One Multiplayer Thing Halo 4 Got Right: Haven

Games Other Halo
1

I’ve been extremely critical of Halo 4, not to be rude to 343 but to hopefully leave constructive criticism here to help them with Halo 5 if they want player opinions, so with my criticism I felt like I should mention something good I think Halo 4 has:

Haven!

It really is a very nice map, both in how it looks and how it is shaped. Halo 4 gave a great opportunity for us to see a maintained, functional forerunner multiplayer map, and 343 really delivered that with Haven. Requiem is supposed to be functional with forerunners or their AIs, not sure which, maintaining it, so the facilities on Requiem shouldn’t look like ancient ruins, but rather new, clean, and sleek technological facilities. Haven really fits in perfectly, but goes even further by being set way up in the sky of Haven above the clouds. Considering the way Requiem is made, since it has a roof it is much more likely to see a facility mind-numbingly high up in the sky above the clouds than it is to see something like that on a Halo ring.

The layout isn’t anything new or revolutionary, its actually pretty simple I think, but I think that’s a good thing. Its a solid, simplified Lockout style layout that I don’t think a map designer can go wrong with. At first I thought it might be TOO simple, and force all the fighting into one spot repeatedly forever, but after playing it some I quickly realized it flows very nicely.

I would like to see a remake of Haven with the same scenic setting of Requiem in a future Halo game, maybe as a map in a map pack since it is on Requiem, not a Halo, so it wouldn’t fit in as a default map I guess in a future Halo game. (Unless the setting was changed to a Halo or somewhere, but that would really disappoint me).

Well, now that I think about it, a COVENANT re-imagining of Haven as part of the inside of High Charity in the Halo 2 time period would be AMAZING. It would have the forerunner ship in the background and could have a little prophet hologram somewhere.

People would love it for Halo 2 nostalgia too like me of course it would make more sense as a DLC map I suppose.

2

I must agree that Haven is the best default map in Halo 4 (however I like them all except for Complex). I don’t think that it would be as popular if it was Covie-themed. Zealot was the best Reach’s map as well, but people still voted god-awful Swordbase over it. It’s like people prefers bright sunshine to dark, purple corridors. Nevertheless there should be at least 1 Covie-themed map in Halo 4, just because of tradition.

3

> I must agree that Haven is the best default map in Halo 4 (however I like them all except for Complex). I don’t think that it would be as popular if it was Covie-themed. Zealot was the best Reach’s map as well, but people still voted god-awful Swordbase over it. It’s like people prefers bright sunshine to dark, purple corridors. Nevertheless there should be at least 1 Covie-themed map in Halo 4, just because of tradition.

I don’t like too many of 4’s maps really. Haven definitely would not be as popular if it was Covenant themed, but when maps are re-made they usually change the theme/setting of the map but keep the layout. So I think the only theme we’ve seen that would work well as a remake of Haven would be a Covenant theme inside of High Charity, since inside High Charity is similar to inside of Requiem, and Haven has a lot of curves like a lot of Covenant architecture.

Zealot was okay, but Reflection was definitely the best map in Reach since it was an Ivory Tower remake. Zealot’s problem was the middle area… it was awkward. And people hated the low gravity area above it for some reason. I guess it was camped a lot, so maybe I camped it too much myself haha.

Swordbase was about the only Reach original map I liked in that game! But it only seemed fun for certain games like swat. I played endless games of swat on it, and I think it might be top 3 Halo maps ever for swat since it had good corners as well as long lines of sight in places.

People do prefer colorful, bright, sunshine filled maps to dark and dull maps. That’s true. I try to make my forge maps visually, colorfully distinctive from one another because I think that’s very important when making maps.

A lot of popular maps in Halo can be thought of as having a dominant color…

Midship: Purple
Valhalla: Green
Sidewinder/Avalanche: Blue/White
Coagulation: Green/Orange
Exile: Green/Orange
Construct: Gold
Haven: Silver

I don’t know, it just seems like to me a lot of the maps people think look good are distinctively colorful.

4

Meh… Majestic poops on Haven.

IMO Haven is better than the rest of the default maps, but it’s still pretty bad though. I just don’t like the fact that Haven doesn’t really have positions that you want to go to. then players start running to the middle of the map, die, press x to respawn, repeat. that’s Haven, basically.

5

> Meh… Majestic poops on Haven.
>
> IMO Haven is better than the rest of the default maps, but it’s still pretty bad though. I just don’t like the fact that Haven doesn’t really have positions that you want to go to. then players start running to the middle of the map, die, press x to respawn, repeat. that’s Haven, basically.

Thats probably because they want to control the middle and the fact that its a tie is sign that both teams are pretty equal to each other. Usually for me, the battle it top, bottom middle, left hall then the top hall. But thats if we are winning.

6

Out of the default maps, it certainly takes the cake and is the only map I wouldn’t mind getting selected over and over again, especially in Team Slayer. That said, it’s still mediocre when compared to other classics.

I can’t comment on the maps released in the latest map packs, as I haven’t seen let alone played them.

7

As I said I like almost all Halo 4’s 4v4 maps. Adrift has nice flow too (it reminds me Reach’s Zealot) and Abandon is very good for CQC fan like me. Solace is little too big for my taste, but still I prefer it over many Halo 3’s maps. In Halo 3 there are very few original maps I would like to be remade in future. I like Guardian or Assembly or Ghost Town (mostly because I like how it looks and I haven’t played it much, probably I would change my mind if it was as often as Pit or Narrows or Valhalla, which I would be happy to never see again), but really from what I see now, after few years I will have many more memories from Halo 4. Haven for sure isn’t the only good map in here.

Majestic maps are very good too, but I don’t think they are (much) better than Haven or Adrift or Abandon. For sure their artwork looks impressive compared to default maps or Crimson.

Only map I hate with passion is Complex which is too big for 4v4 and has frame rate issues on split screen. I even choose Harvest (which is about as big) over it.

8

Haven is a good map for pretty much any gametype. Except for CTF, maybe.

9

Haven is the new Guardian; a mediocre map that acquires a really big following. I can’t stomach playing it anymore, the map is just so simple and boring.

10

> Haven is the new Guardian; a mediocre map that acquires a really big following. I can’t stomach playing it anymore, the map is just so simple and boring.

I don’t understand the hate for Haven. I’m not saying it’s the best or most inventive map ever, but it has plenty of neat jumps, has a nice flow to it, plays well.

Wish people voted for Abandon more often though. Love that map. Seriously blows my mind how underrated it is.

Either way, beats playing on midship remake #450791.

11

As long as it isn’t anything remotely similar to Adrift or Complex, it’s fine in my book.

12

> > Haven is the new Guardian; a mediocre map that acquires a really big following. I can’t stomach playing it anymore, the map is just so simple and boring.
>
> I don’t understand the hate for Haven. I’m not saying it’s the best or most inventive map ever, but it has plenty of neat jumps, has a nice flow to it, plays well.
>
> Wish people voted for Abandon more often though. Love that map. Seriously blows my mind how underrated it is.
>
> Either way, beats playing on midship remake #450791.

Haven isn’t a bad map, it’s just a boring one. Aside from the few basic jumps, there isn’t much to separate it from the typical symmetrical doughnut map.
I much prefer Abandon as a 2s map; with the right weapon placement, the map plays very well.