Yeah, we’ve all heard how original Halo trilogy is great and how 343i is Satan who spawned evil incarnate - Halo 4…
But imagine world where Halo Reach is Halo 4 and next gen Halo is Destiny. Is it really better than what we’ve got?
I’d say so, I’d rather they work on something they’d feel passionate and fresh about over rehashing the same title again and again. They felt the time for their departure was right and in the end that’s all that matters.
So far, 343i has been far more committed to the Halo universe than Bungie ever bothered. In fact, with game after game, Bungie repeatably gave Lore fans the finger by not only dodging the books whenever possible, but also straight-up retconning them.
In the lore department, 343i wins. By far.
Not to mention that Halo 4’s story is arguably the best among the majority of the fans.
> So far, 343i has been far more committed to the Halo universe than Bungie ever bothered. In fact, with game after game, Bungie repeatably gave Lore fans the finger by not only dodging the books whenever possible, but also straight-up retconning them.
>
> In the lore department, 343i wins. By far.
>
> Not to mention that Halo 4’s story is arguably the best among the majority of the fans.
I’ll be honest, I’ve never actually seen anyone say Halo 4’s story was better than the original three.
> I’ll be honest, I’ve never actually seen anyone say Halo 4’s story was better than the original three.
i have…a lot. And i have to say, for the most part, i agree with them. The story was great, and had me a lot more interested in the story telling.
Though admittedly, its not the absolute best. For me, Halo CE is the best - its the game that started everything, and had the most campaign replayability for me. And then Halo 2 and 4 are tied at a very close second.
Getting back on topic though, i’m certainly glad Bungie is gone. Its a good idea to have fresh faces working on a franchise every now and again, otherwise we’ll have devs constantly losing interest, just as we had with Bungie.
Kinda.
The only problem i had with Bungie was that they never really cared about the story in Halo, but their games had great multiplayers.
Which is kinda funny when you think about that 343I is actually caring about the story, and the multiplayer in their game was nowhere near ‘great’ In my opinion.
After playing the destiny beta i am glad they let go of halo and 343 picked up halo.
There are so many things in destiny the resembles halo, I am not saying destiny is a horrible game, I think its a great game but bungie is just losing there touch as you can tell after reach.
Kinda. They wanted to do their own thing, something new. There’s no use in restricting the artistic process.
Well let’s look at it from a gaming business perspective… Your bungie right? You’ve been working on the same game series for 10+ years, wouldn’t you want to try something new? Bungie is, in a lot of ways, like Epic Games… You see, Epic Games just gave the Gears of War series to Black Tusk, why? Because they were tired of doing the same games and nothing else. They wanted to do something different as equally epic. Hence, why bungie, gave up halo to do Destiny (which looks great)
Now with that said, 343 industries, IMHO, is doing A HELL of a lot better job with the Halo universe. With things like books, comics, TV SHOWS, episodic films(Halo4:FUD & Halo: Nightfall), 343 have dug farther into the Halo universe than Bungie ever thought to do with the Halo universe(IMO if bungie kept Halo, the series would be sitting on a shelf collecting dust by now). Reasoning why this is? It’s because almost 100% of 343’s employee’s are fans… They’re so passionate of the Halo universe that they want to do all they can to explore & expand the universe and keep if alive. You have to think, 343 is STILL a young company with many years to be put under it’s belt, so that firey passion for Halo isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
So what’s my point? To put it lightly, Majority of the time, when the originators of a story are tired of doing it, they pass the torch to someone who still has a fire in them to keep the story alive. With companies like 343 and Black Tusk taking over Big series like Halo and Gears of War, you can already see innovation and passion ticking like clockwork. Black Tusk is so passionate of it’s fan base, that they are consistently interacting with them, because they are as much of fans of the series as the fans themselves. 343 is just like this, so while Halo 4 may have not exceeded expectations, there’s no doubt in my mind that with the Halo 5 Beta on it’s way, we’re already seeing 343 listening to its community and making sure Halo 5, and any other Halo project for that matter, exceeds expectations and beyond. Thank you 343 for consistently expanding one of my favorite franchises, Halo
P.S. Jesus, that was a lot of writing haha
Even though someone pointed this out, here’s a bit of wisdom:
Once a door closes, a window opens.
Halo was the door that closed on Bungie, and outside the window is Destiny. I respect both Halo and Destiny, and I’m sure 343 Industries wasn’t easy AT ALL to establish. They were pumping out a majorly anticipated sequel that… Well, the Xbox 360 platform didn’t do it the proper justice it deserves. Sure it could RUN the game, but adding that extra bit of content was hard due to the hardware showing its age. I legitimately feel bad that 343i had to specifically build Halo 4 for the Xbox 360 instead of a platform that was only months away from being announced, followed by an unfortunate debacle, instead of the Xbox One which’d have better resources to handle it.
As far as lore goes, the Master Chief isn’t just a guy that is good at what he does. He has a much, much richer back story - an increasingly haunting trail of evidence leaves many possibilities. Including his seemingly mundane conversations on the Halo ring. Bungie foresaw that Halo Combat Evolved would play better than give a clearer background - Gameplay takes precedence. 343i expanded his story beyond a forever lost hero in space.
I’m not a PC fanboy. But there were quite a few Halo games on the Xbox 360, and the way Halo 4 ran was telling.
343 are dedicating themselves to Halo, yes there have been a lot of problems with them but at the end of the day they are having more involvement than Bungie ever did.
With how they treated Halo with reach it was obvious that Bungie was done with Halo after ODST. I’m glad that 343 now has control, because Bungie’s vision with Destiny isn’t too reassuring imo.
I have been playing destiny a bunch, the free roam coop is all nice. But IMO when it comes to PVP FPS Matchmaking action halo still takes the cake. As for the 343 Bungie thing. 343 has done better campaign wise with Halo 4 then Bungie ever did with 1,2,3, ODST, and reach. Also I’m sure they have learned from their mistakes MP wise. I have high hopes for H5 and I’m sure it’ll be great.
One thing I can say is that unless Bungie comes out with some really insanely good dlc destiny won’t gain anything close the the legendaryness of Halo.
> After playing the destiny beta i am glad they let go of halo and 343 picked up halo.
>
> There are so many things in destiny the resembles halo, I am not saying destiny is a horrible game, I think its a great game but bungie is just losing there touch as you can tell after reach.
Also this, and not just resembles halo. The sound some of the fallen make is straight up halo jackals. Invisible kind of elite looking things with swords? Oh the honor guard called, they want their invisibility device back.
Oh look drops ships carrying enemies.
Not to mention stuff from other games.
The Tower = Mass Effect’s Citadel. Even the way it looks kind of.
The whole weapon and armor thing has been done to death by loads of games including borderlands, dead island.
A couple of the events are the same objective as events in defiance. (I’m sure there are other games with such events though.)
I enjoy destiny I do, and I’ll be buying it. But still WOW.
I think it was for the best. Bungie was tired after 3. They still had to make 2 more games for Microsoft. ODST became a full game, and its pretty obvious Reach became a testing ground for Destiny, which by the way is a pretty solid game.
I’ll always be a Bungie fan, but I think 343 has potential to be great(Story-wise, MP is still touch and go).
It probably was a good idea for Bungie to leave. Most of Halo: Reach’s failed ideas made it into Destiny as class abilities (e.g. every class has their own variant of Jet Pack, class Supers = Armor Abilities, “your character is you”). Had Bungie kept making Halo games, Halo 4 would’ve been delayed a year or two and released instead of Destiny as an MMO FPS. And I don’t want that. I like Destiny and think it’s a great game (by no means is it mediocre), but I also like Halo, and I’m glad that both types of gameplay are continuing on. I’m glad that Destiny’s MMO FPS gameplay’s existence won’t cause Halo’s arena FPS gameplay to cease to exist.
> > So far, 343i has been far more committed to the Halo universe than Bungie ever bothered. In fact, with game after game, Bungie repeatably gave Lore fans the finger by not only dodging the books whenever possible, but also straight-up retconning them.
> >
> > In the lore department, 343i wins. By far.
> >
> > Not to mention that Halo 4’s story is arguably the best among the majority of the fans.
>
> I’ll be honest, I’ve never actually seen anyone say Halo 4’s story was better than the original three.
It is in alot of aspects. Only going to get better from here.
Bungie wanted to go back to doing their own thing, and if my time in the Beta is any indication Destiny looks like its going to be great. Halo had to go to someone and that someone happened to be 343i. IDK if its just all the negativity surrounding halo 4 rubbing off on me and souring my own opinion, but I really hope halo 5 is good enough that it can pry me away from any other games that are out when it arrives. 343i needs to recapture the magic.
I have always appreciated the way Bungie approaches new games. Marathon was before my time, but Myth I & II and Halo CE & Halo 2 are probably my all time most favorite video games. I feel like Bungie was at their best when delivering new games, but the luster wears off after a few iterations.
If Bungie was growing tired of Halo, and you believe that they’re at their strongest developing new games, then yes, I’d say it’s a good thing. And 343 has a strong history with the franchise and the desire to see it forward, so I’m glad they picked up the reins.
My one caveat: Part of what made Halo so great under Bungie’s guidance was its scrappy upstart attitude – they did their own thing on their own time, and weren’t afraid to stick it to the Man while doing it. 343 should be wearing of all the MBAs roaming Microsoft’s corridors… they’re great at business, sure, but that doesn’t always make for a great video game. Video game first, complex marketing tie-ins and product mixes second, lest you lose that special something that made Halo so easy and enjoyable to pick up in the first place.
> Part of what made Halo so great under Bungie’s guidance was its scrappy upstart attitude – they did their own thing on their own time, and weren’t afraid to stick it to the Man while doing it.
Like when they cut most of Halo 2’s content because Microsoft wanted it released before Christmas for better sales?