I think Halo’s future hangs a lot in this new game. Ever since Reach, the population across Halo has been dropping. That is not too uncommon with new releases and games getting older and older but I remember Halo 3 when it was a bit past a year from its release. It was full of people, every playlist had the entire population of Reach (pre-Christmas 2011) in it. Reach’s population grew exponentially after Christmas. On an average day that game was at 35k+ gamers, and just today the game was at 110k. But that still isn’t the same number as Halo 3 and that is what worries me. I feel like Halo is falling away for many people, including the people that put days upon days in Halo 3. I have been following a lot of MLG pros activity lately. Just recently, Reach became a big topic of discussion on the MLG side of things. Especially in the “off-season” those pros have came out and expressed what they want to see fixed in Reach (i.e. Ranked playlists 1-50). Even the CEO of MLG expressed his thoughts on the future of Halo and it didn’t sound promising. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwEF8gW5VsE&list=FLKZ9iC0qmM8RDWhKBpa4CEw&index=26&feature=plpp_video)
That is his interview of a Twitch.tv stream. I feel like 343i knows what they could lose and I doubt they would ever want to put that at risk, but I feel like Halo 4 needs to fall back to what Halo CE-3 did. No bloom, no AA’s, and ranks. It worked for Bungie for 10 years and everyone liked it, but numbers don’t lie. The population shifts between Halo 3 and Reach are just to big to be ignored. I don’t feel like this is a good time for the Halo series to try anything new and crazy. I feel like the optimal Halo 4 would be the best of CE-3. IMO Reach can be put in the same category as ODST and Wars, a side story, a completely different game.
I don’t have that much to say but I’ve been following halo MLG pros too. It turns out that they love zero bloom and think it might improve the competitiveness of Halo: Reach.
Yeah, I’ve heard that too. I really hope that the zero bloom and no sprint is enough to keep Halo in the spotlight till Halo 4. If Reach can hold out for one more season I think Halo’s future will be fine, and stay exactly where it is, as the dominant competitive FPS.