I definitely cannot speak for the entire Halo fan base, but I am tired of today’s fixation on gun-metal-grey. It seems that the turn the community is making is gritty, and dull. Sure that’s fine for “real life” games, but it doesn’t belong in a Halo title.
Look at ANY multiplayer map from Halo 3, it’s filled with rich colors of green, blue, red, orange, yellows etc. Even look at the vibrant colors used on the Armor configurations. Now shift your attention to Reach. I find it difficult to even compare the shades of red and orange, blue and purple for a better example. Everything has become blended into this boring selection of grey lifelessness.
Am I the only one that misses the giant, purple and green death machines that were the covenant? Was the skybox of Snowbound not epic? Most importantly, wasn’t it awesome to play Rumble Pit and have a rainbow of varying colors run towards you that to have a blur shades sauntering about?
I REALLY hope that they upped the art in this sense for Halo 4. Thanks for reading!
Color’s nice, but I think the multiplayer should be more colorful than the campaign. I mean, the story is essentially a war for survival against a genocidal alien horde hellbent on wiping humanity from the galaxy. I don’t think bright colors compliment that mood. But for multiplayer, where you have players thrusting their crotches on each other, color can’t hurt.
I understand the campaign being somewhat gritty completely, but I still would like things to stand out to a certain extent. Maybe not so much as its blinding, or that it looks cartoony, but enough so I can go “wow, now that looks cool”. When the spartan’s visor was shown for campaign during the First Look, I was impressed, the color of the armor even looks nice.
THE important thing to remember is balance.
Balance is the key.
Their should be some grey gritty levels but they should have something about them that causes them to stand out and be special.
There should also be maps and environments that use diverse Color palettes.
If you had LOTS of bright and colorful levels you run the risk of the game being cartoonish.
If you use too much Greys and muted color pallets the game because generic and doesn’t stand out.
You want a mix of both in appropriate proportions to make each level stand out in its own way.
Perhaps you have a Greyish level but you balance it out with a brightly lit sunset or some greenish fog from a swamp.
Or perhaps it’s a grey and green wasteland but it’s lit up with color from a crashed covenant Starship nearby.
Principles of composition like Balance, Unity, Assymetry, symmetry etc…
can all be applied on the Macro level in ways that you wouldn’t normally think.
If you start to have too much of one thing, you balance it out with the opposite of another thing that gives contrast. This is what helps to produce diversity in level design.