> Good post, I like what you said about Reach because it was spot on. Unbelievable that people defended (and still defend) the flaws of that game and even more so that professional game designers thought it was suitable.
While I do agree Reach was flawed, it was more of an experiment for the Halo series in general. So I see it’s flaws more as failed ideas.
> That mutator was introduced in the first console version of the game and reintroduced to UT 2004. This was not present in UT99 or UT3. It is exactly the same as toggling between default Reach and Classic except in this case the game reverted back to classic permanently in the last title. It still maintains the same general gameplay of an Arena shooter so despite the minor change available via gameplay settings, your statement that the game is not an Arena shooter is wrong.
As much as I’d like to continue the technicalities, you just pointed out there is very little difference between class-based play and symmetrical-start play, as well you just finalised the concept of both gametypes being able to exist within a game, as a toggle-able option to boot.
Your insistence that Unreal does but not doesn’t really have classes within its gameplay is besides the fact that classes are part of the gameplay.
Your dismissal of how much classes impacts Unreal gameplay is counter-supportive your initial belief that Arena and Class based games are separate entities.
Your comparison of Reach to Unreal shows how both Arena and Class based systems, and something mixed to boot, can all exist within a game.
> > That mutator was introduced in the first console version of the game and reintroduced to UT 2004. This was not present in UT99 or UT3. It is exactly the same as toggling between default Reach and Classic except in this case the game reverted back to classic permanently in the last title. It still maintains the same general gameplay of an Arena shooter so despite the minor change available via gameplay settings, your statement that the game is not an Arena shooter is wrong.
>
> As much as I’d like to continue the technicalities, you just pointed out there is very little difference between class-based play and symmetrical-start play, as well you just finalised the concept of both gametypes being able to exist within a game, as a toggle-able option to boot.
>
> Your insistence that Unreal does but not doesn’t really have classes within its gameplay is besides the fact that classes are part of the gameplay.
> Your dismissal of how much classes impacts Unreal gameplay is counter-supportive your initial belief that Arena and Class based games are separate entities.
> Your comparison of Reach to Unreal shows how both Arena and Class based systems, and something mixed to boot, can all exist within a game.
You clearly missed the entire part that explained the differences that you are trying to make connections to in the Halo 4 and Shadowrun section of the article.
Furthermore, just b/c there is an option in the game to play both does not remove the fact that the game as a whole is treated as one or the other. Elements of an Arena shooter, if you even read the article at all, are: weapons on map, map control, no pre assigned weapons, and no defined roles or specialization. The entire thing is the predictability factor to which Unreal Tournament retains.
So again, not only are you wrong by saying that the game is not an arena shooter but you also don’t understand that UT is an arena shooter first and foremost with any modifications being second.
Not only did you show that YOU have a casual understanding of UT but you also fail to grasp the concept and premise brought about by the article.
Good Day.
Overkill, this great post by you which is devoid of any franchise bias. The topic, however is inherently arguable due to the fact that “Arena” means many different things to many people. With this in mind (and to give you some constructive criticism), when you wrote this, did you ask yourself “Why am I writing this” or “is this topic really necessary”?
Most people have a general idea of what arena is: you and me with equal starts, so why is it necessary to educate people on distinguishing an arena game from a non-arena game? Over half of the games you mention are all but dead, and relatively unknown to the [younger?] audience you’re trying to reach. Tell us why you’re writing this to show us it’s something to take note of.
What exactly is this post trying to say? Are you trying to tell us what Halo has become as a statement, or are you trying to prove a point that Halo is in danger of losing it’s “arena” qualities, or that the series’ future gameplay will blend both new and old elements and either make the game better or worse?
This is a great writeup- but what exactly are you getting at?
P.S. kudos on acknowledging the new traits that has has, for what they are and keeping personal preferences out. like one of the replies said, “it’s time you swallowed the bitter pill”. You’ve made it clear how you feel about this before.
> Overkill, this great post by you which is devoid of any franchise bias. The topic, however is inherently arguable due to the fact that “Arena” means many different things to many people. With this in mind (and to give you some constructive criticism), when you wrote this, did you ask yourself “Why am I writing this” or “is this topic really necessary”?
>
> Most people have a general idea of what arena is: you and me with equal starts, so why is it necessary to educate people on distinguishing an arena game from a non-arena game? Over half of the games you mention are all but dead, and relatively unknown to the [younger?] audience you’re trying to reach. Tell us why you’re writing this to show us it’s something to take note of.
>
> What exactly is this post trying to say? Are you trying to tell us what Halo has become as a statement, or are you trying to prove a point that Halo is in danger of losing it’s “arena” qualities, or that the series’ future gameplay will blend both new and old elements and either make the game better or worse?
>
> This is a great writeup- but what exactly are you getting at?
>
> P.S. kudos on acknowledging the new traits that has has, for what they are and keeping personal preferences out. like one of the replies said, “it’s time you swallowed the bitter pill”. You’ve made it clear how you feel about this before.
Well the entire point of this thread was to outline and identify what traits characterize certain games as either Arena or Class-based.
Most of the games that are dead are the Arena ones and for that reason it is important to label other games in comparison to these titles and understand where the shooting genre was and where it is going. Customization sells b/c people want to inject their own style and preferences into their characters. Halo 4 is doing this yet still retaining elements of Arena gameplay.
Being able to identify and understand the differences and nuances between the sub genres will allow us to better reflect on where Halo was and where it is going.
I really dont like how modern shooters are so obsessed with customization and making everyone feel like a winner rather than actual skill intensive gameplay like it used to be. Some of these shooters are more RPG’s than shooters in the traditional sense, in what you pick at the load-out screen and how much XP you have matters just as much as how much skill you have in the actual gameplay. Tired of every shooter using that formula, sometimes its good to have more clearly defined and focused experiences like Halo or CS that offer different Sandbox set-ups and more of a pure FPS experience.
We are walking a slippery slope my friends…
Good thread, OP. Well thought out and explained.
When it comes to the merging of genres, i’m not too keen on the move. The way I look at it, we already have a market filled with class-based shooters and if I wanted to play a game with class-based shooter elements i’d just play a class-based shooter. If Halo 4 managed to pull of this merging well then it could work, but I fear instead we will have a game that is a bit of both but not great at either.
There has been a major stagnation in the shooter market ever since 2007/2008, when CoD became truly popular. Ever since then developers and publishers seem to feel that the way to create a successful shooter that can compete with the tremendous success CoD has experienced is to introduce elements that CoD has popularised into their own games. Doing so really comes across as the wrong idea to me; games, especially ones the calibre of Halo, should be looking to differentiate themselves in the shooter market rather than integrate with it by following market trends. I feel Halo should be trying to offer an experience different to the rest of the stale shooter market rather than an experience more alike the rest of the stale shooter market.
> I really dont like how modern shooters are so obsessed with customization and making everyone feel like a winner rather than actual skill intensive gameplay like it used to be. Some of these shooters are more RPG’s than shooters in the traditional sense, in what you pick at the load-out screen and how much XP you have matters just as much as how much skill you have in the actual gameplay. Tired of every shooter using that formula, sometimes its good to have more clearly defined and focused experiences like Halo or CS that offer different Sandbox set-ups and more of a pure FPS experience.
>
> We are walking a slippery slope my friends…
Considering there are still another 2 games to come in the reclaimer trilogy, it is very worrying to think of where we might be going.
Hopefully Halo 2 gets a proper, full featured remake. That way this new trilogy can follow the path it seems to be on but we will have an alternative game to play if we do not like this path.
I know this thread has been buried, but I cam across it from google and I tend to disagree with the original and generally accepted definition of an arena shooter within this thread. It feels a little stringent and overly precise to really encapsulate the core of what is and isn’t a arena shooter.
I’d argue that the genre of arena shooter is like about specific aspects such as equal spawning and map weapons, and more about speed and general TTK (Time To Kill). While you could argue classes and loadouts remove some of the more arena-ness of a game, I don’t see that as a definitive removal from the arena genre. For example take the Tribes series, and most significantly the latest iteration Tribes: Ascend. These have multiple “classes” (armor types in the firs three, and literally in Ascend) and loadouts, but are often considered by many to be arena shooters because of the fast paced movement, emphasis on dueling through higher TTK, and high skill ceiling. It’s the effort and skill involved in killing high speed players with weapons that generally require time to kill a player (either through slower projectile speed, or low TTK). In this sense one could look at TF2 as an arena-ish shooter, much more so then GoW.
Like most genres I don’t think there are any steadfast rules you can define to objectively label something as being or not being and arena shooter, just some general principles, rules of thumb, and commonality that make it more or less belonging to that style of game. In this sense Halo 4 is an arena shooter, but not very typical one. It’s slow paced for the genre (needs to be for console, really. Duel analog forces a prominent tradeoff between aim speed and aim precision), is more modernized in some aspects such as health/shield regeneration, clips and reloading, limited weapon carry capacity, loadouts, etc. None of these however negate it’s membership to the arena genre, just make it less quintessential.
343 can make a Playlist with Halo 3 gameplay. (No Sprint, no weapons loadouts)
People who want Halo to be exactly as it was, would love it.
I personally think that Halo 4 just need some tweks.
Integrating classes into Halo has been a neat experiment, but I’m not exactly confident that 343 is capable or willing to balance it. The Boltshot is undeniably overpowered, and they have yet to even suggest any kind of rebalancing. The DMR is arguably OP, I would say it is considering it’s basically become the go-to weapon for the majority of the population.
Don’t get me wrong, if they can pull off the loadouts in such a way that everything is (eventually) perfectly tuned and balanced, then it adds a whole new layer of immense strategy to Halo’s existing formula. However, with OP weapons like the DMR and Boltshot the extra options are just redundant. When I play BTB in Halo 4 it’s like I’m back to earlier Halos, everyone is still starting with the same weapons regardless of the extra choices.
EDIT: I did not realize this thread was four months old. If I could delete this post I totally would.
I don’t get how people think the dmr is balanced. In competitive play they banned DMR and made it a map spawn with BR loadouts only. People will always be ignorant to proof. Halo was a Arena style game and they utterly changed it for business. We all know what happened when they took that path.
Good thread overkill. That was a really good read and I am glad I read it.
I dont feel H4 a Arena shooter.
Halo 4 has custom loadouts. Therefore, it is a loadout shooter. Is it really that hard to understand? The last bit of arena halo died with reach.
> Halo 4 has custom loadouts. Therefore, it is a loadout shooter. Is it really that hard to understand? The last bit of arena halo died with reach.
If it is true, how can Unreal be an Arena-shooter when the races allow greater differences in attributes than Spartans vs Elites of Halo: Reach, while also allowing for individual characters within those races to spawn with their “preferred” weapon?
If the options of Unreal allow for both loadout and arena shooter settings, both inclusive and exclusive, depending on what mods you use, how can you claim Halo is purely a loadout shooter?
Is Mass Effect strictly defined as a RPG or a third-person shooter? No.
Just because Halo: Reach and Halo 4 features loadouts, doesn’t negate any “arena shooter” elements they still retain from earlier iterations of the series. Halo 4 can be defined as an arena shooter, even though it isn’t an officially defined sub-genre.
Call of Duty, Quake, and Halo are all officially defined as “First-person Shooter”, not “Modern Military FPS” or “Arena shooter” or “Sci-fi shooter”. Within the main genre of “FPS”, there are hundreds and thousands of variations and merged subgenres.
> Halo 4 has custom loadouts. Therefore, it is a loadout shooter. Is it really that hard to understand? The last bit of arena halo died with reach.
Truth
I really like this post, definitely worth reading.
I think it’s good that they’ve included customisation options into halo 4, but they shouldn’t go any further than they have at the moment. It’s at its optimum with regard to customisation in my opinion. Would be too far to include stuff like the option to change weapon attachments though. Leave that to Battlefield and COD.
> Text extracted from Tomb Raider´s Review, by Eurogamer ( And it applies to Halo Series as well)
… it’s time to let old Lara go. Characters must be allowed to evolve. Series have to move on. Otherwise, what is left? A culture of stagnation, where creative expression suffocates under the weight of tedious nostalgia and moribund ideas. To put it another way, Carry On Columbus.
>@ 343: Keep on working… There are things that still needs to be addressed on HALO 4
>>> Complainers:
Want to play Halo 2? Go play it, it is starving to death on PC, it need more players… Or do you want to play Halo 3 instead? Go Play it then, there is playlist where there is no one playing…
> Halo 4 has custom loadouts. Therefore, it is a loadout shooter. Is it really that hard to understand? The last bit of arena halo died with reach.
Loadout shooter??
That’s new… LOL
Great writeup, OP. I think Halo is sticking true to it’s unofficial motto, Combat Evolved, and slowly working its way toward something blended and special. A lot of people on this forum don’t like the new setup, but I and others do. I predict 343 will learn some valuable lessons from H4 and give us some truly dynamic and awesome H5. All that’s missing right now is the ability to leverage the next gen console hardware.