This is may be an unfair point, because this has more to do with my own perception than it does 343’s intent, but I want to discuss anyway - But when they first revealed the academy and showed the videos detailing what we now know is just a minor tutorial level, I fell under the impression that the academy was going to be some kind of social hub as where there would be activities such as the gun range to take part in as an almost seamless, unified environment where one could chill, test their medal with guns and aiming and do anything else under the sun that would feel like a more inviting and welcoming environment for new players as well as Halo vets to enjoy/play together.
Obviously this isn’t the case and the academy is very much a supplementary feature/gametype really designed to be seldom used and to “warm up” prior to jumping into matchmaking.
It does have me thinking, despite my disappointment, that maybe this would be something far down the line that they might consider doing once the game is more stable and (Hopefully) content rich.
Playing MCC and Halo 5 custom browser the “Social” playlists are always quite active with players who really just want to chill together and chat, do fun things with the maps, etc…
And it has me thinking how, atleast I personally, would really love it if the academy became sort of a hub/menu where you can both be social with other players and have a sort of open ended experience that could honestly replace the menu (which is pretty lackluster atm)
Have things like your armor hall, weapon bench, vehicle bay, be able to show off your armor to other players and test things out with each other, hop into matchmaking all from this sort of unified play space.
I know other games have done this to varying degrees of success, but I think with this game having the FTP model it might actually get people wanting to be more involved if the academy was expanded upon to this degree of detail. It could benefit from a bit more of a nuanced expansion of something that is right now kind of just taking up menu space.
Allowing players better interaction, I think generally is a key thing missing from this game, hence no pre-game lobby’s or vetoing. I really miss the social dynamic of Halo very much and I think the academy is a place they could really correct that in a big bad way.
But that’s just me. What do you guys think?
