Halo 5 is that weird beast that is too mechanical for new players / kids / bad players invest time into as the game is more difficult to play decently, yet despite listening to the pro scene ignore the most basic requests regarding movement and not give something we want. By all means many pros do enjoy 5, though there’s a reason we held tournaments on older games after the H5 scene fell apart.
I won’t get into semantic arguments as I don’t care for them, the map size discussion is a dead end as even with data it would require a formula to define effective size with relation to how movement affects space. It seems rather sus that someone who would trash both 4 and 5 would die on a hill defending sprint however. I’ll re-iterate it but what game has sprint that isn’t near instant kill times, obscenely large maps or 1 life only modes. Sprint can work on all 3 of these as the instant kill makes it dangerous to use, the large maps necessitate its use, 1 life only makes it risky to overuse it. Halo implemented it then has spent a decade trying to nerf it to fit a square peg into a round hole.
The idea that sprint is the ‘new’ evolution shooters have to make to be relevant is stupidity. The granddaddy of shooters that ushered in its popularity, Doom, had a run key. Since you could shoot during run, not running was pointless so an option was added to autorun. Sprint only works as a mechanic if you can’t shoot while sprinting, which in turn creates the schism we have seen since Reach. Those who want uniform move speed vs those who want 2 modes of speed. Wanting uniform movespeed does not mean it needs to be sluggish like H3 or have to become quake-like to speed it up, we can add movement options, they just aren’t a spawn trait.
The competitive scene already solved this and was 343s first action with the series. We played competitively with sprint in Reach, the maps were quite small all things considered, but the game was spent 50% locked into an animation, and was very cat and mouse, the game also had bloom. People died on that hill too, making all the arguments on Bnet that “this is the way the game was intended, it will play worse”, “classic Halo formula is outdated”, “Halo needs to be modern” the same song and dance. Once no bloom no sprint NBNS was introduced there was a huge resurgence of competitive players in Reach, the game felt so much better, and with jetpack and evade pickups it felt very rewarding. There was no dead time without sprint, there was real calculated risk, outplays as sprint wasn’t a fallback option, more co-ordination, more aggression and punishment. Unfortunately the main tournament organiser MLG pulled Halo from its circuit after the first tournament despite record numbers and a resurgence in popularity, mostly to make way for the rise in MOBAs. Halo then had to suffer under the frauds of AGL.
Then we got H4 with infinity settings, then we got H5 with titanfall-esque chain movement. Some could say that my input is only relevant with respect to the 1% who play competitive, however I would retort that Halo had its rise in popularity because it was a very simple, fluid and intuitive game, an arena-esque sandbox game. The push for sprint or sprint combos has just added jank and complications to the game. Halo being more simple and intuitive but having a high skill ceiling is what induced so many players into getting into competitive gaming, not comp players trying to force their vision on Halo, but to keep the element that made it so enthralling to begin with.