Support NeoGAF

[Markio128]

I think if that if I knew the answer to that question I’d be getting paid a lot of money right now.

Half of me believes Halo is a bygone relic. The other half of me would love to see a proper full-on single player only epic, without all that open-world nonsense, and instead, well designed semi-linear levels and awesome set pieces, just like the original Bungie games. Then a separate GaaS multiplayer.

 

[ZehDon]

If I'm being completely honest, I'd probably just close 343i and ice the entire franchise. Infinite's still in a pretty bad state, and 343i have shown they're incapable of fixing the game's issues, so why burn more money. The sheer fucking damage 343i did to Halo is incredible. So, shelve it, and revive it in a generation or two, when we've all forgotten about Bonnie Ross taking the biggest entertainment product in the history of the world and turning it into dead F2P shooter no one gives a shit about.

 

[Punished Miku]

In regards to pure gameplay terms, Halo infinite is the best in the franchise. In fairness 343 nailed the feel of the game. What I can't understand is why they can't wrap a good game around it. Its strange because Halo 4 campaign was actually decent and could have been built upon but instead they went backwards and got rid of what was good about Halo 4.

On paper, they pretty much made the perfect call on what to make. Nailed the gameplay flawlessly. Open world is definitely the way to go for mass appeal now. GAAS is definitely the way to go for mass appeal now. They just couldn't stick the landing due to whatever studio issues they have, engine issues, etc.

Only thing I think needs actual work and wasn't just incomplete is the story. It's just a bit much at this point.

Everything else is basically exactly what would work well if they had more biomes, spectacle campaign moments and finished what they had envisioned. The problem was almost entirely just content lacking, not vision being incorrect or the gameplay being poor.

 

[Ecotic]

I think Halo has been bitten by the curse that plagues the Terminator, Alien, and Predator franchises. Each new iteration is heralded as "a return to form", that they've rectified their mistakes from the last one, and that they've even got some of the original guys to come back and work on it. But instead each new release digs the hole deeper, and then the people who could turn the franchise around don't want anything to do with it.

Maybe the best answer is for Microsoft to just take the resources and make something else. I know enough people in real-life who won't touch it because it's a sci-fi shooter and not a 'realistic' one like Call of Duty. The old Halo audience that used to be money worth chasing has disappeared.

 

[Shubh_C63]

Buy Sega and make an action platformer.


Mobile action platformer.

 

[AJUMP23]

Get a back to basics approach. Start a new war with the covenant. Have a new leader rise and maybe have some covenant members join the humans. Also ass a new alien species that joins the covenant. Expel the brutes.

Go back to the open spaces combat idea. Halo had the feeling of a vast area in a linear play field. I would get back to that. Open world infinite was a good game. But I don't think the sandbox helped the story. Get the shooting write and make the AI fun again.

I think many components are there, they just need to change up a few things.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

Retcon Guardians and Infinite because the stories suck in them. But keep the core gameplay of Infinite, it is among the best in the franchise.

Have a dedicated campaign team and a dedicated MP team and they can release independently.

 

[Damigos]

A remake is not enough
Reboot it
And for the love of god, NO MTX, season passes, battle passes and all that sh*t

 

[Black_Stride]

• Adapt another one of the books (Silent Storm or Ghosts of Onyx). (the current story doesnt seem to be going anywhere)
• Not open world, have some good varied level design.
• Infinites gameplay is absolutely fine so more of that.
• Nextgen only.
• Not a graphics whore but Halo 3 and Halo 4 were visually incredible at launch, so can we have good graphics?

<- Is a fan of the franchise.

 

[Jack Package]

First off, destroy 343. Full scorched earth, fuck them.

Reboot of the franchise. A full remake of halo 1 with new mechanics like the grapple hook, but using titanfall 2's version of it rather than suffering the cool-down of the Infinite version.

Stick to Bungle's original idea; forerunners are ancient humans. The Covenant civil war should still happen, but take advantage of modern graphical details to split more than just elites off from them; have jackals, grunts and the worm lads have splinter factions.

Brutes stay wholly loyal to the prophets, cos they are evil bastards.

Halo 2 gets remade with a proper final level. I'd also have arbiter partner up with Chief at the start of it, and that would be the co-op partners for the series going forward. I'd keep the big events similar to the original 4 games (CE-Reach), but keep the war going after halo 3. A galactic war should, by its very scale, never be decided in one big battle.

Also put me in charge, and get Marty O'Donnell back for the music and voice recording and ONLY those things.

As for the developers? A new internal team made up of people from iD, Raven and maybe try and poach Respawn talent.

 

[01011001]

In regards to pure gameplay terms, Halo infinite is the best in the franchise.

I didn't know it's opposite day

 

[REDRZA MWS]

Id hire the best talent possible and revamp 343, and id move to Unreal Engine 5.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Two studios.

A SP studio to make an open world "Breath of the Wild like" SP game.

A multiplayer studio to make an open world "Arma 4 like" MP game.

Make both studios a top priority at MS.

 

[deriks]

I've also never seen the TV show.

Continue with that in mind

Still, just needs better direction
- TV show needs to change the whole sentimental bullshit, or just cancel
- be based on past Halo games. Infinite starts really great because is based on the first stage, the problem is because there's a limit on this, and they thought would do the work.
- better delivery of content, also like past games. Co-op and Forge became mandatory. It's unacceptable launching Halo without this

 

[Draugoth]

Forced reboot.

Ignore Halo 4, 5 and Infinite.

 

[Dick Jones]

So, Star Wars Force Awakens.

Not really. Same overall story as original Halo with the same characters. TFA is a soft reboot using the old characters as instruments to push the newer ones in.

Add an additional side story to change the game up as a shot for shot remake. I'd want the game to feel like an easy transfer from the show. Easier to nab the casuals.

 

[Adam_802]

Soft reboot starting after Halo 3. Halo's gameplay is still unmatched, so keep that.

 

[Schmendrick]

Drink a few heavy drinks, put in my resignation and move on.

 

[kvltus lvlzvs]

I would stop the progress of western society, freezing it in 2006 for all time. Make it so that smartphones never existed, in order to keep the masses off the internet.

Oh and maybe get the dude who wrote the vivec stuff from morrowind to write lore for the games after 3. Give him a nice fat sack of mushrooms and just let him go to town. Once all the weird ass new lore was in place, write around that.

Also, I think Halo would work particularly well as a hybrid RTS, like Brutal Legend. It could be fun to make a spin off game like that.

 

[IDKFA]

Reboot, very much like the needed reboot Doom had in 2016.

Give it to id software.

Job done.

 

[Aaron Olive]

SERIOUS REPLIES ONLY

Complete Reboot!

1. Take the GT/PD approach = free monthly updates
2. Have Co-Op/Split screen and Forge Day-0!
3. have a modest QA team of Halo Veterans to squash bugs.

 

[wolffy66]

Stop making it. We've played enough Halo. No reiterating is gonna change the fatigue.

 

[RagnarokIV]

Probably have a sandwich and coffee at first. Fuck if I know what I'd do after that.

 

[twilo99]

BR mode

 

[Dutchy]

They should stop looking at what the made the old games so beloved. Release the game with little to no content and lock fan-favorite gametypes, armor and weapons behind events or paywalls.

 

[Tarnpanzer]

ODST 2 - Open world in a big city

 

[DevilMayFlyForAWhiteGuy]

Infinite’s campaign was pretty good I thought. I just think they should make a story that doesn’t require supplementary media to understand all the context and have a villian that lives longer than one game. It’s hard to feel like anything is at stake when it’s just villian of week and they just die off screen in between games.

 

[Thirty7ven]

Remake/Reboot of Halo. Start from there. Capture the essence again.

 

[Freelance Yakuza]

Remake/Reboot of Halo. Start from there. Capture the essence again.

This
Halo lore is interesting, the setting is cool
Keep the AI "inteligent"
make some enemies that are actually fun to fight against (not that promethean shit)
Keep the weapons balanced and simple
and for the love of god have an actual ideia of what the next games are going do show

 

[GymWolf]

Make 343 do other things like human doorstoppers or something and let a good studio handle the brand.

 

[Spyxos]

I used to play a lot of Halo 1-3. I no longer believe it can be saved. But you would have to immediately stop this terrible Tv series. They would have to reboot it completely. Halo must have story and mp. separately it would not work.

They won't be able to reach the earlier parts in quality anyway. But I also think, that the market has moved on. Most play Cod or Fortnite or some Battle Royale. Halo would not appeal to these players.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

I would simply focus on single player campaigns with optional co-op, no online multiplayer and no battle passes, no ftp or gaas bullshit. Just make solid sp experiences and build the brand back up to a good standard.

 

[ByWatterson]

Dramatically expand the franchise footprint. Hire second party studios to make Halo games completely different from mainline Halo and away from Master Chief.

Work with Bloober or Capcom on a flood survival horror. Work with Relic on a new Halo Wars. Get Ubisoft to make a Rainbow 6 style tactical shooter.

Halo is amazing. And even 343 has produced great products for the most part. The issue is it's been Chief Chief Chief for more than two decades. They have a huge story universe to explore that can be ybe groundwork for lots of varied gameplay. They should exploit that.

 

[RAIDEN1]

Get a round-table together and look back at the franchise's greatest hits and then somehow see how that can be taken forward and evolved into Halo 7, or whatever number we are at

 

[93xfan]

I would ignore any of the story post Halo 3. Reboot the next game to be a coalition of human and elites finishing up the brute lead covenant.

Just say he’s been dreaming while in cryosleep, and that explains the other games.

Personally, I’d:
-finish the Infinite storyline, but not drag it out.
-keep putting resources into perfecting MCC
-Maybe a Halo 3 remake
-all the while investing heavily for a return to form.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Id hire the best talent possible and revamp 343, and id move to Unreal Engine 5.

Why move to UE if they can use id Tech?

 

[German Hops]

Make it turn-based.

 

[RoboFu]

Make it like infinite's single player but a actual full open world with different enviroments and make it a full blown RPG SHOOTER, TOWNS, DUNGEONS, LOOT, XP, STATS, ...... BIKINI ARMOR.

 

[Roberts]

I never really cared for Halo MP. Infinite was the first time I played it for more than hour (completed s2 BP) so I can't really judge how bad or good it is. Now, single player stuff was great. I've said it many times, but I think it is one of their best campaigns. If I had a say in this, I would start working on a new epic campaign, finish all the loose ends and end the whole thing for good. Halo is great franchise but it is about time they move on.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Bite the humble bullet and contract Bungie for a return to form.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Can it. Modern day gamers dont care about red vs blue sci-fi arena shooters like during the 2000s. If even legendary franchises like Quake, Doom and Unreal got kicked to the curb for COD, Fortnite, battle royals etc... then any franchise can. And Halo is another one.

I'd say the only hope is turning it into an RPG, or massively change it to be closer to Titanfall, and make it look more gritty. TF was pretty good, but it got squeezed in a BF and COD sandwich and they didn't make MP as fun as TF1. But the potential of TF as a sci-fi shooter was up there. They just fucked it up.

 

[Warnen]

Sell it to Sony, retire.

 

[REDRZA MWS]

Why move to UE if they can use id Tech?

Im not a huge fan of ID Tech. I like everything in UE such as the physics and lighting and graphics.

 

[IFireflyl]

Reboot. I hated the Cortana arc. Cortana was brilliant, but they spent three games (Halo 3, Halo 4, and Halo 5) breaking her. That was a waste of everyone's time.

I also hated the Gravemind. What a colossal failure of a character. The Flood are parasites. There was never a need to create an intelligent "leader" for parasitic species. The entire purpose of a parasitic species is to infect and spread. By the time a Gravemind is able to be formed, almost all bio-life on a planet has already been consumed. Why would a Gravemind need to exist at that point? A Gravemind makes the Flood more intelligent, but why would that be a necessary stage at the point when the Flood have already dominated the planet? It makes zero sense to have a Gravemind.

Reboot the series. Make a Covenant Empire, make more species (not old, extinct races like the Forerunners), trap humanity between an intergalactic war, and use the Flood as a happy surprise for everyone.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

I would start back at Halo 4 which I really loved with the high tech style/atmosphere (I did not liked previous entries campaign, sorry, not sorry, that's only my opinion, don't yell at me) and would build something from there, still solo campaign wise, since MP does not interest me at all.
Forget open world, make it linear, badass and intense.

 

[Imtjnotu]

Give us an entire new enemy species. No flood. No covenant. Just a fresh take on everything. Remove all the old vehicles.

 

[R6Rider]

I'd branch off into other genres.

 

[Zannegan]

1. If the Activision thing goes through, make another ODST, but this time it's just a Halo mod for COD and put it into the COD rotation.
2. Set the ID team on the task of building a real successor to Halo 3, possibly for the launch of their next console given how long it'll take. Story-wise, even though it would be controversial, leave Chief and Cortana in space for a bit. 3 ended with a great sendoff which was undercut by immediately bringing them back. Would have been better to let players feel their absence in the continued war effort then triumphantly bring them back into the fray later on.
3. Stick 343 on merch or something. Don't let them touch the games or the lore books.

 

[Black_Stride]

Im not a huge fan of ID Tech. I like everything in UE such as the physics and lighting and graphics.

Unreal Engine was using PhysX physics till they started forcing people to use Chaos (so they dont have to licenses PhysX), but Chaos doesnt do anything PhysX doesnt, if anything im sure developers would rather still be using PhysX.
Lumen is nice, but there are many GI solutions just as powerful, hell if you dont have a dynamic ToD an SSGI solution over baked lighting will outdo Lumen outright.
idTech already had RayTracing so even that is already implemented.
No reason to assuming idTech cant match Unreal Engine in terms of "graphics".

Counterpoint:
idtech is performant as fuck!!!!
id know that engine inside out.
60fps is all but a given even on console and peasant machines.

 

[Sleepwalker]

I would make it a third person cinematic shooter with high production value, think last of us in space or the order 1886.


this is a joke post in case it wasnt clear [/spoiler]