It all hinges on tomorrow.

Games Halo Infinite
1

Nothing shown in that reveal for multiplayer was anything but Halo 5.5.
It amazes me how (I’m pretty positive on this) many people here would tout that Halo needs to grow and change (or some cope like that) because halo 3.5 isn’t what will save the franchise yet here we have a modified Halo 5 with new art style and some new maps and weapons. No Halo 5 wasn’t good. It was boring. It played well, the gun play was satisfying, the maps were solid, but that no longer makes a good enough FPS game to main. (sorry not sorry the game was launched in a bad state as well) Destiny is a horrible game (from my view and hey it was bare bones launched too) that is played quasi religiously by an extremely dedicated yet masochistic crowd of gamers who enjoy being milked of their hard earned cash in exchange for cool lore and tight gun play… but would you play the hell out of destiny still? I wouldn’t because those aren’t factors that made Halo so good alone. It’s not enough. It gets old. I can go to any game with good shooting mechanics and tight feel. COD does it for Christ’s sake. Apex Legends, etc, etc…
Things that won’t bring halo back:

  • Art Style (it merely is a piece of the puzzle) - 24 player BTB (too little too late) Why does this company continue to fail to push the envelope? All they ever do is make boring decision after boring decision that usually involves chasing trends. Forge is their greatest success in my eyes. And though it takes forever they do happen to do some neat things like introducing all their weapon and vehicle versions from warzone into forge and customs for example. Otherwise it’s kind of just sad how little innovation this company can come up with. - Nostalgia bait I.E. old vehicles, weapon redesigns, throw back references (Johnson I’m looking at you), etc…Things that do bring Halo back:

  • New ways to make the game fresh that don’t involve destroying the flow of what the original games were built on such as:

  • modding support which MS has shown they are all for allowing on console ergo Fallout 4 (call it forge 3.0 or whatever version we’re on) I don’t expect this because of the game being free to play. I expect a very locked down game that will also require extensive use of anti cheat detection due to said game being free to play also. - allowing people to actually create hybrid gametype settings (call it True Customs or whatever they feel like I’m not involved in the process) such as mixing infection and capture the flag, you get the gist… there is no reason this doesn’t exist in Halo at this point. (except we have a team of dev’s with bad priorities who choose to try and “revolutionize” the gameplay loop by introducing gameplay mechanics from other popular games woopee!) [note apparently it’s worth mentioning they hinted at a completely true customs game make over that let’s you do whatever you like but it’s 343 so I’ll wait to see if it’s true BEFORE believing them] - fixing the solid yet shallow beat down system of Halo because it’s been 20 years and Halo CE still has the most skill gap in melee. Halo 3 was going down the right track even if the execution was a bit flawed. Why shouldn’t bladed brute weapons let you win melee fight ties for example? Simple but effective change that implements good complexity into the sandbox and gives weapons more varied reasons for existing instead of being reskins of another. - New modes the likes of forge and theater. Easier said than done, yet it’s a huge team. They had a massive budget. The multiplayer is free to play because it’s their way of ensuring they make a lot more off the players this time around to help recover from the investment of infinite’s dev time/costs. Personally I don’t see this happening. It’s free to play and I will expect drip feeding content similar to Halo 5’s. But none the less it’s important that Halo actually evolves by giving us new ways to play instead of just adopting movement mechanics from popular shooters. - Actually come up with ways to improve the golden triangle. (guns, melee, grenades if you aren’t familiar) Above I mentioned brute bladed weapons having a beat down bonus so you win versus tying like usual to differentiate them from their USNC counterparts. Other things they could do is introduce weapons that improve your grenade throwing abilities. Imagine if having a specific weapon (and ONLY that specific weapon or weapon type, NOT an attachment to all guns or anything) with an under barrel that lets you launch a frag further and more precise? (whether it would still act like a frag or explode on impact I couldn’t tell you without balance testing). So you press left trigger and actually shoot the limited grenades you spawn with and pick up for as long as you have that weapon or just use it like normal with right trigger. It’s just an example but you might understand now. There needs to be more actual innovation. Bring back projectile versus plasma differences as another. Equipment being back is nice. Personally I like equipment from Halo 3, and I always thought with more fleshing out they’d be a great new addition to the golden triangle to the point we’d then have a golden quad instead. However I can’t say I agree that they should be multiple use tools. Oh well they’re in the way they’re in now and will be annoyingly more like armor abilities instead of equipment.Too long didn’t read version: This game is just an updated free to play Halo 5. It will be solid but likely get old fast, it will not play like a unique Halo title but instead continue to chase trends, it will likely be successful and recover it’s costs plus make profit because of the nature of free to play games. I expect frustrations from “classic halo fans” and I will expect a dwindling population that will still drive solid profits for 343 just as Halo 5 did. They just don’t have what it takes as a team to drive the series into a future where the game can stand on it’s own merits. They honestly should have just been relegated to making some other Sci Fi. I don’t believe anything 343 hints at or says they want to do because it’s a tired tale of theirs to over-promise and under deliver or out right scam.(in the case of MCC launch)
    Tomorrow has to show us something new and mind blowing or the series is still just the same cash grab BS that it’s been since 343 took over.

2

It looks great. I’m gonna play it, probably sink many hours into it. I don’t mind anything it brought to the table, feels like how Halo should’ve evolved up to this point. Looks like many fun shenanigans will be had in customs.

3

> 2533274814292581;2:
> It looks great. I’m gonna play it, probably sink many hours into it. I don’t mind anything it brought to the table, feels like how Halo should’ve evolved up to this point. Looks like many fun shenanigans will be had in customs.

What do you feel has evolved since Halo 3 in your eyes? I can’t think of anything besides forge improvements. Reach, Four, and Five brought great forge improvements for real time map making. Four and Especially five were lacking in customs. (five failed spectacularly at launch and for a good while afterwards) Four was a bad multiplayer and Five while good multiplayer did nothing new. At all.
I can’t see anything in this trailer that looks different to Five besides armor abilities as a map pick up that are now called equipment.

4

I mean, I’m definitely not an infinite defender, but why is battle size considered ‘innovation’ and not ‘chasing trends’.

Halo’s always been a smaller battle game, other games have bigger battles.

5

I loved what I saw. Quite honestly, it was what I wanted. A bunch of new stuff added into the sandbox to spice up the gameplay. I feel they took what I enjoyed about H5 and mixed it with 3 and Reach. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow holds in terms of sandbox gameplay.

6

> 2533274964189700;4:
> I mean, I’m definitely not an infinite defender, but why is battle size considered ‘innovation’ and not ‘chasing trends’.
>
> Halo’s always been a smaller battle game, other games have bigger battles.

I put player size as not something that will innovate Halo into new heights to be fair.
I simply made the point it is to be expected that we should be allowed to have more players in matches if we want. The tech is there. Halo can scale quite well with more players because a lot of the time you battle one on one even in larger fights. Don’t get me wrong with DMR’s it’s a different experience though… more like people team shotting anyone out in the open dumb enough to be there.

7

I don’t get your point. What I watched looked like your “halo 3.5.” Many of of the innovations you’ve suggested have already been addressed and are coming into the game.

8

> 2535467179739507;7:
> I don’t get your point. What I watched looked like your “halo 3.5.” Many of of the innovations you’ve suggested have already been addressed and are coming into the game.

It most certainly is not Halo 3.5. I really don’t even get how you come to that conclusion. This is quite literally Halo 5.5. Art style does not make a game like it’s predecessor you know.
Regardless my point is I don’t want Halo 3.5. I don’t want Halo 5.5.

I want the true Halo 4 that has never been released. So far 343 has failed to innovate. After ten years of dev work and team building… Halo CE:A, Halo 4, Halo MCC, Halo 5, and now soon to be Halo 6… we are stuck with “Halo but now with sprint/slide/armor ability pick ups!” That’s it? That’s all we can expect now? I understand it’s hard to innovate from a saturated market but there is always a way to be creative. Bungie was not perfect mind you either. AT ALL. Though they had some REALLY talented people however who did great things for the Halo series that I had hoped 343 years ago would have built upon. It just doesn’t seem to be happening and it’s disappointing.

9

You’re certainly right in what you say won’t bring crowds back. Regarding what you think will bring Halo back, I agree with some things, disagree with others.

Modding, while interesting in its own right, has never been a driving force for Halos popularity, nor do I think it ever will be. What has been far more influential are the creative tools provided by forge, and i think this will continue in HI. Still, while having more forge and theatre options (and even other features) may be cool, not even the best world building tools and coolest new features will drive a games popularity if the core game isn’t fun to play.

Where I think you are thinking in the right direction are your comments on the melee system (particularly about creating interesting interactions with the spiked weapons) or introducing new weapons with unique mechanics. What you’re describing here is innovation through the sandbox. This is definitely where most innovation should occur, and it appears as though this is what infinite has tried to do.

Also, 100% agree on the anti-cheat.

The big differences from h5 are that the armour abilities have been tuned down or deleted, with innovation mostly occurring now through the sandbox. This is at the very least the correct direction (even if not all the way there). The single most important thing we need now in my opinion will be good maps.

10

> 2535444514063000;9:
> You’re certainly right in what you say won’t bring crowds back. Regarding what you think will bring Halo back, I agree with some things, disagree with others.
>
> Modding, while interesting in its own right, has never been a driving force for Halos popularity, nor do I think it ever will be. What has been far more influential are the creative tools provided by forge, and i think this will continue in HI. Still, while having more forge and theatre options (and even other features) may be cool, not even the best world building tools and coolest new features will drive a games popularity if the core game isn’t fun to play.
>
> Where I think you are thinking in the right direction are your comments on the melee system (particularly about creating interesting interactions with the spiked weapons) or introducing new weapons with unique mechanics. What you’re describing here is innovation through the sandbox. This is definitely where most innovation should occur, and it appears as though this is what infinite has tried to do.
>
> Also, 100% agree on the anti-cheat.
>
> The big differences from h5 are that the armour abilities have been tuned down or deleted, with innovation mostly occurring now through the sandbox. This is at the very least the correct direction (even if not all the way there). The single most important thing we need now in my opinion will be good maps.

Pretty much agree with everything you said. Halo’s strengths were solid core gameplay that you can build around, and an innovative sandbox. My hope is that unlike Halo 5, we get Forge right out of the gate.

11

> 2535444514063000;9:
> You’re certainly right in what you say won’t bring crowds back. Regarding what you think will bring Halo back, I agree with some things, disagree with others.
>
> Modding, while interesting in its own right, has never been a driving force for Halos popularity, nor do I think it ever will be. What has been far more influential are the creative tools provided by forge, and i think this will continue in HI. Still, while having more forge and theatre options (and even other features) may be cool, not even the best world building tools and coolest new features will drive a games popularity if the core game isn’t fun to play.
>
> Where I think you are thinking in the right direction are your comments on the melee system (particularly about creating interesting interactions with the spiked weapons) or introducing new weapons with unique mechanics. What you’re describing here is innovation through the sandbox. This is definitely where most innovation should occur, and it appears as though this is what infinite has tried to do.
>
> Also, 100% agree on the anti-cheat.
>
> The big differences from h5 are that the armour abilities have been tuned down or deleted, with innovation mostly occurring now through the sandbox. This is at the very least the correct direction (even if not all the way there). The single most important thing we need now in my opinion will be good maps.

Thanks for reading the OP and responding to it all. Looking forward to making final decisions on tomorrow’s (hopefully) in depth look. Hoping to see more of the maps as well. I do agree it’s a step in the right direction as well however given I won’t call this just a flat out bad looking game. Definitely an upgrade from five. I would play it, just depending on the sandbox and maps for how long I couldn’t say yet.
@JaracRassen you as well, thanks

12

<mark>This post has been edited by a moderator. Please do not post spam.</mark>
*Original post. Click at your own discretion.

Sigh.

13

> 2533274813583846;8:
> > 2535467179739507;7:
> > I don’t get your point. What I watched looked like your “halo 3.5.” Many of of the innovations you’ve suggested have already been addressed and are coming into the game.
>
> It most certainly is not Halo 3.5. I really don’t even get how you come to that conclusion. This is quite literally Halo 5.5. Art style does not make a game like it’s predecessor you know.
> Regardless my point is I don’t want Halo 3.5. I don’t want Halo 5.5.
>
> I want the true Halo 4 that has never been released. So far 343 has failed to innovate. After ten years of dev work and team building… Halo CE:A, Halo 4, Halo MCC, Halo 5, and now soon to be Halo 6… we are stuck with “Halo but now with sprint/slide/armor ability pick ups!” That’s it? That’s all we can expect now? I understand it’s hard to innovate from a saturated market but there is always a way to be creative. Bungie was not perfect mind you either. AT ALL. Though they had some REALLY talented people however who did great things for the Halo series that I had hoped 343 years ago would have built upon. It just doesn’t seem to be happening and it’s disappointing.

Okay than, I apologizing for miss reading your post and what you meant. its a long read, that doesn’t flow well in certain segments. I came to the conclusion this game is halo 3.5 when 343 made it very clear that this game is going back to a focus on sandbox. Like a few others have said this game is going to be a sandbox game, which was the foundation of gameplay in halo 3. I can recall that a few of your suggestions like bladed weapons winning encounters in cqb are aspects of the sandbox in infinite. No, sprint/slide/armor ability pick ups are not all we can expect because 343 is willing to do what is fun for the player.

I will raise you this, what would actually innovate the franchise besides some form of augmented reality that actually puts you into the game? mod support and combining popular game modes do not equal innovation in a franchise, as one is a staple in quiet a few games, while the other can be seen as a lazy attempt to spice things up.

14

I enjoyed what I saw.

I also enjoyed halo 4 and 5.

What makes Halo Halo keeps on changing in my opinion. I never had a grappling hook in Halo 5, so I am going to enjoy that aspect.

15

> 2535467179739507;13:
> > 2533274813583846;8:
> > > 2535467179739507;7:
> > > I don’t get your point. What I watched looked like your “halo 3.5.” Many of of the innovations you’ve suggested have already been addressed and are coming into the game.
> >
> > It most certainly is not Halo 3.5. I really don’t even get how you come to that conclusion. This is quite literally Halo 5.5. Art style does not make a game like it’s predecessor you know.
> > Regardless my point is I don’t want Halo 3.5. I don’t want Halo 5.5.
> >
> > I want the true Halo 4 that has never been released. So far 343 has failed to innovate. After ten years of dev work and team building… Halo CE:A, Halo 4, Halo MCC, Halo 5, and now soon to be Halo 6… we are stuck with “Halo but now with sprint/slide/armor ability pick ups!” That’s it? That’s all we can expect now? I understand it’s hard to innovate from a saturated market but there is always a way to be creative. Bungie was not perfect mind you either. AT ALL. Though they had some REALLY talented people however who did great things for the Halo series that I had hoped 343 years ago would have built upon. It just doesn’t seem to be happening and it’s disappointing.
>
> Okay than, I apologizing for miss reading your post and what you meant. its a long read, that doesn’t flow well in certain segments. I came to the conclusion this game is halo 3.5 when 343 made it very clear that this game is going back to a focus on sandbox. Like a few others have said this game is going to be a sandbox game, which was the foundation of gameplay in halo 3. I can recall that a few of your suggestions like bladed weapons winning encounters in cqb are aspects of the sandbox in infinite. No, sprint/slide/armor ability pick ups are not all we can expect because 343 is willing to do what is fun for the player.
>
> I will raise you this, what would actually innovate the franchise besides some form of augmented reality that actually puts you into the game? mod support and combining popular game modes do not equal innovation in a franchise, as one is a staple in quiet a few games, while the other can be seen as a lazy attempt to spice things up.

Are you sure that brute weapons will win mutual trade off beat downs? Haven’t heard of this yet.

Combining game modes also isn’t what I meant exactly. It’s more of actually allowing the freedom of gametype creation so that you’re not limited within presets. I had heard iirc that 343 MIGHT be doing something like this. Where you will be allowed to essentially create ANYTHING you can think of as a gametype. Like say a zombies match where the survivors have to capture objective points. Or create a battle royale. (although sort of disappointing with a cap of 24 players) Innovation to me at it’s best is when a dev team allows player freedom and choice whether it’s in how to tackle a skirmish mid match, complete an objective, or how to play the game entirely. Sure maybe that’s not text book definition but if a company can not find the inspiration themselves to be innovative then the next best step is to push the tools to allow their playerbase to create the innovation themselves. Hence why I believe modding tools should be standard and why they’re so complimentary to something like forge and needed even in Halo.

As for what I would do? For starters while it might require an engine rework and simply not feasible (to my knowledge 343 had serious internal troubles during the dev of infinite so likely they were once again rushing and crunching to get anything out for last years series x launch) but I would have made all of the game modes and play modes completely customizable.
I thought about this when I realized 343 had entire giant maps that were unplayable on normal multiplayer in halo 5 (warzone maps) or in forge and it was a shame. You should be able to firefight, forge, play custom game, etc on all campaign/warzone/firefight maps. The way to feasibly achieve this is that activating forging on any .map with scripts (campaign) would simply bring up the .map file with all scripting disabled or a separate forge canvas version of it with scripts removed. We already have the tools to section off maps in forge. Forgeble A.I. while not the easiest thing is possible and modders have achieved it so rewriting the engine ahead of time to accommodate this would make it certainly more achievable. One should be able to turn campaign sections into firefight maps. Turn firefight maps into one v one arenas. Turn regular maps into whatever they wish them to be. Sure perhaps some game out there has done that (drawing blanks on which without modding) it certainly is a rare enough thing to encounter as a feature set and would greatly increase replayability and if the work wasn’t too daunting might even pad out the content with less work than trying to push out more maps as fast as possible. They do already have playable bots and I would assume these bots might even have a degree of functionality around maneuvering through forge edited maps so it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

As for gameplay itself Id like to talk on that but it’s late. Will likely tomorrow edit this. Innovating the franchise by adding more ways to create, share, and play is easier than innovating FPS core gameplay. But that’s my problem. I know it’s hard. I just expect that a company will not simply grab onto trends because some FPS games decided the only way to feasibly “innovate” is adding a context button to push to “increase speed” to move around bigger maps. Or a button to dash or roll or dodge or slide while running. It’s lazy game design in my eyes and it shows how creatively bankrupt FPS gaming is getting when they’re all using the same movement types. I get some people feel it’s more visceral but I can look past that and see it’s shallow implementation to make the player feel more engaged or faster while it’s all a trick.
Personally I believe Halo should go look at Halo 2’s sprint mechanic that wasn’t implemented where you speed up the longer you run. (as well as your weapon stays up and you can fight while running full speed) This would encourage us to keep the map sizes we are used to in older games while letting players actually feel the same progression of speed so they contextually know they’re “sprinting” thus it accomplishes the trick on players that “press X to sprint” does making them feel faster yet doesn’t ruin map size and design. It also would encourage players to continue to rotate around the map to keep maximum movement speed. Win-Win. Anyways more on this later.

16

> 2533274813583846;1:
> Nothing shown in that reveal for multiplayer was anything but Halo 5.5.
> It amazes me how (I’m pretty positive on this) many people here would tout that Halo needs to grow and change (or some cope like that) because halo 3.5 isn’t what will save the franchise yet here we have a modified Halo 5 with new art style and some new maps and weapons. No Halo 5 wasn’t good. It was boring. It played well, the gun play was satisfying, the maps were solid, but that no longer makes a good enough FPS game to main. (sorry not sorry the game was launched in a bad state as well) Destiny is a horrible game (from my view and hey it was bare bones launched too) that is played quasi religiously by an extremely dedicated yet masochistic crowd of gamers who enjoy being milked of their hard earned cash in exchange for cool lore and tight gun play… but would you play the hell out of destiny still? I wouldn’t because those aren’t factors that made Halo so good alone. It’s not enough. It gets old. I can go to any game with good shooting mechanics and tight feel. COD does it for Christ’s sake. Apex Legends, etc, etc…
> Things that won’t bring halo back:
> - Art Style (it merely is a piece of the puzzle) - 24 player BTB (too little too late) Why does this company continue to fail to push the envelope? All they ever do is make boring decision after boring decision that usually involves chasing trends. Forge is their greatest success in my eyes. And though it takes forever they do happen to do some neat things like introducing all their weapon and vehicle versions from warzone into forge and customs for example. Otherwise it’s kind of just sad how little innovation this company can come up with. - Nostalgia bait I.E. old vehicles, weapon redesigns, throw back references (Johnson I’m looking at you), etc…Things that do bring Halo back:
> - New ways to make the game fresh that don’t involve destroying the flow of what the original games were built on such as: - modding support which MS has shown they are all for allowing on console ergo Fallout 4 (call it forge 3.0 or whatever version we’re on) I don’t expect this because of the game being free to play. I expect a very locked down game that will also require extensive use of anti cheat detection due to said game being free to play also. - allowing people to actually create hybrid gametype settings (call it True Customs or whatever they feel like I’m not involved in the process) such as mixing infection and capture the flag, you get the gist… there is no reason this doesn’t exist in Halo at this point. (except we have a team of dev’s with bad priorities who choose to try and “revolutionize” the gameplay loop by introducing gameplay mechanics from other popular games woopee!) [note apparently it’s worth mentioning they hinted at a completely true customs game make over that let’s you do whatever you like but it’s 343 so I’ll wait to see if it’s true BEFORE believing them] - fixing the solid yet shallow beat down system of Halo because it’s been 20 years and Halo CE still has the most skill gap in melee. Halo 3 was going down the right track even if the execution was a bit flawed. Why shouldn’t bladed brute weapons let you win melee fight ties for example? Simple but effective change that implements good complexity into the sandbox and gives weapons more varied reasons for existing instead of being reskins of another. - New modes the likes of forge and theater. Easier said than done, yet it’s a huge team. They had a massive budget. The multiplayer is free to play because it’s their way of ensuring they make a lot more off the players this time around to help recover from the investment of infinite’s dev time/costs. Personally I don’t see this happening. It’s free to play and I will expect drip feeding content similar to Halo 5’s. But none the less it’s important that Halo actually evolves by giving us new ways to play instead of just adopting movement mechanics from popular shooters. - Actually come up with ways to improve the golden triangle. (guns, melee, grenades if you aren’t familiar) Above I mentioned brute bladed weapons having a beat down bonus so you win versus tying like usual to differentiate them from their USNC counterparts. Other things they could do is introduce weapons that improve your grenade throwing abilities. Imagine if having a specific weapon (and ONLY that specific weapon or weapon type, NOT an attachment to all guns or anything) with an under barrel that lets you launch a frag further and more precise? (whether it would still act like a frag or explode on impact I couldn’t tell you without balance testing). So you press left trigger and actually shoot the limited grenades you spawn with and pick up for as long as you have that weapon or just use it like normal with right trigger. It’s just an example but you might understand now. There needs to be more actual innovation. Bring back projectile versus plasma differences as another. Equipment being back is nice. Personally I like equipment from Halo 3, and I always thought with more fleshing out they’d be a great new addition to the golden triangle to the point we’d then have a golden quad instead. However I can’t say I agree that they should be multiple use tools. Oh well they’re in the way they’re in now and will be annoyingly more like armor abilities instead of equipment.

Halo infinite is definitely closer to halo 3 than halo 5 and that is very clear in just the trailer. Spartan charge, ground pound, stabilizers, and thrusters are all gone from what we have seen. Halo 5 had its own movement mechanics and skill set that came with it such as stabilizer jumps to get higher than normal jumps, thruster slide jump combos to maintain a high momentum and more. All of that was considered advanced movement and it’s gone. The only returning things are slide, sprint, and maybe clamber (not sure if it was in the trailer). Even sprint can be seen as much slower than halo 5. In halo 5, there is a big gap in max base movement speed and sprint. In the trailer it is hardly even noticeable. Actually if the animation was not there maybe no one would even know it’s there because the difference has shrunk big time.

What was added to infinite was equipment pickups. That includes the deploy shield, grappling hook, and the sensor grenade from the trailer. The blog about the trailer already said the equipment has limited uses before they will need to be picked up again.

It has essentially become halo 3 with more equipment and sprint. That’s it. All the learning of advanced movement from halo 5 will most likely be useless.

Now you talk about innovation but you only mentioned incredibly minor things about melee in halo. That won’t cut it. There needs to be more than that and I’m sure you want more so just say what you want a halo 2 or 3 successor to be.

The one thing I agree with is that halo 5 launched with a lack of game modes. Halo infinite needs to launch with forge and custom game browser along with firefight, arena, btb, and social game mix. Anything else can wait post launch.