Alright, let’s be truthful here. Halo 5 isn’t the best halo ever made, but it definitely isn’t the worst. This thread is to commend 343 on things they did right and acknowledge the things they did wrong. I’d ask everyone to stay civil and be respectful of other opinions, but this is Halo Waypoint, so that’s almost certainly not going to happen. Here goes. This list is by no means complete.
Things done right:
- Arena. I had missed the more competitive aspects of Halo when Reach and 4 came out. Halo 3 was my favorite game and Halo 5 really gets nostalgic when both teams are dashing for the power weapons.
- Free DLC. It’s not perfect, but at least it’s free, and the fact that they gave us new maps is pretty cool. Before anyone talks about Reach, keep in mind that it’s been 5 months after release of Halo 5. To put things into perspective, 5 months after Reach’s release, there were 16 multiplayer maps for matchmaking. Right now, there are 17 maps in Halo 5 Arena (actually 16 because Orion was removed). Still, this game isn’t as content starved as people like to think.
- Multiplayer gameplay, this ties in with Arena, but the fair starts and weapon balance in this game are pretty phenomenal in my eyes. If you’re good enough, you can beat an SMG with an assault and you can beat a BR with a DMR and vice versa. No one loadout weapon is truly superior in every way.
- Warzone. This is fairly polarizing, but Warzone is pretty good casual fun for me, with the opportunity to use reqs. The way reqs are implemented is quite satisfactory in my eyes, because the req leveling system helps prevent “pay to win”, to an extent.
- Forge. I took it took them a month to bring Forge into Halo 5, but man, was it worth it. Halo 5’s forge is probably the most extensive it’s ever been and I just love it so much.
Things done wrong:
- Arena. Sometimes, it’s just too competitive. The lack of social playlists make it so that a lot of people don’t even touch Arena, which is a shame. The game is so hyper competitive that Arena is no longer fun, though this has just as much to do with the community as the game design.
- Free DLC. They only offer a single map at a time in their content updates, yet continue to fill the game with weapon skins and new vehicles. This causes quite a bit of bloat. It’d be better to have larger content updates in longer intervals.
- UI, I know they’re changing it soon, but the combination of req bloat and the insane number of armors and skins with the poorly designed UI is just atrocious. You have to scroll for a long time just to get to an armor that you like. A reach style armor menu would be much more appropriate for Halo 5.
- UI 2.0. In matchmaking, it’d be nice to have a Reach style lobby where you can view everyone’s armor and stances. Why even have so much armor if you have to get through a quagmire of menus to see other people’s spartans?
- Warzone Assault. It could’ve been the next invasion, but now it’s just…this.
- REQs. The fact that almost all armors are unlocked through REQs is not good for having a steady playerbase. Some armors should be tied to achievements or commendations, so that some players will spend their time trying to get that awesome Helioskrill armor, like in the MCC.
- Map voting, it’d be nice to have that again.
Feel free to add more to either list.