Want to start by saying this is just an idea I had that I thought was cool, I do not wish to be hated on for “encouraging the departure from the ‘classic’ halo gameplay”. Now class based gameplay has always been cool to me and I was extremely overjoyed to hear it is starting to make a return in recent big name titles like Overwatch (which I just wasn’t ever able to get into, although I think it’s a fine game) and more exitingly Battlefront. But the class gameplay I’m referring to works in a very different way, now obviously we all want playable Elites and their are also a few who also express the want for other playable races a short well like the Brutes. And while this all seems really cool, it may be a lot to ask coding and balancing wise, requiring a whole number of new animations and scripts. But you know what doesn’t take as much time, armors, my idea is that if 343 has shot down playable races multiple times, it doesn’t necessarily mean we can’t still compromise. As evidenced in Halo 5, 343 is more than capable of making multitudes of armor and a lot of the armors they made were criticized for being to similar and ugly, and the problem 343 had was that it is very hard to make 284 different completely unique sets of armor based around human combat armor. So what if we play as Spartans, but have a lot of armors that fit in the Spartan hitboxes and body shape, but are based off other races armor, instead of havimg a surplus amount of armors that are unappealing and ugly; Helioiskrill was IMMENSELY popular in Halo 5 because it made you look like an awesome Sangheili warrior, so what if 343 was to add a bunch of armors that were similar to helioskrill to where it makes your Spartan look like a different race without needed completely new races, there can be Brute, Elite, Jackal, even Grunt themed armors because the beauty is that when it the armor based on something it doesn’t have to be 100% accurate, similar to how Achilles doesn’t actually look completely similar to Greek armor but instead is based in it. My final reading for why Race based armors (lol that sounds a little racist out of context) is the Halo 5 clan community, I never really became as involved as I would of liked to be, I participated in a couple raids and trainings, but from the experience I did have, it seems that Halos clan community is a huge part of what keeps Halo alive, the fact that members are able to think up and create their own factions and bases with their friend is something I see as really cool, so why Norbert reward this dedication with armors based on halo factions and races so that communities can create even more in depth roleplay experiences.
Now I’d like to transition from armors ino my final point, a sort of class system, allow me to explain, I think it would be a cool idea to take the cool lore written about the halo 5 armors and actually apply that to gameplay, whichever would also serve as a way to bring back armor progression and earning, I think armors should have small buffs or atributes that don’t break gameplay but just allow you to immerse yourself more with your armor. In conclusion my closing point is that Playable Races may be out of reach for now, but there is still time rock influence 343 to implement armors that capture factions and species to show their love and appreciation for their community, as well as giving different armors a more dynamic and unique feel.
sorry if there are any typos I missed