… I think 343 needs to take there time and take a few hits before they mold back into what they once were, the problem is they had halo 4 and 5 to do that and now everyone is saying its a hit or miss thing because instead of trying to fix things with five they dug themselves a deeper hole in the since they were going crazy with the changes like you were saying once they saw halo reaches success.