New 2 player COOP mode: Headhunters.

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

Hey, it’s been a while since i last posted, but after lurking through the forums for some time, i don’t think i’ve seen any posts about this.

Headhunters.

For those unfamiliar to the Spartan Headhunters, if i remember right, they were the best of the best of the best. Pairs of Spartans siphoned off from traditional training to more rogue like, extensive ops that could take many months to pull off. They trained with their partners, lived with their partners, and worked and trusted them with their lives. Halo Evolutions tells the story of one pair of Headunters, one pair of around a dozen. I won’t give any spoilers, but they were very tactical, and the story raised a lot of questions that were never answered.

What if the next COOP mode could focus on another pair of Headhunters? Either one pair of the original bunch, or a new generation of them? Either way, we know nothing about the other Headhunters, which would work well implementing your Spartan design akin to noble six in the Reach campaign as nobody knows what they were meant to look like, and the two from the story had very different armour from one another.

This COOP mode could support many missions of different variety akin to Spartan Ops, but could possibly provide a much more diverse environment and different tactical approaches.

Included could even be a more concrete way of working with your partner, i’m not good at explaining it all that well, but imagine a dark stealth based mission, and you reach a rock crop and can boost your friend up for a better view and approach up high, and they could pull you up as well. Or while they were up high you could sneak around while they spotted enemies for you, or could provide a distraction so you could slip in and out.

It could really add to the immersion knowing that you have roles to fulfil instead of all running in guns blazing like on Spartan Ops.

If you possibly threw in experimental and possibly prototype weapons and gadgets you would be able to use some really cool fire power and tricks that could never be balanced in MP, but works against AI in a closed environment. If the missions were made to be completed in different ways, or had an element of randomness to it (think Payday 2) then this mode could provide a very diverse playstyle, and would mean no two playthroughs were the same!

I believe that a Headhunters two player COOP mode would be the perfect substitute, or perhaps accompaniment to Spartan Ops, and could work very well if implemented correctly.

Any comments? :slight_smile:

2

I’m skeptical of a two-player co-op mode. In matchmaking with four players, you’re much more likely to get at least one player who is somewhat decent in skill. I don’t want to have to quit in the middle of a game if I find my Headhunter partner is lacking in skill or competence.

Other than that, sounds interesting.

3

I like this idea a lot, actually.

It’s a bit of a step down from four-player co-op, but I think it might work better this way. I’ve been mainly playing Spartan Ops two-player co-op anyway, lately. :stuck_out_tongue:

I see a lot of potential for this. They could even work in Insurrectionists, which haven’t been touched on in the games since Halo Wars (And that was only in multiplayer).

One thing I will mention is that Headhunters are NOT expected to live on their missions. They’re sent deep behind enemy lines with no backup. I’d like to see how a SPARTAN-IV variant of Headhunters would be.

4

I like this idea, especially as a co-op mode. I have enjoyed campaign multiplayer and firefight (ops, less so…) so some new ideas in that space are cool by me.

Non sequitor, but your post reminded me of Reach’s Headhunter game type. Man, I really enjoyed that.

And if you haven’t see the Headhunters animated short (I think the Spartans were Roland and Jones) then I highly recommend it. A great, gritty tale set in the Halo universe.

5

This would be a brilliant addition, I think. I always play Halo’s co-op portions solely with my brother anyway, so having a dedicated two-player co-op mode would really be fantastic!

Furthermore, I think having a Headhunters mode would allow for some very unique and interesting gameplay. Headhunters are less about charging in to blow everything up, and more about being sneaky and smart. It could potentially provide us with some missions revolved around sneaking around and using tactical teamwork in order to succeed. Basically, what you said, really. ODST gave us some gameplay in this niche, and I would love to see more of it!

In short, I would absolutely love for 343i to go through with this! I hope that they do so!

6

I remember this animated short story from Halo: Evolutions… was really awesome!

I think this is a good idea… but I have some tweaks or comments.

  • I think that it should be two player co-operative; only if the cloud is providing the entire storage device, otherwise it should have four players, that could be two separate headhunter teams… the two teams start in different locations and regroup at a central point? The reason for this is because Spartan Ops was provided by the cloud which created a lot of lag time… Campaign was fine four-player so… it’s got to be a cloud issue.

  • What you explained was essentially the Army Of Two Co-operative Mechanics… which I don’t have a problem with but… perhaps some more could be added to this… like more stealth options, better flanking and AI mechanics. Here are the co-operative mechanics used in the original Army of Two:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

7

Give this man a medal!

As much as I hated seeing my spartan III brethren being sent on suicide missions, it was badass enough when they came back successful.

This could help me so much in my own Spartans history, being a beta company spartan III who was cross armor hybrid trained with MJOLNIR, then enlisted in the Spartan IV program as a very young leader.

If 343 adds a SPI looking armor I’m gonna lose it :stuck_out_tongue: (Please 343 I know your listening!)

8

I thought about this more, and if Headhunters functioned anything like the heists from Payday 2 in that they require coordination and communication, I’d be all for it.

9

Sounds great. Silenced weapon variants would complement a gametype like this perfectly. (M6C/S anyone?)

10

love the idea but as long as its not a walk in the park also no respawns imo

11

I like this idea, but I would suggest the missions be alot more varied in terms of objectives. Additionally the headhunters should be able to tackle the mission in a variety of ways such as: stealth, direct confrontation or enlisting some help from covenant species that have no alliance with the covenant.

I would also like it to be semi story oriented. Like each mission has its own story with different endings. Like if you live, but your buddy dies - Ending C, or you both die - Ending B, or you both live - Ending A. Each ending would have a cinematic scene of your spartans or spartans that would showcase an event occuring because of your recent mission. I think it make missions feel more personal and unique to the players actions.

12

> I like this idea, but I would suggest the missions be alot more varied in terms of objectives. Additionally the headhunters should be able to tackle the mission in a variety of ways such as: stealth, direct confrontation or enlisting some help from covenant species that have no alliance with the covenant.
>
> I would also like it to be semi story oriented. Like each mission has its own story with different endings. Like if you live, but your buddy dies - Ending C, or you both die - Ending B, or you both live - Ending A. Each ending would have a cinematic scene of your spartans or spartans that would showcase an event occuring because of your recent mission. I think it make missions feel more personal and unique to the players actions.

Yes! That’s what i was going for, but you explained it much better!

As for the differing story,

Does anybody remember the Shadow the Hedgehog game?

If you look it up, from the first mission the levels branch out through different paths, until you reach one of 8 or 10 possible endings to the game. Complete them all to get the REAL final mission to sum it up.

It relied on you completing each mission in a specific way to progress down that mission tree, meeting new people in new locations along the way, with the characters acting different to you depending what you did.

Battle Engine Aquila did something similar. In certain chapters, in a large mission were 2 objectives, in which you could only complete one. The rest of the chapter involved dealing with the consequences of the objective that wasn’t completed.

If the Headhunters mode functioned like this, it would multiply the re playability massively.

Throw in challenges, objectives, skulls and scoring and you could perhaps have something truly special.

As long as it was all accounted for in canon, of course.

:smiley:

13

How about two different teams of head hunters going neck and neck to move through an area and complete objectives from different parts of a planet. Sort of like that Spartan Ops mission where Crimson and Majestic were both tasked to clear out separate Portal generators, turn them on and go through.

We could have 4 players (2v2) each try to complete an objective as fast as possible for points. First one to finish, wins!

14

> How about two different teams of head hunters going neck and neck to move through an area and complete objectives from different parts of a planet. Sort of like that Spartan Ops mission where Crimson and Majestic were both tasked to clear out separate Portal generators, turn them on and go through.
>
> We could have 4 players (2v2) each try to complete an objective as fast as possible for points. First one to finish, wins!

This would be interesting, too.

It would keep it four player “co-op,” but would add a friendly competition to the mix.

15

> > How about two different teams of head hunters going neck and neck to move through an area and complete objectives from different parts of a planet. Sort of like that Spartan Ops mission where Crimson and Majestic were both tasked to clear out separate Portal generators, turn them on and go through.
> >
> > We could have 4 players (2v2) each try to complete an objective as fast as possible for points. First one to finish, wins!
>
> This would be interesting, too.
>
> It would keep it four player “co-op,” but would add a friendly competition to the mix.

Exactly. Spartans always work together or compete against each other in war games like scenarios. It would be nice to do the same in a co-operative/competitive atmosphere.

16

> How about two different teams of head hunters going neck and neck to move through an area and complete objectives from different parts of a planet. Sort of like that Spartan Ops mission where Crimson and Majestic were both tasked to clear out separate Portal generators, turn them on and go through.
>
> We could have 4 players (2v2) each try to complete an objective as fast as possible for points. First one to finish, wins!

While that’s an incredible idea, how would it work if you’re playing solely with two players? Would you be 1v1 to complete the missions, or would you just cooperatively play one mission?

17

> > How about two different teams of head hunters going neck and neck to move through an area and complete objectives from different parts of a planet. Sort of like that Spartan Ops mission where Crimson and Majestic were both tasked to clear out separate Portal generators, turn them on and go through.
> >
> > We could have 4 players (2v2) each try to complete an objective as fast as possible for points. First one to finish, wins!
>
> While that’s an incredible idea, how would it work if you’re playing solely with two players? Would you be 1v1 to complete the missions, or would you just cooperatively play one mission?

It would only be a 4 player playlist. So it would match you up with another team of two.

18

I really like this idea, a lot. I also like the idea of 2v2 that’s been suggested. I could see if you wanted to just do it with a friend in a private party. Missions could be completed with just 2 people, but there would be the option to go head to head with another team.
Would this be a weekly thing like Spartan ops? Or would all the missions be unlocked and ready to play off the disk whenever you want? To me, Head Hunters seems like the realization of a “second campaign” like Spartan Ops was supposed to be. And while I see the main campaign as the primary vehicle for storytelling, having another story like this could help expand the universe in new and exciting ways.
Story wise,if the head hunters are Spartan 3’s still and not Spartan IV teams, this could be a good way to touch on the Spartan IV program, as the 3’s became honorary IV’s.Perhaps the Head Hunters are brought into the IV program like Jun was.

As for special weapons and armor, we maybe could finally wear SPI in game, and get our hands on the MA5K Carbine. The SPI would add a tactical element as we couldn’t just go in guns blazing, but use the Active Camouflage to sneak around.