So some of you might remember the topic I posted last year asking if Halo was still A Halo game. What I got were a mixed bag of results. A lot of people were saying it’s a Halo title so it’s still Halo. Some were saying that Halo needs to innovate and not copy/paste like Cod. Others said that the new mechanics were justified by lore. Some said that the new mechanics made the game better. Now that that’s out of the way, I’m sure most of us have heard about the nasty reception Cod got for its Infinite Warfare trailer. It looks like the community has finally had enough of Activision’s shenanigans. So what am I getting at? Last time I posted about the changes in Halo, I didn’t really show how the changes in Halo’s sandbox turned it into a different game. I addressed them briefly, but I don’t feel that I gave enough information to truly show just how much these changes have affected the sandbox as a whole. So, what I’m going to do here is compare the mechanics of classic Halo with the mechanics in the modern Halo. I’ll also be comparing classic CoD to modern CoD. This is to show just how ironic and bad the situation is for these franchises and the mistakes made by companies who want to stay relevant in the changing FPS genre. First up is Classic Halo
Classic Halo (1, 2, and 3) were the main entries that propelled the franchise onward. There were three core mechanics in Multi-player, Weapon, melee, and grenade. The developers themselves gave a commentary on the setup of this sandbox system. Equal starts, abilities, and weapons were a key factor in balancing these three mechanics. This is what made the classic games play the way they did. Each of the three games never deviated from this mechanic except for Halo 2 (players would start with a dual wieldable SMG) but that was only due to developer trial and error. The devs even mentioned that in the commentary. They were trying to innovate and new things to the sandbox that would build off of the already established mechanics. Cod’s method is a bit different. Rather than innovating (Cod has done this only a few times) they stick to a “tried and true formula”. This formula was at one point the WW2 shooter. Remember the Cods before the first Modern Warfare? They were all WW2 shooters with very little difference between titles. Sure, they had graphical updates and a few new weapons, storylines, and multiplayer between games; but they had very little change and additional features between them. The same can be said about the Modern Warfare craze that created The Modern Military Shooter as we know it. So what was Call of Duty before Advanced Warfare? It was ADS, sprinting, vehicles and classes, low TTK, weapon customization in the newer titles, but the action was always boots on the ground combat. These were the mainstay core gameplay mechanics of these two juggernaut franchises. That all changed when the developers thought these games were no longer relevant. This is what started the modernization movement in these franchises.
Halo Reach, 4, and 5 are Halo games that I consider to be much different in playstyle than The Classic games. Each title being more deviant as it progressed. The issue is that 343 are changing Halo too much. I know what you’re thinking. “You don’t want Halo to change because you want the same thing every with every title.” As a matter of fact, I do. I like consistency in my games; something that 343 sorely lack. But I don’t want copies. There is an obvious line between adding new things in your game to keep it fresh by implementing new things that contribute and build on the already established core mechanics, copying and pasting the same game with nothing but graphical updates and new guns and a few minor features, and changing the way the game plays entirely by replacing the old core gameplay mechanics with new ones. What 343 is doing to Halo is the latter. Halo 5’s core mechanics and sandbox are so different that even if you made a “classic” gametype without sprint, ads, or low TTK, the game would still be very different. That’s because when you add things like advanced movement into the mix, you have to compensate for it in other areas. You have to have bigger maps, the gun handling has to be improved and quicker. Bullet magnetism is added and hitboxes are larger to compensate for people being able to change direction at any one time. TTK is also lower as a result. What most people don’t seem to realize about core gameplay mechanics is that the entire sandbox must be built around and have synergy with those mechanics. If one thing is tweaked in one area, others must follow suit to compensate for that change. This creates a butterfly effect that requires the entire sandbox to be changed. Take Call of Duty Infinite Warfare for example, the multiplayer mechanics are radically different from that of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. Because of the newly implemented mechanics and the future sci-fi setting that makes no sense in a CoD game (this isn’t what the fanbase wants), it’s practically an entirely new spinoff game as it bears no resemblance to the classic games that defined that series. The map design, weapon handling, and general gameplay are entirely different. So what does this all mean? It means that speaking solely from an objective perspective and defining a game by its core mechanics, modern Cod and Halo aren’t really Cod and Halo. So was the decision to implement the changes a good idea? No.
There are multiple factors when making a game. The developers have to know what the game is based on gameplay wise. The next factor is the fanbase or community. This is the life blood of any franchise. Without a strong community backing the developers’ financial needs and supporting the product, there is no reason for it to exist. This is simple economics. When making a game, the developer has to know what kind of game the community wants, what could be added to it to make it better, and what mechanics to base the game on, and how to live up to the communities’ expectations. This is the major mistake that both CoD and Halo’s development teams made. 343 doesn’t make the classic titles that most of us want. Therefore, Halo 5 is the lowest selling entry to this franchise. Activision is no longer making the CoD that its fanbase wants, therefore, Infinite Warfare is one of the worst received CoD’s to date. The developers ignored the roots of these games and were they came from, they ignored the core mechanics that defined these games, they ignored what the communities wanted, and they made entirely different games that have no resemblance to what these franchises are supposed to be. Trying to change the core mechanics of these games when they didn’t need it put a massive roadblock in the way for further community growth. Because of Cod and Halo’s reputation for what these games are, it will be way more difficult to have players from other communities come in. This is why trying to copy other titles is a bad idea.
The fact is that both Halo and Cod changed at the wrong time. Both franchises have a community strong enough to support them for many years to come as long as the developers keep making the games we want. The only thing that is killing these franchises are the poor decisions being made by their developers. The developers shouldn’t focus on what core mechanics to change to adapt to the next cool thing. They need to focus on what made these games great to the community.