I feel like the MCC has a few problems holding it back in various areas such as the UI of the main menu and still some (strangely) unsupported features. Some things that come to mind are:
- Selecting campaign missions/playlists/custom game maps/firefight maps is still displayed in the same un-user-friendly horizontal list the game launched with ages ago
- The atmosphere of the original games isn’t entirely preserved through things like loading screens, end credits sequences, and also not having all of the menu music from each of the original games
- Some things aren’t used to their fullest potential, such as H3 skin cosmetics not being usable at all in ODST
I think the first point already has a very good solution, and that is to resort to each of the legacy game’s format of displaying missions/maps. Even in the custom game browser session creation menu, you can select multiplayer maps in a much more easy-to-navigate way there. I can’t fathom why this same menu adjustment hasn’t made its way everywhere else in the collection. I still think that UI across the board in MCC needs improvement like the pause menu and other areas, but 343 stated that the next update includes changes to the career menu so we’ll have to see where this is going first.
The atmosphere of the originals is a somewhat harder one to keep intact as how the collection is formatted, but surely some kind of effort should be made especially with how abruptly Reach’s campaign ends in MCC. It feels so off and the end credits are important to these games’ legacies. I’m no expert, but I feel like legal issues are some kind of roadblock here, but even just the sequences with no text would be better than absolutely nothing.
Loading screens were all unique in the legacy games, and I know MCC has one uniform one, but I feel these also are very important to the atmosphere of the original games. I think people who just want to experience the campaigns without being shown an image of what the next level is and a description of it first would better help the stories of the games flow naturally and not so jarringly. It should be at least an option for players just trying to experience the games as they were.
Lastly on this, certain menu music has been missing from each game. H:CE lacks all of the classic soundtrack, only using anniversary tracks. Same goes for H2A, but it also is missing Heavy Price Paid/Punishment like in the original game. Strangely enough that track ONLY plays in the Cross-Game Playlist menu in the campaign menu for some odd reason. H3 is missing Movement, as well as the H3 Mythic tracks which I feel should be an option. Reach is missing some of the ambience that plays in the mission: The Package, as well as a remake of one of the tracks that plays in H:CE when you did matchmaking in Reach. H4 is missing the beginning portion of Green and Blue that was in the legacy game, as well as the beginning bit of To Galaxy that played when you entered the Infinity menu in the original H4.
And for the final point, customization options like H3 weapon and vehicle skins aren’t used to their fullest potential. If there’s been a recurring complaint in the past about customization, it was that H3 was the absolute center-of-attention and it got a gargantuan amount of new content compared to other games in the collection. Because of this, it feels all that much worse that literally none of it is usable in ODST, where all of the weapon and vehicle models are the exact same.
In addition to this, I also find it strange that H3 gets all of these content drops, and is still far from having skins for every vehicle/weapon in the game. The Beam Rifle, Gravity Hammer, Silenced SMG, Spartan Laser, Chopper, Wraith, all have no skins just to name a few. Meanwhile, the Battle Rifle now has 17 which seems excessive when other weapons have none and the support is there.
It does seem like H2A MP is getting a good load of attention for the next content drop including armor sets and skins. One complaint I have regarding the way newly designed content comes is how little of it tries to fit the aesthetic of the games. I don’t personally mind them adding wacky armors to the game, but that has been almost the entirety of the newly developed cosmetics for us to use. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I’d rather see stuff from other areas of the franchise make its way into the games. I think the fireteam raven content was a great example of something to do. I think it was a missed opportunity however not to put it in ODST as well, and allow us to select firefight voice separately to the character/armor that we use. Imagine a Halo Wars themed content drop with the Mark IV armor set for one or more games to use. It could also feature armor from the Omega Team art in HW2, or even the Spartan armor from the original Halo Wars trailer. There’s so many places to take inspiration from within the franchise that would almost guarantee almost unanimous praise.
There’s also much content within the games already that would make great multiplayer customization content and it hasn’t been implemented yet. For instance H3 has the Marine Pilot helmet, and the rest of the ODST armor set from the ODSTs in the campaign. While I think the fireteam raven armor is great, I don’t think it fits that well using it interchangeably with original H3 armors, and shoulders and a chest piece should be made from the assets in the campaign. As for H2, there exists a few elite armor variants such as the Honor guards, the Ultra, and the Jetpack/space elites. The Halo 2 ODST model is also strikingly different from every other ODST variant we’ve had and it could be really nice to have in MP. In Reach, there also exists things unusable by the player. The Red visor that Jun and Jorge have for starters, Carter’s less rigid wrist on his right side, Kat’s unusable variant of Air Assault helmet, Jun and Jorge’s back accessory and more. Finally in H4, the all black techsuit that the Spartan IV’s have as well as the campaign chief armor. I feel like this armor has run its course of being unusable and it should be available to the player as a reward for something big in the collection like having all of the achievements or something similar.
Anyways, those are my ideas of what could make the collection feel a lot better in terms of potential. I definitely don’t see all or even most of them happening, but I think all of those are fair requests to better the feel/longevity of the game.