IMO OP Halo Reach got it 3/4 right. The armor in Halo reach was good and was very detailed, but the males lacked the body posture and muscle density that they Spartan 4s have in Halo 4, but apart from that they dot the Females right and a few other things right too. But in Halo 4 although the body posture and armor is alright, a lot of helmets and certain armor pieces do not look good at all. 343 were headed in the right direction, but it felt like they kinda lost their way half way trough. A lot of the armor looked messy and didn’t really fit together well and in some cases had bad details litter all over the armor that weren’t editable.
In Halo 4 the armor seemed to drift away from a good Halo styled combat skin type looked that was lost a little bit in Halo Reach. For Halo 5 343 should bring these things into the game for Spartan armor IMO. Number one: The Spartan Armor look itself. 343 Should adopt a more Combat-Skin type feel to the armor, that feels strong and very futuristic, that can also be put into 3 classes of combat skin. Light, Medium and Heavy for those who want to feel unique to their play style, but you could also add attachments the the armor to make it seem more common military like just like in Reach, this would be applicable to Males and Females. As far as the base-armor is concerned though, here are some pictures to give you an idea of what I am talking about, now although these pictures look like action figures, they are not, they were rendered in very high level 3D graphics software.
Picture 1, Picture 2, Picture 3, Picture 4, Picture 5 and Picture 6. That is what i’m talking about, but of course there would be many different variations of the armors as well, but I would want them all to come together nicely and not look so random and messy, Spartan armor is all about precision and strength, that and a whole load of other things is what separates the armor from standard ballistics and we’re also meant to believe that the engineers from time of the forerunners have had their hand in the design, so it should look very advanced from what the armor looks like currently.
Personally, visually I think quite a few things in Halo need to change and become more advanced and believable for the time frame that we are given. Hopefully in Halo 5, things will look much better and feel more advanced, for me aesthetics and detail in a game are very important, especially to create a wonderful and immersive experience for the player and ATM Halo has the chance to do that given the circumstances in the story, my only wish is that 343 utilizes this moment properly and brings an entirely fresh and beautiful feel to Halo 5 without making us feel that the game is no longer Halo, the Promethean Knights where a step in the right direction in some areas, but much more could have been done, but nonetheless, a wonderful first attempt from 343 and I hope we will get much more from them in the future. P.S sorry if I made some spelling errors, it’s quite late where I am.
EDIT: As far as Elite and Grunt models are concerned, I believe 343 should go back to a more classic feel Picture 1, Picture 2, Picture 3, Picture 4, but make the armor look more technical and make the flesh and skin textures of the two species more detailed and refined, to make something look alien does not necessarily mean make it look ugly, not by a long shot. Although I do understand that the only reason why the grunts and elites look they way they do is due to the fact that they are fighting the Storm Covenant, I don’t believe the should have changed as much as they did,'t they looked great don’t get me wrong, they just didn’t look as great as they did before, 343 should have developed their look along the lines of how they looked before.
In-game, instead of giving the Elites OP shielding and movement speed, 343 should have made them much more “intelligent”, for example, all elites should have roughly the same shielding on all difficulties, but as the difficulties do progress, the elites should react differently with their environment, I personally believe that oddly enough, Halo CE’s AI seemed the most intelligent in the way they moved (On the Elite’s behalf), they would duck and role, strafe and jump and it all seemed very intelligent and realistic even to this day, even down to they way the Elites spotted you and would let all the other units know you where present. In Halo 5 they should bring that back, but allow the AI to work with it’s environment much better like a mixture between Halo 1, 2 & 3.
And give elites hand held shields that could be dropped with weapon fire and delay their shield regen whilst in use, instead of giving them ridiculous amounts of shields and health. It would make the game much more enjoyable.
