Welcome to the death of Halo

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

This post has been edited by a moderator. Please refrain from making non-constructive posts.

*Original post. Click at your own discretion.

This is the end guys. It was a brilliant run. While you can obsess all you want over the details of why Halo is struggling, it still holds true that it IS struggling to stay alive an relavent.

I spent the better part of 12 years playing this game. I haven’t logged onto the forums in over a year and now I realize it either just got old, or, it changed to much.

I didn’t run away to another game. I can’t stand battlefield or COD. I just lost the love for the game I enjoyed playing. To much of a difference. Maybe 343 will pull a rabbit out of their hat and do something amazing with Halo 5 and the masses will come back. For now though we have to assume that they won’t. Their track record isn’t stellar.

I remember hoping to get matched up against lunchbox, snipedown, or walshy. Crazy games on lockout in halo 2 with last second headshots when the score was 49 to 49 (on our like 30th custom game in a row). The absolute obsession over the release of Halo 3 after the “Starry Night” commercial.

I look forward to see how 343 ends the MC’s run. Do it with respect. After such a wonderful story please stop monetizing it. Its on the same level as if someone picked up a pen and said they were going to write a sequel to Lord of the Rings. Finish the story the way it should and let Halo be. A memory of the greatest video game ever made. The game that changed it all for the better.

I love Halo. More than most on this forum. I’ve been playing this game since before a lot of players were born. You have ruined it enough and I don’t trust it in your hands anymore 343. This is your last chance. If you fail PLEASE let it rest.

Thank you,

A Lifetime Halo Player.

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Welcome to the waypoint forums, where most people have something.

Hope.

Without it, I’m sure 343 would fail.
But we do hope. And with our support, our feedback, 343i can pull this off, in a most spectacular manner.

3

Dude, no offence, but do we really need more of these “If the next Halo game fails, give up” and “Halo is dying” threads?

I get it, you dislike a lot of things happening right now, doesn’t mean Halo is dying.

4

Well, I must say that you’re kinda overdramatizing this. No offence.

I don’t know if Halo X1 will be a success or not, the only thing I know is that I’ll be there to play it.

About 343i “track record”, it only includes a couple of side-material stuff (which is always nice to have), and HD versión of Halo CE (which everyone liked), and Halo 4, (Not counting SA right now).

Man, if you don’t have any faith left in the developers, then why bother at all? You can just go on and think that Halo 3 (or Reach, depending on which stage you started to dislike the course of the franchise) was the last game and they didn’t make any others.

If you’re here, that means that Halo meant as much to you as to us, but with that feeling gone, don’t you think is just time to just let it rest yourself? If you don’t like the developers or the course which the story has taken, you will not like their next game, be it good or bad.

Just my opinión here, sorry if it comes off as rude for you, so, good luck. I’ll enjoy Halo X1 in your place.

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Halo isn’t Dying? May I remind you that video games are a multi-billion dollar business?

I want to have Hope. Look at the numbers of people playing compared to other triple A titles. Regardless, I am not talking about the mechanics or the features. I am talking about the simple fact that hardly anyone plays online anymore. When they do, they complain about it.

Noble 138, while i respect your passion, I just have to simply disagree. I have had my hopes held to high.

its not all 343’s fault. Halo: Reach was an abomination of a Halo game.

Don’t hold out for too long guys, as I have done. You will simply end up getting kicked in the rear end.

I more than anyone hope I am wrong. When 343 was handed the franchise, they still had a masssive population supporting them. Now it is an uphill battle. One I fear they might lose.

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> Halo isn’t Dying? May I remind you that video games are a multi-billion dollar business?

No you don’t need to remind me, but I shouldn’t have to remind you that no one will get hit harder from Halo Dying as the developers themselves. The developers has been spending every waking hour at their jobs working on Halo, putting their hopes and dreams into it, to see it fail and die is almost as bad as losing a child.

> I want to have Hope. Look at the numbers of people playing compared to other triple A titles. Regardless, I am not talking about the mechanics or the features. I am talking about the simple fact that hardly anyone plays online anymore. When they do, they complain about it.

Ok, so Halo’s pop is dipping, it happens, doesn’t mean it’s dying, it’s just having a low time, every game has one of those periods of time. As for the players complaining, no one said Halo 4 was perfect, hell, NONE OF THE HALO GAMES ARE PERFECT, they all had flaws, glitches, bugs, eye sores, and questionable changes.

> Noble 138, while i respect your passion, I just have to simply disagree. I have had my hopes held to high.

Ok, you had your hopes held to high, you think you’re the only one? Many people on these forums had high hopes, a lot of them either lost their hope, or kept hoping, and those who kept hopping left feedback on why Halo did well in the past, and why Halo 4 isn’t doing well. Leaving posts like your OP, isn’t helping Halo, it isn’t feedback of any kind, it’s you giving up, and not even trying to lift your finger to better Halo.

> its not all 343’s fault. Halo: Reach was an abomination of a Halo game.

You’re right, it’s not 343’s fault, it’s mostly Bungie’s, but Reach was not a total abomination like everyone makes it out to be, even failures yield useful information. There are aspects, features, coding, and/or UIs in Halo Reach that improved Halo, Forge, the friends list on the main UI, the level of customization, matchmaking filters, and even the concept of armor abilities was good improvements.
At one point people thought Halo 2 was an abomination, and yet today people prease Halo 2.

> Don’t hold out for too long guys, as I have done. You will simply end up getting kicked in the rear end.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I am not you, I don’t quickly give up because of a few failures, as long as people leave feedback, and the developers use said feedback to better their game, Halo will keep on going, and be stronger than any other game.

> I more than anyone hope I am wrong. When 343 was handed the franchise, they still had a masssive population supporting them. Now it is an uphill battle. One I fear they might lose.

Halo Developers has always had an uphill battle with it’s supporting community, always have, always will. But that should never mean we should give up on what we believe in.

But if you really think Halo is done, please feel free to leave, there’s no need for any more people who insist on saying Halo is doomed, there’s plenty already.

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some people’s expectations are waaay to high if it is about the topic
“halo’s life”. in my eyes, for me personally, halo won’t be dead as long…
well, it’ll features halos, the master chief and red spartans vs blue spartans
in the MP. anything else are just aesthetic additions,
for which i don’t care much.
Halo changed so much from combat evoled to 4, that actually nothing
can shock me now. and as long as the mentioned features won’t be removed,
i keep on buying, no matter what comes.

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I apologize for my tone, but, not my message. Be fearful. Like I said. Video Games are a business. Halo 4 was close to a BILLION dollar title. I am sure Halo 5 will be over that number easily. How much money do you expect Microsoft to dump into a game that is at its “Low point” as you referred?

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> I apologize for my tone, but, not my message. Be fearful. Like I said. Video Games are a business. Halo 4 was close to a BILLION dollar title. I am sure Halo 5 will be over that number easily. How much money do you expect Microsoft to dump into a game that is at its “Low point” as you referred?

You would be kinda right if this was any other franchise, but this is Halo we are talking about. The franchise basically saben the original Xbox from being more than an expensive doorstep. Halo became the icon for the Xbox and a console-seller. Microsoft will not let it die that easily.

As said, business is business. As long as people want Halo, there will be people making more of it.

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> > I apologize for my tone, but, not my message. Be fearful. Like I said. Video Games are a business. Halo 4 was close to a BILLION dollar title. I am sure Halo 5 will be over that number easily. How much money do you expect Microsoft to dump into a game that is at its “Low point” as you referred?
>
> You would be kinda right if this was any other franchise, but this is Halo we are talking about. The franchise basically saben the original Xbox from being more than an expensive doorstep. Halo became the icon for the Xbox and a console-seller. <mark>Microsoft will not let it die that easily.</mark>
>
> As said, business is business. As long as people want Halo, there will be people making more of it.

I think it is less of them not letting Halo die easily and more of Microsoft stopping being Microsoft as they currently are.

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Halos dying is it?

Well considering the amount of people spread over all of its games, yes not just halo 4 which people who dislike use as an inaccurate source of population when its bit only the least popular but its another game which spreads the community even more.

You’ve got to remember that there is lots of other high quality titles that halo has to compete with unlike back in its day. So there will be another population drift and this also increases the amount of people who stop playing after a short while to play the next ‘big popular thing’

So one bad games ruins an entire series? Well there is loads of other good games which suffered due this like Assassins creed 3, Mass effect 3 and loads more which Ive nit been aware of. Oh wait they’re still popular and got/getting expansions/ sequels to the franchises. One bad game does not ruin an entire franchise and if you are out of a series because of that then I dont really know what to say.

Also where and when have 343 said that halo 5 will be exactly like halo 4? Sure they may go down the same line using logic, but this doesnt mean they wont learn from their mistakes which they realised with halo 4 by showing lots of support and dedication and even attempting a classic like playlist.

Wait till halo 5 to make a judgment, dont make a blind one.

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That’s the spirit.

13

Halo is FAR from over.

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There is no reason to believe 343i will fail.

They have an award winning franchise in their hands, a series with so much good features that you only need to reach out to tap into them. 343i are comprised of a now full team (something that wasn’t true for the most of Halo 4’s development), a team built from the ground up to uphold the Halo legacy and a team made up of countless industry veterans, all skilled and experience. They have a budget as big as their creativity- no problems there (Halo 4 was the second most expensive game of all time when it released, factoring in the marketing campaign).

But most importantly, this team has a history. You say they don’t have a good track record, one game is no track record. They have made so many mistakes, but each mistake is a red light- a warning. Coming in to Halo 5, they have so many red lights, so much feedback, and their path to victory is lit up. In Halo 4, they took big risks- some payed off, most didn’t. With Halo 5, they don’t need risks. The mist was lifted from their path and they now know where they should go- where they HAVE to go if they ever want Halo to regain its position at the top of the Xbox brand. They acknowledged these things before “we learned a lot from Halo 4. We will do much better next time.”

I believe them. There’s nothing else to do, really. I’m not giving up on Halo without a fight. Don’t know about you.

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Honestly, I agree OP. Let’s all see things straight: Halo has had its run, it was a good one but all good things end at some point, and I think they just need to stop now. They said they didn’t want to simply do a new trilogy now but a long saga? Bad idea.

I was there since Halo CE, I lived all these ‘‘buying OXM mags for every bit of new info for the upcoming Halo game’’ and playing at last the new Halo game for the first time. Being satisfied, then disappointed and then having a new opinion, more positive or not as negative. And I also lived the thrills of the Halo 3 and Reach beta, those were magic moments. But playing Halo 4, the magic was gone. It was too much the same thing as before. Maybe I grew tired of the more and more ridiculous hype machine surrounding each game, about the devs and the media talking about the game and the series as if we were talking about something much more than video games… it’s becoming insanity. Or maybe I grew tired of having my kind of expectations, to see a series grow in a different way than what we see in this industry. They either keep making the same thing, or do something else entirely.

I think Halo 3 is the only one which tried to be a bigger Halo game in a certain way. The scarab fights were really upping the ante of the game; use of even more intelligent AIs, plenty of different ways to approach an objective and carry it on. It was a bit timid when taking the game as a whole, but when these moments occurred you really experienced something fresh, even if it’s the very same game with the very same mechanics. And I think that’s something the devs often forget. If you want to make a series truly evolve, you need to polish the existing mechanics, add maybe a couple of new ones. In another way, they need to make everything better and bigger. And things WILL feel fresh and new, while playing the game you liked in the first place. Imagine an Halo game with open spaces 10 times as big as what we saw in the biggest ones in say, Assault on the Control Room or Silent Cartographer. The game wouldn’t play the same way. Add better AI, more vehicles and crazy things going, that’s evolution. I might exaggerate on the 10 times as big but it’s simply to make my point. Better technology = better existing mechanics and exciting new things (scarab fights). The scarab fights in Halo 3 would have been impossible on the original xbox, although the rest of the game it certainly could’ve handled it. And it shouldn’t be this way. Reach? While it was a nice Halo game, it almost backed down compared to Halo 3. Bungie talked about incorporating water combat but it never happened.

We’ve been served the almost same game for 12 years now. It could, and it did, survive the lack of scope of the studio but now? It’s becoming a tired old dog. And it doesn’t help they are struggling to do a multiplayer that pleases everyone, without trying to rip off other games’ mechanics… And thing is, it is truly rare that the more iteration a franchise sees, better it becomes, or more realistically, as good it stays. Usually the first iteration is the best, sometimes the second and more rarely the third. And it’s because all the cool ideas are the first ones to come up. Afterwards you are struggling to find something else to make things more exciting, because the rest is of course nothing new, and you might end up breaking some of the better things you didn’t know about from the first one. And that’s exactly what happened with Halo. 343 really need to get their -Yoink- together and make a game that is a hundred times what game Halo 4 is if Halo is to stay relevant, to warrant keeping it alive again. Or every other Halo game…

You know what 343 should do? Repackage the original trilogy with consistent visuals and the intended cut levels from Halo 2. THAT would make me happy. And the choice to play with the old graphics too (XBOX graphics for Halo CE, not PC as in Halo CEA). AND with their specific multiplayers available for xbox live again. That would be the Halo game to end all Halo games.

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I don’t think that halo is dying. It is just declining. 343i needs to step their game up. 343i said that they spent more money on halo 4 than any other halo game. This is very sad because at times their are more people playing reach or halo 3 than people playing halo 4. I personally like halo 4 but it does not have that classic halo feel . I hope that halo 5 will have that halo feel with next gen technology.

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Psh. Just wait till we get some real details on Halo 5. We’ll be having people slobbering all over the franchise again. It’s only a matter of time. Whether 343 can deliver on the actual game when the time comes is up for debate, but as everyone said, I really do believe that they’re getting better and better.

Seriously, it would take some sort of massive fiasco out of the blue on 343’s end for the game to suck at this point.

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One person in a crowd does not represent the crowd as a whole.

One game in a franchise doesn’t define how it will succeed

343 came into Halo 4 with a deadline, limited technology capabilities, fierce competition, and a great amount of expectations which they might not have accomplished.

In many ways, Halo 4 is CE, just without the massive mods and editors.
1st mission= fighting to get off crashing ship
2nd mission= new world, with much mystery
enemy introduced later in-game
7-8 missions= lone wolf(almost)
New gameplay from a mix and mesh of other popular titles

Also

> We learned the community’s wants and needs
> We will do much better next time

Many games have succeeded greatly after failure.

Most of all this MICROSOFT’S first party console exclusive. If it were to die, they would have scrapped it by now!