I just signed onto Waypoint for my weekly check-up on all things Halo, in constant hope that something has changed with the direction this company is taking the franchise. But to my disappointment, all I found was the option to pay $10 to buy a REQ Pack and the option to vote on one of three gametypes for this weekend’s rotating playlist: Snipers, Rumble Rockets, and Strongholds.
I’ve seen the past weekend playlist options, and I just can’t imagine why 343i are offering these types of games. I think back to the glory days of Halo 3, where Double EXP weekend was a time where my buddies would come over, we’d play 4-player splitscreen in Grifball and tactically plant the ball 3 times in a row, or we’d play on one of the 80+ Custom Forge maps that were included in the Maptacular playlist, trying to learn new maps on the spot, find weapons, and get that awesome Double EXP. There were gametypes such as Fiesta, 3-Ball, Rocket Race, Tug of War, Grifball, and a plethora of new maps each weekend. Sometimes they’d make it MLG FFA with 12 players, but the next week it would be Team ODST, where Carbines and Pistols ruled on maps such as The Pit and Construct.
But now, we’re nearly 7 weeks into Halo 5, and the options to vote for our Weekend playlist, which is supposed to bring variety, unique gameplay, and ultimately fun, are Snipers, Rumble Rockets, and Strongholds, two basic gametypes that arguably could have their own playlists and one gametype that was recycled from the previous week.
A big reason why this seems to aggravate me so much is that I expected so much more from Halo. Halo Reach had the most options for Customization of any Halo, building upon Halo 3, which built upon Halo 2. You could change almost any setting to whatever you wanted, Forge using multiple techniques to create maps, jungle gyms, and crash courses, and choose gametype settings that allowed players to create millions of gametypes.
Then Halo 4 came out, and a lot of what we were accustomed to was removed. The biggest thing I remember from Halo 4 that was added were those regions of space where gravity could be tuned differently. We couldn’t remove Sprint, We didn’t have nearly the amount of customization available to us for games like Infection. And Weekend playlists weren’t really a thing.
Halo 5, for as much hype as it received, has failed to meet expectations in the eyes of many players. Players begged 343i to do something for the competitive players after they failed to introduce competitive ranking in Halo 4, but 343i continued their tradition of over-correcting by making this game 100% about the competitive players. We have Slayer, Strongholds, and CTF. That’s it. Breakout is glorified Elimination, Warzone is glorified Firefight (killing enemy players doesn’t reward nearly enough to make it anything more), and these Weekend playlists have been pretty lackluster.
I haven’t messed around with the Custom Games settings, 100% due to the fact that I can’t even play them locally with friends on the same TV. But I have seen threads about their limited options, too few gametypes, and failure to address anything on the massive Custom Games thread that has been in Waypoint for several years. There’s literally a thread that compiles the top wants and needs from the community for Custom Games, and 343i didn’t address it once.
I certainly appreciate the free DLC and the semi-constant updates from 343i, but until they address diversity in their community rather than focus on one niche at a time, they will continue to fail. We will continue to see Halo after Halo, because this franchise is a goldmine and Microsoft will continue to capitalize on that. But each Halo will forget the successes of the previous and focus on fixing its failures, ultimately forgetting about the successes and alienating a large portion of the players who enjoyed it.
This game has already been played far less than any previous Halo. We have the numbers to prove that (NOTE: Please do not cite that article that explains how this was the biggest launch. We’ve been through this. It’s based on monetary value, and I’m talking strictly about hours/games played). Halo’s trajectory will continue to spiral downward until Halo 3’s current population is the same size as Halo 5’s or Halo 6’s, and we will struggle to find games against different opponents, lose interest, and quit playing altogether.
