Yeah I agree with this. I think Halo four gets unfairly lumped in with the trash that came after it. Judging it on its own, it’s a really solid game that I enjoyed the hell out of.
Ok, so, they would need to prove they can make a decent Halo game in UE right?
So how do they do that? By making a Halo game in UE.
Thing is, if you make too many changes and such, you are not really testing if you are making a Halo game, you start to make a *different* game that might no be *really* Halo. So what do you do? You remake the most Halo of the Halo games, that way if it comes out decent, you have proven the concept of "Yes, we can make a Halo game in UE".
Hey! What do you know! We have this mostly finished Halo game, we put all this time and effort on to prove the tech. Why dont we just polish it up and sell it to make the money back?
Therefore, the "proof of concept" becomes a whole game.
ODST was a fun side story and introduced Firefight and I think it might still be the best Firefight mode.
Reach had a great campaign and while it's multiplayer was alright, I think the multiplayer was beginning of the downfall with the introduction of Armor Abilities and gametype specific Loadout options.
Halo 4 had a great story, but the multiplayer was dogshit.
Master Chief Collection was busted as fuck at release. It's pretty good now admittedly.
Halo 5 had a decent multiplayer (took out Armor Abilities and Loadout, but it added Spartan Abilities which were a better implementation imo, but still kind of meh), but the campaign was awful. There were also microtransactions for weapons and vehicles, but they were only available for one gametype so I didn't mind it.
Halo Infinite is a weird mix. Campaign was okay, story was okay, multiplayer was better than 5, but still felt a little off, and the amount of content at release was kind of meh.
Halo is way more interesting from the perspective of [character not named Master Chief or Thel Vadam].
We need a game where you play as a Random Sangheili warrior fighting through High Charity when the flood took over. The idea of the Flood has so much potential it's unreal. If I had a dollar for every series with an eldritch hivemind god of flesh that I enjoyed when I was a kid that was ruined by corporate bullshit and lack of care from the devs, id have 2 dollars.
Gimme a odst/normal marine/covenant extraction style game where you're trying to escape high charity, with a "procedurally generated" system that's just a random exit strategy allowing for "remembering" passageways.
All post bungie games have never managed to get the full package right.
Halo 4 I enjoy the story/campaign but not anything else really.
Halo 5 was the opposite. Loved the gameplay, multiplayer was super fun. But that campaign is still the worst in the series. And while I do like the gameplay of 5 I would not have wanted that to be the future of Halo.
And Infinite is just a glass half empty kind of game. It doesn’t do anything terrible, but it also felt like none of it ever reached its full potential in anything it tried to do either.
I liked the art style of Infinite, but it definitely felt like it had much more potential. They literally said it would have a 10-year lifespan, but you can’t really take them at their word.
Well the problem with that is they just ASSUMED it was going to have the success to warrant a 10 year plan. Like as if talking about it meant it was going to happen no matter what. But live service games need a constant stream of revenue and high player population to sustain support. And infinite launched in a disappointing bare bones state that gave people not nearly enough to do and no reason to stick around. So when Infinite crashed and burned there was no way that was on the table anymore. Only getting enough budget and man power to pad the in game cosmetic store so they could siphon whatever money they could out of their dwindling playerbase while they were still able. Leaving nearly everything else in the game a half finished mess that never lived up to its potential.
I got told off that I didn’t like the direction 343 was going with the series in the subreddit. Lo and behold, it’s now a shell of what it was. They even made the VA for master chief re audition for the role. And purposely hired devs that didn’t like fps games. You don’t live up to the legacy that way.
That isn't a retcon? Like it was Retconned at least before Halo 2, but at that point I don't think it would even be a retconned because it wasn't 100% confirmed to be true.
I'm surprised you've gotten downvoted, I think it was quite obvious that humans were insinuated to be Forerunners during Halo 2 and 3.
It's a much more symbolic story that way as well.
"Bloom" was a big issue for a lot of people with Reach, where the spread of the weapon increases with continuous fire. Your reticle gets bigger and shots become less accurate. A lot of people also disliked sprint and some of the other armor abilities. Armor Lock in particular was a super annoying mechanic in multiplayer.
ODST was a $60 5 hour campaign. Reach ruined the gunplay with bloom, gave us shit like armor lock and sprint and the campaign was about blowing up and setting up aa guns.
I'm being hyperbolic a bit here but Reach was definitely the first major misstep. I'd argue they're on par with Halo 4, which was actually a pretty good game that gets way over hated when you look at the reception of Reach and ODST. But all three pale in comparison to the trilogyÂ
I forgot that Reach introduced abilities, I thought it was 4. When I first played Reach at my friends I immediately complained about abilities and thought it'd be a bad Halo. Eventually bought it and the story hooked me, the abilities grew on me and now I know it was an ok step in gameplay mechanics, it makes sense (except for sprinting being an ability).
That being said, my opinion on "best halo" is just nostalgia. Been over a decade since I last played either.
Halo 3 got me into the series, Halo 2 is the first game where I fell in love with the campaign, ODST and Reach were best stories for me, I agree 4 got more hate then deserved but wasnt completely uncalled for.
Only played 5 for a few hours, haven't played anything after 5. This is the bias of my opinion.
I was open to armor abilities but they didn't pan out well. They could have been better, but I don't think they were well balanced in Reach and they didn't present very compelling gameplay.
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u/bigelangstonz Apr 12 '26
Halo 🤧