Good write-up Fyre, reminds me of decisions like launching without X marks for teammates but leaving something similar in as a perk.
There was a lot of hope going into this game, as a lot of people (myself included) were burned pretty hard on Reach. There was hope that after the years of complaints in Reach, the things to avoid would be readily apparent. Some of the first footage they released on Halo 4's multiplayer looked like it was taking things back to basics, one of the first gifs that was being thrown around in HaloGAF and heralded as a return to form was a simple BR duel between two Spartans.
There was a serious belief in 343's big entry, and we were happy with the snippet we've seen. Then, more previews came to light, questionable design choices were exposed, the belief had started cracking. Some HaloGAF folks ended up playing the game during some events, "Feels like Halo" they'd report, and hope would bounce back -- but with the doubt that it was simply the environment of their experience colouring their impressions.
As time was ticking down to release, it was getting difficult not to be doubtful of everything being shown. A progression system, with mandatory YOU GOT A KILL +EXP in the front and center of your view; sprint had gone from armour ability to a basic control option, making a further mess of Bumper Jumper perfection introduced in Halo 3; armour abilities made a comeback, with all the negative feedback given to the likes of jetpack in Reach they decided to bring it back and introduce the likes of Promethean Vision, giving you a wallhack at the tap of a button. These weren't even the most egregious changes, things like customized loadouts let you spawn with boltshots for a shotgun in your pocket, or plasma pistols to cause havoc to vehicle play. Proper weapon spawns were tossed by the wayside in favour of ordnance drops, both personal and global, which took most map control out of the equation. Then there's CTF, where flags are auto-grabbed and can't be dropped once touched, but for the time being you get a slightly more powerful pistol with infinite ammo that comes out of nowhere. All the while 343 wanted us to rest assured, "Trust us" I'd hear, "Storm before the calm".
Then it released, I scoured around to find a spot to break street date and gave it an honest shot. Campaign design felt more restrictive than before, Covenant combat was still fun but most of the Promethean encounters were tedious and the removal of campaign theater damaged the Halo speedrun community. Firefight, a pure distillation of Halo combat, was removed in favour of Spartan Ops which ended up being a mode of little consequence -- infinite lives, custom loadouts, basically large open maps to get a very barebones kind of campaign experience with anything resembling a challenge removed. Then multiplayer ended up being as disappointing as the previews led on, despite all belief that somehow all the things we read sounding like missteps would prove to harmonize into some magical package that we just couldn't grasp having just known bits and pieces of, it just didn't happen.
I had already been run through the mud with Reach, my hope couldn't be stretched any further that things would change. A couple weeks after picking it up I sold it off, never looking back.
This wasn't my first disappointment with 343 either, we had Halo Anniversary, the perfect opportunity to properly bring classic Halo multiplayer online. The announcement had me giddy with excitement until details came out that CE's multiplayer would be omitted entirely, replaced with a map pack for Reach. There was mixed messaging on why it turned out that way, be it not wanting to split the userbase of Reach, believing that the original multiplayer that put Halo on the map wouldn't translate to online play, or not having the manpower to do it. Either way, the big decade anniversary release had half the game taken out, and the long lasting half that had people playing it night after night for years before 2 came out. To refer back to the UU graph:
Anniversary is a single blip there. I played it for a weekend and had my fill of it, there's only so much you can do with a campaign. I'd still be playing it if it included multiplayer, instead these days I'm not playing Halo at all.
Needless to say, I don't hold 343 in high regard but even with the smallest of expectations they manage to disappoint. Over a year ago now they said they'd be consolidating the Halo 3's playlists, then said it would happen after they were done with the heavy lifting of 4, and when Halo 3 became free they recently came out and said they're just straight up not going to touch the playlists.
So 343 can say they've learned, and that going forward things are going to be different, but I have no more hope to give. Halo was
the series that cemented that I had to get a 360 this gen, but that is no longer the case. They've just repeatedly shown that they can't match up to the level of quality that Halo deserves.
