This is an open ended question that I have been thinking about recently. I am a huge fan but I dont really have a sense for what this community feels.
Are you a Halo fan? Why or why not. How do you feel about the series under 343? Are you excited about Halo Infinite? Are you excited about Halo overall or the series in a decline?
Post anything you feel below.
Played Halo CE on PC and Halo 2 on Windows Vista with GFW Live back in the day before I had my 360.
I was kind of down on 360 back then, being a “Sony Pony” one might say, but eventually I shit you not, I bought a 360 just for Lost: Via Domus.
I got Dead Rising, Mass Effect and another game with it at the time. Later that year I got Halo 3 for Christmas, and I was hooked. Halo 3 ODST, Halo Reach, Halo 4, it was all i needed.
I started reading the books, buying the comics, wearing the shirts. Halo and I became inseparable.
And it all started because Halo CE was on PC, and I was “going to stick to 'em”.
Lol I was dumbass.
I liked the first one, because it was to doing a lot of new things but halo 5 just seemed more of the same and the story did not grab me.
But this is not exclusive to the halo franchise i feel apart from battle royale the fps genre has seen little innovation.
Gameplay has to be good, but the main reasons why I game is for story and for social.
Not necessarily my favorite FPS series… I prefer games with iron sights, and the whole weapon sandbox is not necessarily my thing. I started playing Xbox in 2009 and I played the Halo games mostly in co-op with other friends who were huge fans of the series, but I wasn’t super into it myself.
However, during the pandemic this year I decided to play through all the MCC games from Halo 1 on, and it definitely increased my appreciation for the series. Halo 1 in particular is just an incredibly impressive game in lots of ways.
I’ve been a fan since Halo 3, which remains one of my favourite games of all time. I love the series & am incredibly excited to finally get my hands on Halo Infinite. I think it could be very good.
At the same time, I do think there is something missing now. Bungie Halo had a special magic that’s hard to explain, but easy to feel when I go back & play those games again. For me, 343 have never been able to recapture that magic. I used to be quote hard on them for that, but now I just want them to do their own thing with the franchise & be successful.
I’m ready to move forward to a new dawn for Halo. The MCC will always be installed on my Xbox & I’ll always go back to it from time to time, but I’m ready to start something new with Infinite. I’m going into it with an open mind. I want it to be great.
My thoughts on it often go in circles.
Anyways…
I imagine I’m probably one of only a few people on here or otherwise who have owned every Xbox and is largely indifferent regarding the franchise. I’ve only owned two games in that timespan, Halo 2 and Halo Wars 2, and have only played two others, Halo 3 and the Halo Wars demo, though with GPU I obviously have access to all of them now. With Halo 2 an Halo 3, almost all of my time was spent playing multiplayer; I recall trying to co-op 2 some with my older brother who bought it and not caring or understanding what was going on so we dropped it. I bought Halo Wars 2 because I like RTS and remembered liking the demo for the original, and thought it would be fun to play through; while there was clearly a lot going on, I understood the story enough and I’m glad it will play directly into the plot for Halo Infinite, which I am plan on jumping into for both campaign and multiplayer.
So, no, I wouldn’t consider myself a fan, but I am excited for Halo Infinite. Obviously, I have no opinion on how 343 has handled the franchise, but I am aware they get a lot of flack online. Despite this, I have faith that what I will be playing this fall will be incredibly fun.
Its hard to worry too much about whether the IP is in decline, but I will say I believe every popular property falls into the issue 343 find themselves navigating. At this point the franchise is familiar, which isn’t necessarily bad, and will have an uphill battle to reclaim the momentum the original trilogy had. My favorite XGS IP, Gears of War, is in the same situation and its just the reality of life.
I hesitate to wade too deep into discussing online discourse regarding these things, but I don’t think what we perceive as the narrative on forums or articles are necessarily reflective of the actual state of things surrounding a property. The people who participate in giving these opinions typically have a vested interest in the medium, and will support a long lasting franchise while citing another as tired, and that representation will vary greatly from title to title. There is a larger portion of players who enjoy things who won’t post about it online, and with that there is often a missing perspective in these topics. While Call of Duty is relentlessly critiqued as tired, it performs incredibly well; and while something like Dishonored is critically lauded, it doesn’t perform as well. Perception, quality, freshness all vary greatly depending on the person, and nothing is absolute.
Regarding these topics…
"Do not try and bend the spoon, that’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth…there is no spoon. Then you’ll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself. " - The Matrix
Don’t really have any feelings about Halo as I have never played any of them and im not going to as im just waiting for Halo Infinite. I like that it’s sci-fi, art style looked great, combat and gameplay seemed excellent and the audio was damn good so as long as 343 has the visuals up to par with Ray Tracing as there’s no excuse not to have it day one and the performance/polish is there, I should feel pleased and all that it comes down to is if I enjoy the story and characters.
November 12th baby!!!
Huge fan. I was never a fan of FPS games until I played CE back on the OG Xbox, and the series remains one of my all-time faves. It’s still an important factor of me always getting Xbox as my first console of each generation. I only play it for the SP, so my following thoughts are of that portion only. The Bungie trilogy was excellent, and the abrupt H2 ending aside, didn’t leave me wanting at any time. H3 is probably my favourite overall, but the moment you stepped into The Arbiter’s shoes in H2 is my most memorable moment.
I think it’s safe to say that 343 haven’t managed to surpass the Bungie games, but I do think people are being too harsh on what they actually have accomplished, and that the Xbox management are as much to blame. 4 & 5 are solid 8/10 games for me, which could’ve been stellar if it weren’t for some missteps.
Halo 4 should not have released on the 360. Yes, it looked amazing, but the more linear levels were an obvious trade-off and did lead to the game perhaps not really feeling as a Halo game should. Story-wise, I loved it, but I’m someone who’s deep into the lore and had read all the books up until that point. It’s easy to see how the casual Halo player would be confused with what was happening as the story unfolded, plus not having those secret cut-scenes play out in the game (they launched in the Halo app) was a terrible decision.
H5, gameplay-wise, felt a lot more like the Bungie games, but they dropped the ball with making you play half the game as Team Osiris. I have no big issue with the individuals who compose that team, but keep them for an ODST-style spin-off, not a mainline entry.
I’m a big fan of the overall direction the story’s heading in, with regards to Cortana and her legion of AI, and can’t wait to see how that pans out, especially with The Banished now a faction. I do feel as if they probably would’ve been better off not waking MC up so soon after H3 though, and taken a much longer time jump to better establish the universe he’d wake up into. This also would’ve given them plenty of opportunities to release spin-off’s that would fill players in on the events that happened in the aftermath of H3.
I really do love Halo. I think the games are expertly designed, exciting and above all fun. It was the game that pulled me out of a life long adversion to FPSs and for that I adore Halo.
That said, for full transperancy, of the big 3, Halo is my least favorite but again, I do love it. Can’t wait for Infinite.
I like Halo but it peaked at Halo 3 for me. Everything after that doesn’t come close. Halo 5 was good but also disappointing. Sometimes i forget it even came out. It has absolutely no fanfare.
At the time, I adored Halo. I got it at launch with my console, and my friend and I spent hours playing co -op over and over. Never tried any MP. Halo 2 we played again putting a ton of hours into co-op and enjoying greatly, same with Halo 3, with some caveats the games just went from strength to strength, and the story, while sometimes a little waves hand was solid enough and enjoyable fayre.
Halo 4 I didn’t really pick up at the time, I found the “fanservicing” of Cortana offputting, not that she hadnt been a naked hologram before, but, well you know. By the time I considered picking it up I’d read some critique about the story, and the protheans being a pain, so I just never got round to picking it up. Same with Halo 5 TBH, not that I thought it was bad, but I assumed it would be more of a slog to get through, and without my old partner to play with together I felt it wouldnt be the same. I considered at the time I would grab them and start playing through them after MCC, but in the end I just don’t “love” the series enough I guess.
I have played the first game many times though, and Infinite coming soonish does intrigue me, I don’t know for sure what it will be like, but I’m happy to try it and if its a little more “Open world lite” it should be up my street.
TL:DR, I dunno how I feel, a little indifferent maybe, A new game hasn’t excited me since 3 happy to see what they do with Infinite. I guess Destiny became my Halo, really.
Still one of my favourite series of all time, but it sucks that its hard to convince my friends to play Halo again.
I think the Halo infinite gameplay looked fun as hell and I’m looking forward to it.
I play most of them but am not a hardcore fan. I beat the first 3 and beat Halo 5 and played several hours of all of them.
A good franchise with a lot to offer really cracked the code for brining a FPS to console.
Love Halo and played it since Halo:CE on the OG Xbox. Halo Wars 2 is one of my favorite games from the last generation and I can’t wait for Infinite. Though I would love the MP to lean more towards Battlefield.
I will probably still play Halo on my deathbed if I can, and I’m only half joking. That is saying everything you need to know about what Halo means to me.
Idk what I like most, it’s just the games I played the most throughout the years. It was love at first sight and I’m pretty loyal in that sense. I like that each game is its own thing. I can still play every one of them and learn new things in solo or multiplayer. The gameplay is simple yet so deep. It’s basically endless fun and, man, I can’t wait for Infinite !
Loved the whole series. Loved the wider war kinda story arc of the first trilogy and love the more personal story of 4-5 along with plumbing deep into the lore (which is awesome imho). The feel of controlling MC was perfected in Halo 5 for me, but both 4 and 5 had major deficiencies in certain storytelling elements. Mainly in the area of what info gets surfaced to players in the game and what gets pushed off to some other media. Didact coming back to life but then dying in a comic book is stupid. John finally reuiniting with Blue Team outside of the games…stupid.
Hyped af for Infinite. Want to see eye melting visuals and more mobility that lets you explore the setting more than in other games. Want to see them drastically improve encounter design and more wider, multi-faction battles. If they do boss fights make them more varied too.
Ive been a bit sceptical about Halo, not going to lie. But recent events have turned this sentiment the other way around. Ive always enjoyed the Halo games, and I have the feeling that with the fine-tuning 343 are currently doing the game will only become better. I dont care about the graphics too much, where a big part of the negative comments came from. So im actually quite eager to start playing.
The story and the lore are interesting as is, so expanding on that is only a good thing. Master Chief is a bad ass and will remain a bad ass off course.
Halo is my favorite gaming franchise ever.
The multiplayer is where my best memories are at. I remember skipping school to be in line at EB Games for the launches of Halo 2 and 3 then zipping home to play online with my brother and our friends.
We sunk so many hours into it. I’ve played all of the campaigns multiple times over (except for Halo 5; I played through it once).
The MCC has been my go to for the last couple years. It doesn’t matter what other games I’ve played in between; I always go back to it even if it’s for a couple matches of BTB or Swat.
I love the support MCC has received from 343 and I have a lot of faith and optimism with Infinite. I really feel like it’s going to be a glorious “return” in a sense for the Master Chief. Although I was personally disappointed with Infinite’s delay because I just wanted to play it so bad, I get it and really think 343 put it to the fall to really give themselves plenty of time to polish, polish, polish.
Infinite is going to consume my time!
