Take / Leave One thing from each game for Infinite

Games Halo Infinite
1

Name one thing from each Halo title that you would like to see Infinite take from and one thing you’d like to see it leave behind from that game. I’ll start:

Halo (Combat Evolved)
Take its sense of freedom through large open environments and well designed sandbox.
Leave its backtracking campaign. The idea of travelling back through familiar areas that have now been taken by the Flood is great, but three repeated levels is too much.

Halo 2
Take inspiration from its story. Halo 2’s plot was a little more developed and complex than the original Halo, but not any more complicated than it needed to be.
Leave its linear level design behind. There’s too much travelling through very limited singular paths from point A to B in Halo 2’s campaign.

Halo 3
Take its aesthetic appeal. Halo 3 was designed in a way that its models, textures and environments (except for the human faces) still look beautiful today, twelve years later.

Leave its nine level campaign. Having ten levels feels complete. More than ten would be great if they’re long enough and with enough variation between levels.

Halo 3: ODST
Take inspiration from its boldness to experiment a little while still remaining true to Halo’s existing identity.
Leave its smaller scale story, and focus on the bigger picture like the previous three games.

Halo: Reach
Take its many fun multiplayer modes such as Invasion, Race, Headhunters, Stockpile, etc.
Leave its “before the beginning, you know the end” prequel nature. The story felt too shallow.

Halo 4
Take its multiplayer level design. It was the last Halo game that included unique matchmaking levels (before the DLC, which introduced many overly similar maps).
Leave sprint, and replace it with faster base movement speed and a somewhat higher default field-of-view.

Halo 5: Guardians
Take its Custom Games browser and improved Forge (albeit with more natural Forge controls like the previous games).
Leave smart-scope behind. It has no place within Halo’s gameplay. Give us a return to smart-link (AKA ‘zoom’).

2

These forums are not working so well with formatting. So I oversimplified the outline.

  • Reach, Take the multiplayer voting system and armor abilities; leave the bloom
  • Take the fall damage and expansive level design; leave the power ups - Take the dual wielding; leave the boss battles - Take the brute vehicles and weapons; leave the covenant civil war - Take the Spartan ops; leave the Call of Duty mechanics - Take vehicle variants; leave req packs
3

> 2666640315087182;2:
> These forums are not working so well with formatting. So I oversimplified the outline.
> - Reach, Take the multiplayer voting system and armor abilities; leave the bloom - Take the fall damage and expansive level design; leave the power ups - Take the dual wielding; leave the boss battles - Take the brute vehicles and weapons; leave the covenant civil war - Take the Spartan ops; leave the Call of Duty mechanics - Take vehicle variants; leave req packs

Yeah. I’ve noticed they’ve been having some trouble recently.
Regarding Reach, I’ve never been a fan of any voting system. All it seems to do is ensure people play on the same maps over and over, which bores me tremendously. I grew incredibly tired of Sword Base and Haemorrhage in Reach despite them being good maps. I much prefer Halo 5’s random cycle. It offers a hell of a lot more variety, which is what I appreciate in a game.
Your points for 1, 2 and 3 are all decent. I’d particularly like to see the return of dual-wielding.
I’m not a fan of Spartan Ops. It feels too tacked on, and most players seemed to have missed it entirely.
For 5, I can take or leave the vehicle variants. Obviously I agree with leaving the req backs.
Interesting to hear your choices. :slight_smile:

4

Halo: CE
Take the classic pistol & fuel rod gun, original Grunt design, OG shade turret, and gorgeous environments
Leave ???

Brute Force (not Halo but still owned by Microsoft)
Take the squad controls, alien races, weapons, worlds, and human enemies
Leave the disjointed story and cloning game mechanic

Halo 2
Take the Arbiter, Drones & Brutes, Enforcer Sentinels, Spectre & Shadow vehicles, dual-wielding, and playable Elites
Leave the teasing of a drivable Scarab (let us drive one already!)

Halo 3
Take the Brute weapons & vehicles, equipment
Leave the H3 Grunt design

Halo 3: ODST
Take the VISR system and Engineers
Leave ???

Halo: Reach
Take the weapons, vehicles, and Spartan abilities
Leave ???

Halo 4
Take the Prometheans, level aesthetics, new Grunt design, and Mantis
Leave ???

Halo 5: Guardians
Take the Promethean weapons & vehicles, Guardians, and 031 Exuberant Witness
Leave the story, near-infinite weapon & armor variants (I don’t need nine versions of the same assault rifle), the Covenant (they’re irrelevant to the story at this point), poor squad controls, and smart-scope (feels too Call of Duty for a Halo game)

5

I’m gonna save CE for last because I have a very unpopular opinion for that.
Reach: Take Firefight. Leave armor abilities.
2: Take the Mjolnir mix. I want to say take the split story because it can provide so much more depth but if I recall it was hated when 2 first released, it’s still hated in 5, and Infinite can’t afford to have a hated launch so I say leave it.
3: Take the Ark. Especially since it links to Halo Wars 2 now. Leave the FOV. Way too narrow, makes the game painfully slow for me, especially in multiplayer.
ODST: Take the engineers. Plenty of those guys around and Legacy of Onyx proves they are very useful for this conflict. Plus I’ve always liked engineers and miss seeing them in game. Leave the VISR mode.
4: Take Chief’s personality/character development. Leave loadouts.
5: Take the story as canon. May seem pretty obvious, but 343 knows they’ve dropped the ball with 5’s story in many people’s eyes and may be looking to do some retconning, which I think is a very bad move. They started this story, they should finish it. Even though retcons seem unlikely since HW2 and a couple books continue with the story the chance is still there. Leave REQ packs.
CE: Take the twelve round shotgun, though probably just as a variant to the current one. Here’s the unpopular opinion. Leave the level design. I know everybody but me loves it but I don’t really see the point to it. Missions are still linear the spaces are just way more open which means they take more time to clear and get lost in. I don’t really see a point to this unless they add more collectibles or go RPG and throw in sidequests or something. I think Halo 5, particularly on Sanghelios, did a great job of having gorgeous levels that weren’t larger empty space for no reason like the CE levels.

6

> 2535415876049274;3:
> > 2666640315087182;2:
> > These forums are not working so well with formatting. So I oversimplified the outline.
> > - Reach, Take the multiplayer voting system and armor abilities; leave the bloom - Take the fall damage and expansive level design; leave the power ups - Take the dual wielding; leave the boss battles - Take the brute vehicles and weapons; leave the covenant civil war - Take the Spartan ops; leave the Call of Duty mechanics - Take vehicle variants; leave req packs
>
> Yeah. I’ve noticed they’ve been having some trouble recently.
> Regarding Reach, I’ve never been a fan of any voting system. All it seems to do is ensure people play on the same maps over and over, which bores me tremendously. I grew incredibly tired of Sword Base and Haemorrhage in Reach despite them being good maps. I much prefer Halo 5’s random cycle. It offers a hell of a lot more variety, which is what I appreciate in a game.
> Your points for 1, 2 and 3 are all decent. I’d particularly like to see the return of dual-wielding.
> I’m not a fan of Spartan Ops. It feels too tacked on, and most players seemed to have missed it entirely.
> For 5, I can take or leave the vehicle variants. Obviously I agree with leaving the req backs.
> Interesting to hear your choices. :slight_smile:

Yeah I was trying real hard to think of what to keep for H4, it was such a mediocre game the only reason I hold it above H5 is what it didn’t do. For me the reach system was better than the H3 system which was if you didn’t like what you see you got a random selection you were stuck with, where as you know what you are going to get but I understand the fan favorites can get a little repetitive, especially if a new map comes out. Maybe instead of 3 choices there should be only 2 and a new draw with another 2 that way it will reduce the probability of these maps being in the draw for everyone to jump on.

7

> 2533274964775165;4:
> Halo: CE
> Take the classic pistol & fuel rod gun, original Grunt design, OG shade turret, and gorgeous environments
> Leave ???
>
> Brute Force (not Halo but still owned by Microsoft)
> Take the squad controls, alien races, weapons, worlds, and human enemies
> Leave the disjointed story and cloning game mechanic
>
> Halo 2
> Take the Arbiter, Drones & Brutes, Enforcer Sentinels, Spectre & Shadow vehicles, dual-wielding, and playable Elites
> Leave the teasing of a drivable Scarab (let us drive one already!)
>
> Halo 3
> Take the Brute weapons & vehicles, equipment
> Leave the H3 Grunt design
>
> Halo 3: ODST Take the VISR system and Engineers
> Leave ???
>
> Halo: Reach
> Take the weapons, vehicles, and Spartan abilities
> Leave ???
>
> Halo 4
> Take the Prometheans, level aesthetics, new Grunt design, and Mantis
> Leave ???
>
> Halo 5: Guardians
> Take the Promethean weapons & vehicles, Guardians, and 031 Exuberant Witness
> Leave the story, near-infinite weapon & armor variants (I don’t need nine versions of the same assault rifle), the Covenant (they’re irrelevant to the story at this point), poor squad controls, and smart-scope (feels too Call of Duty for a Halo game)

Yeah. I also struggled with what to leave for Halo 1.
As much as I really enjoyed playing Brute Force’s campaign and Squad Deathmatch back in the day, the mechanics should have been used for Halo 5. Sadly, they weren’t, and now I see it as a missed opportunity. Perhaps they’ll be used in a spin-off title like ODST or Wars one day.
Something I find interesting about your post it how you like the original CE Grunt design (which I love as well), dislike the Halo 3 Grunts and like the Halo 4 Grunts. My problem with the Halo 3 Grunts is that they look a little too monstrous. The Halo 4 Grunts are on an entirely new level of monstrosity and a way further from the classic Grunts than Halo 3 is.

> 2535411561717249;5:
> I’m gonna save CE for last because I have a very unpopular opinion for that.
> Reach: Take Firefight. Leave armor abilities.
> 2: Take the Mjolnir mix. I want to say take the split story because it can provide so much more depth but if I recall it was hated when 2 first released, it’s still hated in 5, and Infinite can’t afford to have a hated launch so I say leave it.
> 3: Take the Ark. Especially since it links to Halo Wars 2 now. Leave the FOV. Way too narrow, makes the game painfully slow for me, especially in multiplayer.
> ODST: Take the engineers. Plenty of those guys around and Legacy of Onyx proves they are very useful for this conflict. Plus I’ve always liked engineers and miss seeing them in game. Leave the VISR mode.
> 4: Take Chief’s personality/character development. Leave loadouts.
> 5: Take the story as canon. May seem pretty obvious, but 343 knows they’ve dropped the ball with 5’s story in many people’s eyes and may be looking to do some retconning, which I think is a very bad move. They started this story, they should finish it. Even though retcons seem unlikely since HW2 and a couple books continue with the story the chance is still there. Leave REQ packs.
> CE: Take the twelve round shotgun, though probably just as a variant to the current one. Here’s the unpopular opinion. Leave the level design. I know everybody but me loves it but I don’t really see the point to it. Missions are still linear the spaces are just way more open which means they take more time to clear and get lost in. I don’t really see a point to this unless they add more collectibles or go RPG and throw in sidequests or something. I think Halo 5, particularly on Sanghelios, did a great job of having gorgeous levels that weren’t larger empty space for no reason like the CE levels.

I disagree with your statement that Halo CE’s levels are linear. The second, fourth and sixth levels have far more paths you can take than in any other Halo game, and the rest of the game (excluding the POA) offers more freedom than any other Halo game as well (on par with Reach). Here’s an unpopular opinion of my own: I actually like having the ability to get lost due to level design upon a first play-through. If the level is well designed and has decent replay value, like in CE, then you’ll learn the levels as you play, and the directions you choose to run in all feel like your own choices.
You have some good points in the rest of your comment though, i.e. Halo 3’s POV, Halo 2’s split story, loadouts, acknowledgement of Halo 4’s story, REQ packs, etc. Man, imagine how disappointing it would be to load Infinite up and there’s a monetary system like REQ packs in it again!

> 2666640315087182;6:
> > 2535415876049274;3:
> > > 2666640315087182;2:
> > > These forums are not working so well with formatting. So I oversimplified the outline.
> > > - Reach, Take the multiplayer voting system and armor abilities; leave the bloom - Take the fall damage and expansive level design; leave the power ups - Take the dual wielding; leave the boss battles - Take the brute vehicles and weapons; leave the covenant civil war - Take the Spartan ops; leave the Call of Duty mechanics - Take vehicle variants; leave req packs
> >
> > Yeah. I’ve noticed they’ve been having some trouble recently.
> > Regarding Reach, I’ve never been a fan of any voting system. All it seems to do is ensure people play on the same maps over and over, which bores me tremendously. I grew incredibly tired of Sword Base and Haemorrhage in Reach despite them being good maps. I much prefer Halo 5’s random cycle. It offers a hell of a lot more variety, which is what I appreciate in a game.
> > Your points for 1, 2 and 3 are all decent. I’d particularly like to see the return of dual-wielding.
> > I’m not a fan of Spartan Ops. It feels too tacked on, and most players seemed to have missed it entirely.
> > For 5, I can take or leave the vehicle variants. Obviously I agree with leaving the req backs.
> > Interesting to hear your choices. :slight_smile:
>
> Yeah I was trying real hard to think of what to keep for H4, it was such a mediocre game the only reason I hold it above H5 is what it didn’t do. For me the reach system was better than the H3 system which was if you didn’t like what you see you got a random selection you were stuck with, where as you know what you are going to get but I understand the fan favorites can get a little repetitive, especially if a new map comes out. Maybe instead of 3 choices there should be only 2 and a new draw with another 2 that way it will reduce the probability of these maps being in the draw for everyone to jump on.

I disagree that Halo 4 is mediocre. I think it’s a brilliant game with plenty of replay value if you play with friends and family. However, by Halo standards, it doesn’t quite live up to Bungie’s games. It’s definitely fair of you to hold it above Halo 5. Halo 5 has too many problems. It would be interesting to hear more about what was happening behind the scenes during the making of Halo 5.

8

> 2535415876049274;7:
> > 2533274964775165;4:
> > Halo: CE
> > Take the classic pistol & fuel rod gun, original Grunt design, OG shade turret, and gorgeous environments
> > Leave ???
> >
> > Brute Force (not Halo but still owned by Microsoft)
> > Take the squad controls, alien races, weapons, worlds, and human enemies
> > Leave the disjointed story and cloning game mechanic
> >
> > Halo 2
> > Take the Arbiter, Drones & Brutes, Enforcer Sentinels, Spectre & Shadow vehicles, dual-wielding, and playable Elites
> > Leave the teasing of a drivable Scarab (let us drive one already!)
> >
> > Halo 3
> > Take the Brute weapons & vehicles, equipment
> > Leave the H3 Grunt design
> >
> > Halo 3: ODST Take the VISR system and Engineers
> > Leave ???
> >
> > Halo: Reach
> > Take the weapons, vehicles, and Spartan abilities
> > Leave ???
> >
> > Halo 4
> > Take the Prometheans, level aesthetics, new Grunt design, and Mantis
> > Leave ???
> >
> > Halo 5: Guardians
> > Take the Promethean weapons & vehicles, Guardians, and 031 Exuberant Witness
> > Leave the story, near-infinite weapon & armor variants (I don’t need nine versions of the same assault rifle), the Covenant (they’re irrelevant to the story at this point), poor squad controls, and smart-scope (feels too Call of Duty for a Halo game)
>
> Yeah. I also struggled with what to leave for Halo 1.
> As much as I really enjoyed playing Brute Force’s campaign and Squad Deathmatch back in the day, the mechanics should have been used for Halo 5. Sadly, they weren’t, and now I see it as a missed opportunity. Perhaps they’ll be used in a spin-off title like ODST or Wars one day.
> Something I find interesting about your post it how you like the original CE Grunt design (which I love as well), dislike the Halo 3 Grunts and like the Halo 4 Grunts. My problem with the Halo 3 Grunts is that they look a little too monstrous. The Halo 4 Grunts are on an entirely new level of monstrosity and a way further from the classic Grunts than Halo 3 is.

You fell in the Brute Force trap too back in the day? (Yeah it was no where near the next Halo as OXM tried to market it as). It would have been okay but I sort of wish we could have customized our abilities a little. I remember trying all the different multiplayer characters and how you had some that has Orbital Strike for their ability and the militia had an Airstrike that was rather impressive You had some of the Heretics with the Breath of Gthor(I think) that healed. Sure using two guns Rambo style was cool but what if I want to call down an orbital strike instead? It had some potential but it had many problems that made a sequel impossible. First the marketing was wrong, second the story sort of just abruptly ended, (that last mission intro was a bit too cheesy and not in line with the character and tone of the past missions). Also I think Brute force should have had more than 4 characters and you could have chosen your team. You could of have one of those mutants or one of those psyker aliens. Anyways the game is long gone and not likely to be picked up by anyone soon.

9

> 2535415876049274;7:
> > 2533274964775165;4:
> > Halo: CE
> > Take the classic pistol & fuel rod gun, original Grunt design, OG shade turret, and gorgeous environments
> > Leave ???
> >
> > Brute Force (not Halo but still owned by Microsoft)
> > Take the squad controls, alien races, weapons, worlds, and human enemies
> > Leave the disjointed story and cloning game mechanic
> >
> > Halo 2
> > Take the Arbiter, Drones & Brutes, Enforcer Sentinels, Spectre & Shadow vehicles, dual-wielding, and playable Elites
> > Leave the teasing of a drivable Scarab (let us drive one already!)
> >
> > Halo 3
> > Take the Brute weapons & vehicles, equipment
> > Leave the H3 Grunt design
> >
> > Halo 3: ODST Take the VISR system and Engineers
> > Leave ???
> >
> > Halo: Reach
> > Take the weapons, vehicles, and Spartan abilities
> > Leave ???
> >
> > Halo 4
> > Take the Prometheans, level aesthetics, new Grunt design, and Mantis
> > Leave ???
> >
> > Halo 5: Guardians
> > Take the Promethean weapons & vehicles, Guardians, and 031 Exuberant Witness
> > Leave the story, near-infinite weapon & armor variants (I don’t need nine versions of the same assault rifle), the Covenant (they’re irrelevant to the story at this point), poor squad controls, and smart-scope (feels too Call of Duty for a Halo game)
>
> Yeah. I also struggled with what to leave for Halo 1.
> As much as I really enjoyed playing Brute Force’s campaign and Squad Deathmatch back in the day, the mechanics should have been used for Halo 5. Sadly, they weren’t, and now I see it as a missed opportunity. Perhaps they’ll be used in a spin-off title like ODST or Wars one day.
> Something I find interesting about your post it how you like the original CE Grunt design (which I love as well), dislike the Halo 3 Grunts and like the Halo 4 Grunts. My problem with the Halo 3 Grunts is that they look a little too monstrous. The Halo 4 Grunts are on an entirely new level of monstrosity and a way further from the classic Grunts than Halo 3 is.

Halo Wars is an entirely different genre so Brute Force’s mechanics wouldn’t work for it. An ODST game on the other hand would be a perfect game to implement them in. As for the Grunts, if I had the choose between the H1 & H4 designs than it would be H1 hands-down. The reason I brought up the H4 Grunts is because I felt their design was a vast improvement over the H3 Grunts who seemed unnecessarily hideous.

> 2666640315087182;8:
> > 2535415876049274;7:
> > > 2533274964775165;4:
> > >
>
> You fell in the Brute Force trap too back in the day? (Yeah it was no where near the next Halo as OXM tried to market it as). It would have been okay but I sort of wish we could have customized our abilities a little. I remember trying all the different multiplayer characters and how you had some that has Orbital Strike for their ability and the militia had an Airstrike that was rather impressive You had some of the Heretics with the Breath of Gthor(I think) that healed. Sure using two guns Rambo style was cool but what if I want to call down an orbital strike instead? It had some potential but it had many problems that made a sequel impossible. First the marketing was wrong, second the story sort of just abruptly ended, (that last mission intro was a bit too cheesy and not in line with the character and tone of the past missions). Also I think Brute force should have had more than 4 characters and you could have chosen your team. You could of have one of those mutants or one of those psyker aliens. Anyways the game is long gone and not likely to be picked up by anyone soon.

I wouldn’t say I fell into any traps. Brute Force was clearly no “Halo killer” (which would’ve been weird for Microsoft to do) but it was an enjoyable game. You clearly know more about its multiplayer than I ever could since, having no nearby friends or online connections back in those days, I couldn’t play MP so I didn’t get to try any of the abilities you mentioned. Also I think four characters were enough for a squad (and the ability add more & choose one’s team probably wasn’t possible back then) so I have to disagree with you on that point. What the game definitely did right was its squad controls. They weren’t 100% perfect but things like being able to command your squad to either attack or stand their ground, sharing your inventory items, ordering them to use their special abilities, and switching between characters worked well enough that they should be implemented (or at least considered) if Halo 5’s 4-team squad gameplay returns in Halo Infinite. Plus, as mentioned in my original comment, I want to see the Ferals, Seers, & Shrike appear in the Halo series because they’re fun to fight.

10

> 2533274964775165;9:
> > 2535415876049274;7:
> > > 2533274964775165;4:
> > >
> >
> > Yeah. I also struggled with what to leave for Halo 1.
> > As much as I really enjoyed playing Brute Force’s campaign and Squad Deathmatch back in the day, the mechanics should have been used for Halo 5. Sadly, they weren’t, and now I see it as a missed opportunity. Perhaps they’ll be used in a spin-off title like ODST or Wars one day.
> > Something I find interesting about your post it how you like the original CE Grunt design (which I love as well), dislike the Halo 3 Grunts and like the Halo 4 Grunts. My problem with the Halo 3 Grunts is that they look a little too monstrous. The Halo 4 Grunts are on an entirely new level of monstrosity and a way further from the classic Grunts than Halo 3 is.
>
> Halo Wars is an entirely different genre so Brute Force’s mechanics wouldn’t work for it. An ODST game on the other hand would be a perfect game to implement them in. As for the Grunts, if I had the choose between the H1 & H4 designs than it would be H1 hands-down. The reason I brought up the H4 Grunts is because I felt their design was a vast improvement over the H3 Grunts who seemed unnecessarily hideous.
>
>
> > 2666640315087182;8:
> > > 2535415876049274;7:
> > > > 2533274964775165;4:
> > > >
> >
> > You fell in the Brute Force trap too back in the day? (Yeah it was no where near the next Halo as OXM tried to market it as). It would have been okay but I sort of wish we could have customized our abilities a little. I remember trying all the different multiplayer characters and how you had some that has Orbital Strike for their ability and the militia had an Airstrike that was rather impressive You had some of the Heretics with the Breath of Gthor(I think) that healed. Sure using two guns Rambo style was cool but what if I want to call down an orbital strike instead? It had some potential but it had many problems that made a sequel impossible. First the marketing was wrong, second the story sort of just abruptly ended, (that last mission intro was a bit too cheesy and not in line with the character and tone of the past missions). Also I think Brute force should have had more than 4 characters and you could have chosen your team. You could of have one of those mutants or one of those psyker aliens. Anyways the game is long gone and not likely to be picked up by anyone soon.
>
> I wouldn’t say I fell into any traps. Brute Force was clearly no “Halo killer” (which would’ve been weird for Microsoft to do) but it was an enjoyable game. You clearly know more about its multiplayer than I ever could since, having no nearby friends or online connections back in those days, I couldn’t play MP so I didn’t get to try any of the abilities you mentioned. Also I think four characters were enough for a squad (and the ability add more & choose one’s team probably wasn’t possible back then) so I have to disagree with you on that point. What the game definitely did right was its squad controls. They weren’t 100% perfect but things like being able to command your squad to either attack or stand their ground, sharing your inventory items, ordering them to use their special abilities, and switching between characters worked well enough that they should be implemented (or at least considered) if Halo 5’s 4-team squad gameplay returns in Halo Infinite. Plus, as mentioned in my original comment, I want to see the Ferals, Seers, & Shrike appear in the Halo series because they’re fun to fight.

I just meant Halo Wars as an example of a spin-off. We have an RTS spin-off, an open-hub noir-style spin-off and even a top-down shooter. Another side game with actual squad mechanics as opposed to the half-in-half-out stuff of Halo 5 might be fun.
I think I understand what you mean in regards to the Grunts. The faces of the Halo 4 ones are, I guess, smoother than the Halo 3 ones. Classic Halo CE Grunts win hands down though.
What do you think of this Grunt? I found the image not long ago. Personally I love both the armour design and the anatomical appearance. If this is how they appeared in Infinite, I’d love it.
All I’ve got to say about Brute Force is Squad Deathmatches were amazing. Regularly playing them and constantly improving your tactics each time against the same friends and family was a terrific experience.

11

This is a cool thread idea.

Halo CE:

Not much to say about CE. Although it has awesome forerunner structures that could be brought into forge. Also bring back the blood from these days. And the OG pistol. Its looks a bit chunky in Halo 5.

Halo 2/2A:

Anniversary has some beautiful beautiful covenant weapons designs. The textures and the purples and blues and reds and mainly the purples pop so beautifully. The Carbine and Ghost come to mind.

Bring back the stone structures on Halo rings. And the crazy beserking brutes. And friendly Jackals and Hunters.

Halo 3:

Keep the amazing large scale campaign levels like The Ark and The Covenant. They really have a great feel to them.
Bring back scarab battles. Lots of them. With even more ways to deal with them.
Also keep some of the equipment including the bubble shield, power drain and regenerator. My infinite would have a mix of halo 3 equipment and halo reach armour abilities.

Keep the grunt designs and bring the brutes back from this game so we get Halo 2 and 3 brutes. And their choppers and weapons.

Halo Reach:

Bring back forge world with extensions or a new forge world. Imagine forge world 2.0 with additions of classic halo levels. Like how in forge world there’s a blood gulch maybe in this one there’s Valhalla and from there it’s a short mongoose ride to the beach in front of Last resort. The possibilities are endless.

Bring back building pieces including all forerunner structures.

Bring back some armour abilities. Including jetpack in select levels.

The armour customization but for elites as well. Include every armour style from CE to Reach. And for Elites allow for the H4 and 5 Elite designs.

Halo 4:

Not got much for four.

This applies to Halo 5: look at the grass in Halo 3s Valhalla and Halo 4s remake, and go with the Halo 3 style. Better colour and looks nicer to the eyes.

Halo 5:

Keep the presence of friendly elites and grunts. Best thing about halo 5 was this. The elite homeworld was cool though it probably won’t be in infinite.

Keep the Elites structures like statues and pillars in forge. Beautiful!

Keep blue team and osiris. I wanna see them contrast the Spartans. How the old Spartans are like war vets who had no childhood versus the more relatable spartan 4s.

Remove ground pound and the charge. I’m really iffy about the sprint and clamber and the dodging. I can’t see any of that being removed. I sort of like the idea of making sprint join my equipment /armour abilities but not sure.

Remove everything about the new covenant art style. I was in forge and was really struck by how silly the new covenant stuff looks compared to the bungie versions.

Remove the buildingless forge. I get how good forgers can go crazy with just walls and such but the structures on other forges allowed for great levels.

Remove outlines around weapons on the floor.

This might be controversial but remove all forerunner weapons and the tracking missile launcher UNSC weapon.

Edit:
Keep the vicious Brute Plasma Rifle and Needler from Halo 5. Always felt like covenant weapons like these were weaker and the bullets fired too slowly to compete with UNSC weapons in the bungie days. Making it hard to go all out Elite in the multiplayer. And replace the storm rifle with the blue plasma rifle.

12

I just came up with two more things to take from previous games:
From Brute Force I’d take the special character abilities. For example, by using Tex’s dual-wielding ability, you could dual-wield bigger guns like assault rifles & rocket launchers.
From HALO 3: ODST I’d take the open-world environment.

13

Reach: Take the In game cut scenes that showed your personal Armor, Weapons, Invasion, and Forge World
Leave Armor abilities in favor of equipment like Halo 3

CE: Take the open expanse of level design, Blood, and Music.
Leave the One Shot to Kill Hunters, made them too easy.

H2: Take Arbiter and his story, Super bouncing, and Win Based Raking system
Leave Jackal Snipers

H3: Take More Scarab Battles, Dual Wielding, and Equipment pick ups!
Leave ??

ODST: Take Firefight, Night Vision, Silenced Weapons
Leave ??

H4: Take Good emotional Campaign and best Cortana design
Leave all loadouts, grenade indicators, sprinting, spartan ops, and armor abilities

H5: Take Seat Switching in vehicles, Custom Games and Forge
Leave All Spartan Abilities, Smart Scope, Fireteam Osiris, Palmer, and Squad mechanics

14

mehh i like the Spartan abilities… (especially running)

one thing i regret in Halo 5 is the lack of verticality (in Halo 1/2/3 you could reach some funny places, eg: top of mountains and buildings giving you the opportunity to see the admirable work of the development team… a thing completly forgotten in Halo 4/5 with their invisible ceilings -some politics even disagree with that! )

also keep at all cost Halo 2 Anniversary Master Chief design !

Oh yeah and i would be very grateful if you could bring in Yap Yap the Destroyer from Halo Wars 2 in the camapign (i would even enjoy playing with him ha! ha! )

15

ODST:

Take: 15 Round Firefight with Bonus Round at the end
Leave: That Hunter pair that are sitting in the darkness and jump out at you when you go past and kill you instantly on Legendary

16

Halo CE

  • Take: The Pistol (I mean who wouldn’t) - Leave: Chief’s armor (don’t @ me)Halo 2

  • Take: The soundtrack (Disc 2) - Leave: Jackal snipers (that’s a big bag of nope)Halo 3

  • Take: Grav lifts (you can have some serious fun with those) - Leave: The Cortana level (Thanks for the nightmares Vic)Halo3: ODST

  • Take: VISR outline / Night mode - Leave: Drones / Buggers, I really hate those thingsHalo Reach

  • Take: MOA!! - Leave: Armour abilities / equipmentHalo 4

  • Take: The story, I love everything about the story Halo 4 was beginning to explore (along with Spartan Ops) - Leave: Watchers (As bad as drones / buggers, if not worse)Halo 5: Guardians

  • Take: Thruster pack - Halo 5’s implementation of thruster is arguably one of my favorite things ever to be added to a Halo game. You could rip out Sprint and I wouldn’t give a jot if thruster was still there - Leave: Spartan Charge - doesn’t need much explanationHalo Wars / 2

  • Take: The Banished and their designs, some of the best looking stuff in the Halo universe to me - Leave: I haven’t played Halo Wars outside of a brief run through of the HW1 campaign, nothing I can really add here.

17

Halo CE

  • Take: Enemy AI on higher difficulty. They react so much more intelligently and tactically to the player when compared to the other Halo games. - Leave: Vehicle physics.Halo 2

  • Take: Level design. - Leave: Large MP maps.Halo 3

  • Take: Hornet. - Leave: Equipment.Halo3: ODST

  • Take: Health system. - Leave: Useless(imo) visr map.Halo Reach

  • Take: Marine/Army BDU design. - Leave: Bloom.Halo 4

  • Take: Forerunner art style. - Leave: Crawlers.Halo 5: Guardians

  • Take: Squad commands. - Leave: Spartan abilitiesHalo Wars / 2

  • Take: Flood variants. - Leave: N/A

18

> 2533274964775165;4:
> Halo: CE
> Take the classic pistol & fuel rod gun, original Grunt design, OG shade turret, and gorgeous environments
> Leave ???
>
> Brute Force (not Halo but still owned by Microsoft)
> Take the squad controls, alien races, weapons, worlds, and human enemies
> Leave the disjointed story and cloning game mechanic
>
> Halo 2
> Take the Arbiter, Drones & Brutes, Enforcer Sentinels, Spectre & Shadow vehicles, dual-wielding, and playable Elites
> Leave the teasing of a drivable Scarab (let us drive one already!)
>
> Halo 3
> Take the Brute weapons & vehicles, equipment
> Leave the H3 Grunt design
>
> Halo 3: ODST Take the VISR system and Engineers
> Leave ???
>
> Halo: Reach
> Take the weapons, vehicles, and Spartan abilities
> Leave ???
>
> Halo 4
> Take the Prometheans, level aesthetics, new Grunt design, and Mantis
> Leave ???
>
> Halo 5: Guardians
> Take the Promethean weapons & vehicles, Guardians, and 031 Exuberant Witness
> Leave the story, near-infinite weapon & armor variants (I don’t need nine versions of the same assault rifle), the Covenant (they’re irrelevant to the story at this point), poor squad controls, and smart-scope (feels too Call of Duty for a Halo game)

You seem to forget that the forum says take and leave One thing.

19

Halo (Combat Evolved)
Take its natural, believable, and varied animations for NPCs. The animations in H2/H3 seemed sped up. The cumbersome Jackals in particular moved too quickly during evade. Enemies could respond differently to being stuck by plasma nade/needle shards (Elites didn’t always berserk, Grunts didn’t always run around screaming. They could also try and get the projectiles off of them. Jackals had a variant panic animation where they ran as if they were set on fire).

Honorable mentions: restore the distinctive screech sound made by the Banshee, restore randomized battles in opening cutscenes (as seen on Keyes, also seen in the Reach mission ONI Base), restore NPCs (friendlies and enemies) appearing in in-game cutscenes. In HCE, you could literally block the marines in the Flood reveal cutscene on 343GS with a Shade. In H2, although vehicles were no longer solid for the cutscene characters, Elites and Brutes randomly appear in the cutscene after defeating Tartarus, a welcome sight. In H3, non-story NPCs (i.e. not Arby or Johnson) can only appear in The Covenant’s third tower deactivation cutscene iirc. In H4, non-story NPCs could appear in Requiem’s two console activation cutscenes (inside the Forerunner building). Messing around with cutscenes is just too funny to omit! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9AbNUjrDJY

Leave its spamming of Flood combat forms with power weapons on the latter levels. Two Betrayals really broke the solid experience established in the first five missions (even 343GS was a solid introduction for the Flood. The Library, though dull and repetitive, could be weathered through, delivering a sense of urgency). It’s indisputable that the level TB is hellish, especially on the twin bridges. What were Bungie thinking putting a squad of rocket Flood on a bridge? I think a lot of these wasted encounters could have been committed into that somewhat large last battle between Covies and Flood, where it’d be justified.

Halo 2
Take its vehicle traction for Covenant vehicles (Ghost, Spectre, and even the Wraith were excellent for driving up hills).
Leave its sheer and unexpected difficulty spike in the transition from Heroic to Legendary.

Halo 3
Take its NPC revival system. Although it’s true that Arby died frequently, he could always get back up if there were no enemies around. Plus cloning him and Johnson was an unexpected and humorous side effect. Immortality (i.e. H2 NPCs, Rookie’s squad, Noble Team, H4 Lasky) cheapens the fight, making them convenient meatshields. One has to either severely limit their capability or deploy them sparingly to counterbalance that tendency.
Leave its scripts which kill off enemy infantry (best seen at the end of The Storm and when you’re approaching the two Hornets on The Covenant, and iirc, on the Reach mission TotS during the Falcon ride). We should get to decide who lives or dies, although it can be justified if the mission is being bogged down with lag due to increased AI presence/activity. It was easier to just freeze them behind loading zones (like in HCE/H2).

Halo 3: ODST
Take its Banshee hover (for Campaign/SP only). The Banshee is really a shell of it’s former self without it.
Leave its escort objectives. Also an issue with Captain Keyes in the HCE mission TnR. The success of a mission should not depend on the lives of NPCs.

Halo: Reach
Take its faster but broken Banshee flips (as an alternative to hover), for SP (not MP). It was extremely helpful on The Package.
Leave its ridiculous despawn rate for weapons and corpses. I understand that this was largely due to the Xbox 360 being pushed to it’s limits, but in HCE/H2, weapons wouldn’t despawn if you picked them up. At the very least, they shouldn’t despawn if we’re looking right at them.

Halo 4
Take its variety of environments. Forests, mountains, plains, snow, desert, etc.
Leave its power weapon themed easter eggs.

I haven’t played Halo 5, unfortunately. Based on what I’ve seen, H5 restored the tradition of unique dialogue Grunts, that’d be something to continue.

20

> 2535415876049274;1:
> Name one thing from each Halo title that you would like to see Infinite take from and one thing you’d like to see it leave behind from that game. I’ll start:

Fantastic idea.

Mine are:

  • Reach, Take Firefight, the progression and armor customisation systems, and the story not being afraid to kill characters off, leave most of the armor abilities - Halo 3 ODST: Take firefight and something like Sadie’s Story as a side-quest, and the amazing music, leave the open world parts - Take the levels with non-linear paths and areas to explore and the sense of wonder and mystery they imbue. Leave non-hijackable vehicles - Take the development of additional characters without removing the focus from Chief, leave the boss battles - Take the voting mechanics, leave equipment - Take the additional campaign-style additional content and its ability to further develop the storyline ‘in your own shoes’; leave ordnance and specialisms - Take Breakout/Elimination and the custom lobbies; leave Warden EternalOP,

> 2535415876049274;1:
> Halo: Reach****Leave its “before the beginning, you know the end” prequel nature. The story felt too limited.

I see where you’re coming from, but I couldn’t disagree more wholeheartedly. I found that to be so refreshing in a game: being entirely unafraid to set the player up in that way was one of the boldest things about Reach and set the tone for the whole game which I loved. there are so many wonderful stories which games and a whole multitude of media should be unafraid to tell, but they also need to be willing to kill of the protagonist (and keep them dead!). Protagonists who are immortal for Doylist-only reasons become boring because you reach a point of breaking the suspense: no matter how bad the odds they are facing look you always know they will survive.

The vast majority of people who complain about the death of Noble 6 I have little sympathy for because although for many of us Noble-6 was where we really began honing what ‘our’ Spartan looked like and we really built up that image there you can’t say that the game’s advertising and opening cutscene didn’t set you up for what was to come.