I know many people have been wondering why duel-wielding was removed in the first place so lets start with a little recap:
Halo 2:
Players started off w/ a duel-wieldable (DW) weapon (the SMG) which gave players a choice at the beginning of the match as to how they were going to play. Were they going to find another SMG and duel-wield it for that extra bit of CQC firepower, or were they going to swap it for a better all-around weapon in the BR? This choice was greatly influenced on the map itself. A close-quarters map like Elongation saw more duel-wielders than a more open map like Midship which worked better w/ cross-mapping BRs. It was this choice given to the player along w/ the fact that there were DW weapons scattered all over the map (mostly from others dropping theirs’) that made duel-wielding easy to come by in Halo 2, thus making it a successful new feature.
Halo 3:
The comeback of the AR as a starting weapon may have single-handedly killed DW. Remember in Halo 2 that one of the reasons DW was a success was b/c it was so easy to come by in the game if the player chose to DW instead of use a BR. No longer were players given a choice right off the start of a match if they wanted to DW or BR b/c they were given an auto weapon (the AR) that wasn’t much weaker than DW-SMGs and still allowed the player to use their grenades. That, coupled w/ the fact that DW weapons were much harder to come by on maps, is what eventually caused the feature to be removed from future titles (Reach, Halo 4).
/recap
The thing is that duel-wielding still holds that same “risk and reward” factor that helps make it a balanced and useful feature when compared to the rest of the Halo sandbox. Giving up your ability to use 'nades (risk) in order to get that extra bit of firepower at close-to-mid range (reward) still works. Now that Halo 4 is drawing nearer, and we’re getting more insight into 343i’s direction for the future of the series we can now put together a way of bringing back the once-beloved feature of duel-wielding to the Halo sandbox.
My suggestion: Make it an armor mod.
Or more specifically, a tactical package that is similar to Firepower and allows a player to go straight into battle w/ 2 weapons already duel-wielded in their primary slot (along w/ their normal sidearm in their secondary slot). I know some people will say that having a player go into battle w/ 3 weapons is a bit much, but you have to think of it as them giving up their grenades for that extra weapon. Remember that one of the reasons DW failed in Halo 3 and was later removed was b/c anyone who wanted to DW had a much more difficult time finding that extra DW weapon so the solution here is to give players 2 DW weapons right at the start of the match.
Ways this could work:
If done correctly then Duel-wielding is going to be pretty enticing to a player as a loadout choice when going into a game on a CQC map like Adrift. Not only will this add more variety to the weapon sandbox and overall gameplay itself, but also the reduction of 'nade spamming on close-quarter maps b/c players will likely be utilizing DW weapons on CQC matches more often than not. Other potentially good factors is that it will allow for some older weapons to make returns such as the SMG and Plasma Rifle as well as making some of those weaker weapons like the Pistol become more of a threat when paired w/ another DW weapon.
Ways this could fail:
There’s always room for failure in even the most simplest of ideas so DW will still have risks. One of these is the controls. With the likes of AA and Sprint taking up more space on that controller it’s going to make things more difficult to fit DW controls on the controller. My suggestion would be to go back to the Halo 2 style of DW controls where the [Y] button becomes your “Hold to duel-wield” control. Another potential problem would be that people just don’t utilize this feature like what happened in Halo 3 and it just ends up being a waste of space on the disk. Of course there is always the potential for DW weapons being too over/under-powered as well.
tl;dr
Make it an armor mod that allows you to go into battle w/ 2 DW weapons in your primary slot off-start, thus overcoming the issue caused in Halo 3 of not being able to find DW weapons w/ ease like they were scattered across the map in Halo 2. A loadout option like this will be enticing to players going into matches on close-quarters maps and will reduce the amount of 'nade spamming on those maps, thus creating better matches for everyone. Old favorites can be brought back like the PR and SMG, as well as making less-powerful weapons like the pistol more of a threat when paired together.
