At no point in the history of the Halo series has there been a boss fight that wasn’t ridiculously easy (343GS, Didact) or hard (H2 bosses, Warden). Sometimes they were relegated to cinematics (i.e. Jul, Truth), but considering Halo’s bad track record for boss fights, it might be the lesser evil at this point (although it’ll be viewed as lazy). Project Lumoria featured a few unique Elites as bosses but they were mainly massive damage sponges who didn’t differ that much from other Elites (other than raising a tower shield. One modder implemented the arm shield in Reach for Zealots, shown somewhere in this vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo3IWilbUog).
The obscene thing about the Heretic leader and Tartarus fights were that they started you off right in the open, giving you only a few precious seconds to run to cover. As for Regret, you only had to deal with this BS before the boss fight, but the constant teleporting, the waves of dual wielding Elites, and the massive amount of hp Regret had (for a prophet) was beyond absurd. The Heretic leader’s holograms were cheap and unrealistic. In some cases, they could go through walls and melee you. What made these two fights bearable was that the game handed out checkpoints every now and then. Also, having sword fly glitch and camo (via Envy as Chief) at your disposal.
Which brings me to my next point: Tartarus.
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> The stage would be similar to Tartarus’s boss battle in Halo 2, except there wouldn’t be any gravity lifts and no spinning platforms. Instead, the entire area would look like the beginning of a Flood Hive with tentacle biomass everywhere. There are only a few weapon caches in the area–Covenant, Forerunner, and Human. As you fight the Gravemind, Cortana or the Monitor (I haven’t read much on the expanded lore) tries to take control of the Forerunner tech to aid Chief.
The total absence of checkpoints, the almost complete reliance on a NPC (Johnson) to deal any damage to Tartarus (unless you brought a beam rifle yourself), the constantly respawning Brute reinforcements, the near uselessness of Elite support (honestly, they’d have been more useful staying back rather than jumping into the fray, preferably armed with dual needlers or carbines), and the basic inability to return to Johnson’s sniping platform (unless you moved one of those supply crates closer to one of those 4 “fins”, from which you could jump onto the topmost part of the moving platforms) made this fight the most hellish boss on Legendary.
Fortunately, you can bring a Banshee into this fight which affords you near invulnerability, although it takes a long time to kill him. In speedruns, this fight is trivialized thanks to a Johnson cloning glitch. You could also try and get Miranda Keyes to run off the moving platform (either using plasma nades or needler) and she’ll serve as a distraction. Technically, you could lure Tartarus into the lift, up to the topmost platform (to prevent interference from Brutes down below) and simply go back and forth shooting your shotty/dual brute plasmas while letting Johnson(s) hit him, but this is not very easy to maintain and takes a long time without the clones.
I would also add that the Tartarus boss fight deliberately placed the death barrier too high, which meant Elites who fell down below would die upon touching the floor. Bungie was simply too lazy to script a path into the lift for them. The sword Elites can actually keep him stun locked in large numbers: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6whcfc (I exploited the infinitely spawning Elite waves with vehicle blockades)
So far, Halo Campaign has had a better track record implementing vehicle runs (although vehicle flipping seems to be a reoccurring issue in newer halos since they’re so lightweight), tribal boss encounters (a bunch of Covies led by a Chieftain/Zealot or in the case of Reach PoA, a team of highly trained Zealots. Also see the H4 eggs: four Elites of the Apocalypse and Zealot snipers), and massive vehicles for boarding (Scarabs, Lich, Kraken). On the other hand, Halo has been simply unbearable when it comes to escort objectives (i.e. Captain Keyes, Oliphant). I don’t remember if Reach/4/5 had any of those.
Maybe boss battles are nowadays different with Warzone, but I haven’t had my share of experience in that game mode. Can anyone who has played it relate what bosses are like?
As for your proposal, as long as it stays clear of Dark Souls’ The Bed of Chaos (probably one of the easiest bosses in that game), I honestly wouldn’t mind fighting a Gravemind undergoing multiple stages of growth (it should reflect it’s gradual boost in intelligence). There was such a great build-up for a Gravemind fight near the end of The Covenant but Bungie opted to transform the level Cortana into a boss “fight” instead. Everyone knows how poor the reception was for that level. To sum up that mission: linear, tunnel vision, Ranged form hell, infested with Cortana/Gravemind moments which unnecessarily slow down the pacing.
