I’m a Halo veteran that’s been playing Halo since CE came out. Halo: CE was the first game I’ve ever played at 2 years old (I know, 2 years old) and I’m gonna share my thoughts on what we’ve seen so far and hopefully be one of the more reasonable voices. I’ve played every mainline Halo game, including Halo Wars 1 and 2, ODST, and Reach if you count that. To be clear, pre-343 Halo is my favorite Halo and will always be my favorite, especially with Halo 2 and 3. I’m gonna be talking primarily about the Demo shown recently.
To start off, since just about everyone started complaining about this, movement. What do I think about the movement? I believe I’m generally neutral on sprint, even when they first revealed the game I determined sprint in some form is here to stay, I didn’t think they would remove it just like that. Maybe if we’re lucky, in settings for the Campaign you could potentially shut off advanced movement, if campaign’s your thing. As for multiplayer, I’m sure the advanced movement may stay no matter what. If i were making a new Halo game, I likely would’ve removed advanced movement and made maps for classic movement and gameplay simply because I think things like sprint mess with the pacing of the game. This was a problem for Halo 4 and 5, although Halo 5 multiplayer was decent.
To address the graphics, I want to give 343 the benefit of the doubt here because I know the demo they showed was of an earlier build, maybe a few months old. Yes, it definitely looked rough, but there’s evidence online showing that may not even be the finished version of the graphics. As for the art style, I like the direction it’s going for the most part. I think the game going a little more cartoony could be a benefit, especially for multiplayer as you may be able to see things much more easily, and of course, Spartans will likely pop out from the environment more than 5, making it easier to see players. The art style reminds me a little bit of CE, and anyone who’s played or watched the original game in classic graphics will likely know what I’m talking about. Some of the weapons do look kind of off but I think we only saw 4 new weapons, one’s a returning weapon from 3. There’s likely going to be a lot more weapons in the final game to look at and judge.
I do love the meme of the badly rendered brute though, that’s hilarious.
Now, the most important aspect for me, GAMEPLAY. I personally thought the gameplay looked fun, and I’m actually open to the idea of an open world Halo campaign compared to what others think. Having the opportunity to explore a Halo ring seems interesting to me. The flow seems better than the more recent games and gun play appears to be really fun. I also noticed that the enemies are speaking English again, which is a nice change because that means we can hear some entertaining lines come from the enemies again. I also like the fact they brought back the Halo 5 hit marker as it was really satisfying to get kills in Halo 5 because of the hit marker. I hope what they’re doing is trying to take the best aspects from all the games and apply them here. In the gameplay trailer released after the demo, I also noticed the Halo 2 BR which I’m happy about as Halo 2 is among my favorites. Sound seemed good as well, especially the new Warthog sound, that sounded GOOD.
Despite being a veteran, I’m trying to remain open-minded to new things as long as they don’t diverge too much from what I enjoy. Everyone’s acting like the game’s released already when it isn’t, and that isn’t really fair to anyone who worked on this. Those asking for 343 to delay the game are not being realistic either as Infinite is slated to be a launch title for the Series X, and to delay Infinite, it’s likely they’d have to delay the Series X too, and I don’t think they’re willing to do that right now. We’ll have to see how the game turns out when it releases. Me and my friend will likely play it on launch day since we have Game Pass. For those not trying, YouTube can be pretty useful for looking at gameplay and reviews. You can probably make a conclusion from what you see, unless you’re like me and pay for Game Pass.
Those are the thoughts from a veteran that’s been playing since CE. I’m open to responses.