I’ve been a Halo fan since 2013. However, I didn’t really start following the franchise (buying the books, watching the HCS tourneys, etc) until around 2018. Before 2018 I just bought the games and played them with my little brother. It wasn’t until I received an Xbox One for Christmas and the announcement of Halo Infinite that I really started to get into the franchise.
Recently, UberNick made a video explaining why 2019 is going to be great for Halo. This got me thinking, what year has been the best for Halo? What year (from 2001 to 2018) was “Halo’s year”?
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion so it’s not fact.
My personal opinion, 2007. The hype train for Halo 3 was going full speed! Everyone and I truly mean EVERYONE was excited! The <strong>E3 2007 Halo 3 Campaign Trailer</strong> dropped and had everyone buzzing with excitement. Keep in mind, the Xbox was as popular as it was because of Halo. Nearly everyone who had bought an original Xbox had one so they could play Halo which lead into everyone buying an Xbox 360 so they could play Halo 3.
2007 was the peak year in that it was the last year Halo was TOP DOG! Everyone else was competing for 2nd place. Gears of War and Call of Duty were just starting their big multiplayer pushes but Halo ruled console multiplayer. I still get goosebumps thinking about the trailers and how every single gamer on earth was anxiously awaiting for Halo 3 to be released. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Just…Incredible.
> 2546678360738636;2:
> Everyone is entitled to their own opinion so it’s not fact.
>
> My personal opinion, 2007. The hype train for Halo 3 was going full speed! Everyone and I truly mean EVERYONE was excited! The E3 2007 Halo 3 Campaign Trailer dropped and had everyone buzzing with excitement. Keep in mind, the Xbox was as popular as it was because of Halo. Nearly everyone who had bought an original Xbox had one so they could play Halo which lead into everyone buying an Xbox 360 so they could play Halo 3. 2007 was the peak year in that it was the last year Halo was TOP DOG! Everyone else was competing for 2nd place. Gears of War and Call of Duty were just starting their big multiplayer pushes but Halo ruled console multiplayer. I still get goosebumps thinking about the trailers and how every single gamer on earth was anxiously awaiting for Halo 3 to be released. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Just…Incredible.
I wasn’t a Halo player yet in 2007, but I’m almost inclined to agree. As someone who came to the franchise after this, it seems to have been not only an incredible time for hype around Halo 3, but also the community. I picture teenage boys drinking Halo-themed Mountain Dew, everyone having their own clan and building bases in Forge, CoD vs Halo, RvB and Frag Dolls as very representative of this time period. Maybe it doesn’t sound appealing to some, but it seems so quaint and communal to me. Even the Halo 3 cover art seemed to have become the franchise’s cover art.
Probably 2010 or 11.
Reach and 3, two of the top 3 best Halo games, were out.
Halo Reach custom modes were established. Customs that were established in Halo 3 have made their way to Reach, but 3 was still well populated so you could easily go back to play them there.
And of course you had people playing Wars and ODST aswell, which was also a really good time.
While it’s up for debate, I think the answer is obvious. 2007, I’ll never forget the day there were 1 million people concurrently playing Halo 3. I’m pretty sure it happened multiple times actually. Either way, in 2007 Halo 3 was today’s Fortnite. Every gamer knew what it was, and SOOO MANY were hyped to buy it. It was a fond memory of mine, as Halo is my favorite entertainment franchise. Halo 3 smashed records instantly, and was an absolute titan. Gears of War was just getting big, and Call of Duty was just starting to make a push. I’m hopeing Infinite will bring something similar.
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> > 2546678360738636;2:
> > Everyone is entitled to their own opinion so it’s not fact.
> >
> > My personal opinion, 2007. The hype train for Halo 3 was going full speed! Everyone and I truly mean EVERYONE was excited! The E3 2007 Halo 3 Campaign Trailer dropped and had everyone buzzing with excitement. Keep in mind, the Xbox was as popular as it was because of Halo. Nearly everyone who had bought an original Xbox had one so they could play Halo which lead into everyone buying an Xbox 360 so they could play Halo 3. 2007 was the peak year in that it was the last year Halo was TOP DOG! Everyone else was competing for 2nd place. Gears of War and Call of Duty were just starting their big multiplayer pushes but Halo ruled console multiplayer. I still get goosebumps thinking about the trailers and how every single gamer on earth was anxiously awaiting for Halo 3 to be released. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Just…Incredible.
>
> I wasn’t a Halo player yet in 2007, but I’m almost inclined to agree. As someone who came to the franchise after this, it seems to have been not only an incredible time for hype around Halo 3, but also the community. I picture teenage boys drinking Halo-themed Mountain Dew, everyone having their own clan and building bases in Forge, CoD vs Halo, RvB and Frag Dolls as very representative of this time period. Maybe it doesn’t sound appealing to some, but it seems so quaint and communal to me. Even the Halo 3 cover art seemed to have become the franchise’s cover art.
Being a Halo fan since the beginning was really something to behold. Nintendo and Sony were the juggernauts of the gaming industry. Who could beat Mario, right? Halo: Combat Evolved started everything but it was Halo 2 that made the world pay attention. Halo 2 was the reason people bought an original Xbox. In all sincerity, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who wasn’t playing Halo 2. That player base was feeding into the hype of Halo 3 when that announcement trailer debuted at E3 2006. The world went crazy! Everyone wanted an Xbox 360 and everyone was dying to get their hands on Halo 3. Quoting Adam Sessler, “Halo 3 was a seminal world wide phenomenon.” It was one of Halo’s finest years. :’)
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> Probably 2010 or 11.
> Reach and 3, two of the top 3 best Halo games, were out.
> Halo Reach custom modes were established. Customs that were established in Halo 3 have made their way to Reach, but 3 was still well populated so you could easily go back to play them there.
> And of course you had people playing Wars and ODST aswell, which was also a really good time.
>
> That is just my subjective opinion though.
This year is the best year for me. I’ve been a fan since the first halo came out and I’m still enjoying playing all of the previous games and anxiously anticipating the release of infinite.
For me it was Nov. 9th 2004. My birthday, a large line in front of EB Games(if that’s still a thing, I think now they are GameStop), won prizes, got a call from Aries(not Cortana which I felt was wrong), got home and for the first time ever played a Halo game online and played Lone Wolf.
Made a lot of friends, killed even more spartans, had clan battles. Not something I will forget, which brings me back to G4 before the Tech TV merger.
“Best for Halo” is kind of an ambiguous thing. It’s not like the franchise cares what’s happening. I kind of naturally interpret this question as what was the biggest year for Halo, i.e., when was it at its most popular, in which case 2007 is the totally obvious answer because that is when the popularity and cultural signifcance of Halo peaked.
However, if I consider what was the best year for me personally in terms of Halo, I think I’d have to say 2009. It seems like kind of an odd year to pick, because nothing particularly significant happened that year apart from the release of ODST which, while a cool game, wasn’t that big of a release. It’s not even a year when anything particularly significant happened to me personally. It’s just a year when everything kind of aligned for me in a way that has always stuck with me. Since then it has been somewhat of a slow downhill.
Since I am not exactly the oldest gamer there is, I wasn’t around much (too busy being a small child and all that, two of the games being older than me) for the first three main series games. Though, judging by what everyone says, it seems that 2007 was the best year for Halo.
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> For me it was Nov. 9th 2004. My birthday, a large line in front of EB Games(if that’s still a thing, I think now they are GameStop), won prizes, got a call from Aries(not Cortana which I felt was wrong), got home and for the first time ever played a Halo game online and played Lone Wolf.
>
> Made a lot of friends, killed even more spartans, had clan battles. Not something I will forget, which brings me back to G4 before the Tech TV merger.
>
> … that’s a story for another time.
Halo 2 was revolutionary, I remember getting an OG Xbox on release along with a copy. Every single matchmaking system you see today, for better or worse, comes from the systems used in Halo 2’s online multiplayer. It was the cornerstone of online console gaming. It was the sole justification needed for that £40 a year subscription to Xbox Live back when the headsets were these awful things that sat on top of your ears and wrapped around the back of your head - they hurt like hell after a few hours.
2019 is shaping up to be a pretty awesome year for Halo, but considering that Halo 3’s launch was blamed for a dip in box office numbers for that week it’s hard to argue against 2007.