I keep seeing similar posts crop up across the internet, from Twitter to ResetEra to here, all saying something similar: “Halo just needs to launch feature complete”. Of course the person who posts that never actually states what they think ‘feature complete’ means, so I thought I’d ask you.
What does a ‘feature complete’ Halo game look like to you, and, critically, how much are you willing to pay for it? Keep in mind that other franchises are REMOVING their multiplayer components (TLoU) to keep costs and scope reasonable and still selling for full price.
IDK, I dont even think “feature complete” is even possible. And with Infinite, it just seems like more Lucy-Charlie-Brown-Football “why cant xbox make a good game” silliness to me.
I just want them to only release singleplayer games and keep Infinite as the platform for Forge and multiplayer. Its dang near perfect already why go build something new and have it take years to get “feature complete” again.
I don’t want a feature complete halo anymore. Make the MP its own thing and let’s get back to our linear 7-8 hour Halo campaigns.
Campaign enjoyers shouldn’t have to wait 6-7 years for a campaign when it can easily end up being forgettable down the road like Infinite did. Split all that shit up, let’s get back to having campaigns every 3-4 years or so.
I want a really good campaign, even if its in a small open world like infinite. Make the visuals in the campaign varied. Infinite was such a bland world and felt like it was AI generated by the numbers. Just because it is open world it doesnt mean you can just give up on curated missions. Good open world games do great main missions. Halo infinite goes through same structures over and over and over.
Infinite gunplay was amazing, AI was great and overall it was just a blast to play the game. If only it had better missions and visuals it would have scored really well.
A complete multiplayer and it would be enough. Doesnt need couch co-op
For me, a campaign thats not open world (Also launches with online co-op), Multiplayer with a full customization suite and also includes (Team Slayer, CTF, Oddball, KotH, BtB, Grifball, FFA, Ranked/Casual, SWAT), Forge Mode, and Firefight, and at least 12 MP maps (8 Arena / 4 BtB). I would happily pay $70 for that and I think you could build off of that easily.
I don’t think many people would be in an uproar if they just completely rebooted the franchise with the next campaign. In fact you’d probably see more support for it.
It does allow it to shine but i just don’t think the sacrifices that you have to make by going open world are worth doing again over a linear campaign.
If you ask me about infinite and what I remember its the gun play and the using that gun play to have a fun experience with by the numbers AC style activities. Thats the most memorable part. The solid gunplay really helps in the multiplayer as well.
I cant really remember a cool level, story beat or a set piece from infinite though like I do in Halo 1, 2, 3, reach. Even Halo 4 had some good moments.
Only yesterday I started replaying the halo infinite campaign in co-op on legendary and I still feel the same way.
I dont play it as much as others in this forum but still managed to put in 250 hours in to infinite
Personally speaking i wouldnt say Infinite was forgettable…but more it didn’t live up to it’s potentially. The gunplay was brilliant but the lack of variety in environments and lack of truly memorable set pieces just hold it back.
It terms of what is a feature complete Halo, I’m more of a campaign guy so definitely a fully fledged campaign. Because Halo is held up to a high standard feature complete probably means a full multiplayer suite, firefight AND Forge at launch.
I definitely agree that Infinite’s campaign is extremely forgettable, it’s very fun to play within, largely thanks to the awesome grapple hook but there’s so little variety outside of that
Everything in the open world is green with nothing interesitng to do or explore and the linear sections are all dark corridors filled with hex shapes
It felt like a campaign that was in beta form that never actually had the content added to it that it was supposed to whether it was snowy/desert/city regions or missions that actually felt different than the same thing over and over
Gameplay wise it felt great apart from the awful ability/grenade switching but it felt like a campaign that was nowhere even close to being finished
But as for the topic at hand, a Halo that would be “feature complete” for what people would expect feels almost impossible in modern times
Feature complete for people would be a huge epic single player campaign, best in class multiplayer with lots of maps both for Arena and BTB, forge mode, theater and maybe more and to launch a halo with that and at the fidelity people expect would take a team the size of CoD
I enjoyed Infinite but I did expect campaign expansions which made me a bit more forgiving on the lack of variety in the world. In hindsight I would lower my score a bit.
I think they should separate the MP and SP completely. Give us many more stories drawing from the rich Halo lore, at a much faster pace. I would pay a lot to get big Halo SP-games.
Exactly this. I have zero interest in Halo multiplayer. I suspect the inverse is probably true for many. So I don’t see why the two should be launched as one package. Make them entirely separate products with separate development cycles, and I think it would make both products better.
What makes it extra frustrating is that Infinite was the best single player Halo game I’ve ever played. That grappling hook was chef’s kiss. I would love to see more games/DLC with that mechanic.
Also agree with you and @Vivir , you could clearly tell something happened at the studio with the campaign, it kinda felt like some procedural map created by some modder. The first part was very good in my opinion, but as soon as you get to the open world, there’s no epicness at all.
This said i had fun, gameplay was great and so was the grappling hook, driving instead felt worse than in older Halos sadly, despite having a way bigger map.
I’d just ask for a good campaign, with a lot of love and work on it, just like in the X360’s era, as for the MP that’s complicated, arena shooters are getting less appealing for the general audience, maybe some CoD:Zombie like mode? I don’t know, but honestly if the campaign’s great, i’d already be happy with just that.
This is my point. It takes Activision 3 full-sized studios and an army of satellite teams to ship CoD regularly. Meanwhile across the industry we see studios making moves to reign in scope to deliver a better end product. I don’t see people skipping TLoU 2 because it was ‘feature incomplete’. They even still sold it for full price.
