If I could use one word to describe the Halo community, it’d be schizophrenic—because I don’t think I have ever seen a fanbase more split than this one. There are a lot of arguments on both sides of the coin, debating whether or not 343 is taking Halo into a good direction. I’m, for the most part, on the optimistic side of it all. Without having to postpone this for too long, I would like to state something that might come off as insulting to those who are against Halo 5’s direction, though I apologize for it in advance, and I will try by best to explain it. The folks who say Halo 5 is mimicking CoD or the new direction it’s been alluded to is too modern and/or generic are, with all intents and purposes, thinking very superficially.
Halo 2 and Halo 3 were such successes—with great gameplay, tricks, balance, maps, et cetera—that a great number of us want to have that success again, to see our favorite franchise be the king of the FPS genre once more. Really think about that. And hey, I want that, too! I want Halo to be great like it was in 2004–2007; I want Halo to be the highest quality console seller; I want Halo to leave CoD, Destiny, and any other shooter in the dust. Trust me that I do. While I had fun with Halo 4, it ultimately got boring due to such a static type of gameplay and balance.
Sorry, I said I wouldn’t stretch this too much, so let me get to the chase. The reason Halo 2 and 3 were so popular and so highly regarded was because of the perfectly overlapping features. Nearly every situation had 101 easy ways to maneuver around. It was the “simple to learn, hard to master” type of thing. What kept people interested were learning new things to better tweak their skills.
Oh, that one guy killed you because of that sick trick jump he did? Well, now you learned it, so now you can do it. Did you see people utilize a secret passage on the map to flank their enemies? You can do it, too, via practice. What I’m saying is that Halo 2 and 3 were good because the gameplay had a tremendous amount of depth to it.
Halo 2 and 3 had load-outs. You know what they were? They were your skill. When you went into a match, your load-out was your knowledge of the map, your ability to have superior gun skill than others, your experience with dealing with situations. It was balanced; the maps were designed around that direction.
Halo 4 had very, very banal maps. 343’s mistake was trying to recreate the “classic” feel of the maps. The thing is, those maps weren’t built around sprint and ordinance. Their purpose was to give you a sandbox to master. In many ways, Halo 2 and 3 were successful because their gameplay interwove with the maps so well, because they were made for each other. In Halo 4, practically all of the maps were flat, too large, or both. You couldn’t improve by learning the map or by controlling it; only by your load-outs, gun-play, or your best uses of the armor abilities would have you be victorious.
This is just like CoD: it’s not about map control because there is none. The maps are just a bunch of rooms attached to one another, serving as a battleground. And that was a true shame with Halo 4.
Now let’s get to explaining the title of this post. The only reason people like to say Halo 5 is going in a bad direction is because of the new features they added, such as clamber, sprint, ground pound, sliding, et cetera. That is some very single-minded thinking, considering that CoD didn’t invent any of these features, but I digress. See, what’s popular with the FPS genre today are RPG elements: making your own character, customizing him/her, choosing your own weapons, your own play-style, and so on. With that—and games such as Destiny and Titanfall—comes the extra mobility like thrusters. Please keep in mind that Halo 4 had thruster packs before any of these games came out.
You will never see a game that focuses on complete even starts and balance, as well as having the “modern” mobility of other shooters. Either you see games like Quake, or you see full-on pseudo-RPG shooters like CoD or Destiny.
What Halo 5 has created is a unique style of gameplay—one that you won’t find anywhere else, I assure you. It has both the mobility of Destiny, but also the legitimate balance of Halo 2. Seriously, try and find another game like that that has come out in the past few years. I’ll be waiting with some food so I won’t die of starvation.
Remember my explanation of what made Halo 2 and 3 so great? The learnings of the maps and the fairness of it all? Halo 5 verily has that. Unlike the static nature of Halo 4, in Halo 5 I can learn the maps. I can try and master different routes to use or trick jumps, or certain ledges to shoot from, to gain an advantage. And unlike Halo 4, Halo 5 is built around sprint, so it never feels unfair. A guy is about to spartan charge you? Thrust out of the way. Do you want to land that hit with the spartan charge? Time it so the person on the receiving end cannot thrust out in time. Same goes with ground pound. The maps are built around these abilities, so mastering them is key.
I said that your load-out in Halo 2 and 3 is the knowledge and experience you bring with you. What you know about the maps, the different tricks you can do to avoid gun-fire, or the traps you can lay out for your enemies by luring them into this one specific room that takes a full two seconds to escape; and by that time, they’d be dead because you continuously shot them with a BR. You didn’t kill them by spawning power weapons or unbalanced gameplay; you did it because you’re that good at the game and the map.
The same can be perfectly said about Halo 5. The direction 343 has chosen not only creates a new play-style, but reverts to the yonder days of Halo 2 and 3. People are so focused on the addition of sprint and how it looks—or how the thrusters make you move around a bit faster—that they forgot what made the previous Halos so special. They weren’t special because of moving slowly, the lack of sprint or whatnot; they were special because of the depth it brought to outsmarting your opponents. You couldn’t blame the game for dying because the guy was better than you, and he used the maps better than you, and he got to the power weapons faster than you did. This is virtually identical with Halo 5.
Halo 5 isn’t about trying to be precisely like CoD to keep up with modern times. Without many of you noticing it, it both added even more depth to the options you have, while retaining the balance and objective play-style of 2 and 3.
I always considered Halo the chess of the FPS genre, and nothing could be more true now. In Halo 5, you will genuinely beat someone in a firefight if your knowledge of the map is vast; you will actually have an advantage if you out-smart the enemies by getting the power weapons first. In Halo 5, your load-out is what you know. Not because of the new abilities that people like to rant about, but because of the strategic balance.
This is why I believe—without a hint of faltering hesitation—that the direction of Halo 5 is, not only fantastic, but that it hearkens back to Halo 2 and 3 almost perfectly.