I don’t think Halo will have a successful future if it stays on this path. I believe the future of Halo may very well lie in its past.
What I am saying is the community is at the worst days I’ve seen, here in Halo 5. If Halo is to survive, or even become a juggernaut again, it has to stop trying to blend in.
It it needs to go back to being a special snowflake again, like it was before. Back in Halo Reach and prior. Everything from gameplay to art style.
Don’t get me wrong, I like some of Halo 5’s armor sets a ton, and want most of them to stay. But things like Venator, Shinobi, and Achilles aren’t fitting. The same thing for weapon skins. The pizza and fries skins should take a hike if weapon skins stay.
Core Gameplay-
Classic gameplay style needs to return, or at the very least, a Reach style to get us back in the right direction. It is a shadow of its former self at this point.
We need to return to a Halo 3/Reach feel if Halo is to get the old timers back. The new fans aren’t worth it if they are the type to just move on to the next shooter that features GP and SC. Only thing worth keeping is clamber.
Campaign-
Having Blue Team and Buck was a step in the right direction, but H5G’s campaign ultimately flopped, fell on concrete, then rolled into the pool with shattered bones. Though, I admit I did enjoy the ride.
The addition of AI teammates and squad commands was a nice gesture, but the AI were a little… “Special”. SWRC had Bette team AI and it came out in 2005.
I personally wish the squad commands to come to MP for team play reasons.
Also, i don’t like having to read the book to understand the story. I can’t say many of the newer books I like, but let’s take Halo 4 as an example. If you ignored the Forerunner saga, you were probably lost. I read the (rather boring) Forerunner books though, so I can only speak from what I’ve heard.
Abilities and Loadouts-
The Spartan Abilities aren’t Halo. Sprint, GP, SC, and boosters. They all mean nothing. The only thing I personally want to keep is Clamber. The equipment from Halo 3 or Reach (not 4) style AAs and loadouts were much more desirable. Yes, I believe you can have Clamber and AAs/ equipment. 343 can do it if they truly wanted to.
Forge-
Forge Maps need to return to Forge World style. Not much to say about that. Forge was disappointing in both the complex anti-beginner controls and bad (or small) maps. The item canvas was a bit weird, too.
Needing to build everything from scratch was annoying, but allowed for huge opportunity as well. This is a case of keeping and returning. Let their be optional H5G style Forge controls and the standard Halo 3/Reach style controls and interface. Bringing more objects would help.
The ability to spawn bodies, FX, and scripting is invaluable and amazing. Though, I do wish scripting was easier to understand. This rings true for many of the tools.
Warzone and the REQ System-
Warzone and and the in-game REQ system are great additions, and I think perform their duties quite efficiently and well, farmers aside. The purchasing system, however, was an extremely flawed idea. The microtransactions and RNG are never good alone, they put them together for disaster.
Warzone is a fantastic game mode, WZA is a bad spin off of Invasion. With that said, I believe Invasion should make a triumphant return. Warzone FF, it does a good job for what it set out to do. I still prefer the past iterations of Firefight, but also enjoy the occasional WZFF game, though not a lot.
Customization-
We need Elites back, and their armor sets because it would make for Bette opportunity in both game and Machinima purposes. See: Halo 2 and 3. Elites and Spartans were copies, but still let diversity come.
The Spartan armor in Halo 5 doesn’t look like the classic design we had before. Sure, we still have some good designs, but far too many of the designs in Halo 5 have either tiny visor or none at all. The “cameras are better” argument doesn’t bode well imo. I’d be happy to explain if y’all are interested.
Otherwise, things like Atlas, EVA, Recon, Mk. V, ect. with visors are far superior and stick to the original design of Halo armor.
The armor customization in Halo 5 was also rather sad compared to Halo Reach/Halo 4. Even Halo 3 had more armor customization, from a certain point of view.
(H5G- Visor, torso, helmet, colors. H3- Helmet, Torso, Left Shoulder, Right Shoulder, Colors)
The removal of skinned armor would also help the huge amount of space taken up, I think. At the very least, we need a new UI so it isn’t endless scrolling. See: Halo Reach.
Vehicles and Weapons-
Halo 5 vehicles are awesome. Too weak, sure, but the armor aside, they are awesome. However, I believe we need to add all the vehicles back. Everything from Mongoose to drop ships from all Halo games (even Halo Wars). If not in MM, at least in Forge and Customs for multi-purpose use.
Weapon variants, and weapons in general, for Halo 5 are also amazing. I wish to see their return as well, cutting useless variants that no one uses (ex. Storm Rifle variants). These should also return for many reasons, such as Machinima and plain fun.
Maps-
Not sure what about Halo 4 and 5 maps seems dull to me, but all preview games captured my attention much more than 4 and 5.
This is all my own opinion, how do y’all reckon we should approach this issue? I think I’ve covered everything, but as of posting it is after 3am and I’m tired.