Halo 3 came out on September 25, 2007. At the time, I loved the game and put tons of hours into it. But I think I took a lot of its features for granted. Looking back now, I'm often surprised when I think about what was in the game. Here's a list of things that I feel were ahead of their time:
Forge mode
Forge was actually a really powerful tool to create maps. At some point, people figured out a glitch so that you could clip objects through each other, making maps much smoother and allowing for more intricate design. The process of doing this was really tedious, as I'm pretty sure you had to save and quit after you placed each object. But when you saw a really well-designed map, you knew a ton of effort went into creating it. Some really amazing levels were made in Forge.
Theater mode
This mode allowed you to go back and watch matches that you played. You could switch perspectives to any of the players in the match or even fly around independent of any players and see things from different angles. Whether you wanted to see a particular highlight or figure out how something strange during the match actually happened, you could do so and show them to your friends after. Theater also supported footage from the campaign mode as well. You could also cut clips out and put them on your File Share.
File Share
File Share was a way to share videos, screenshots, Forge levels, and custom game types with other players. While waiting for a match to start, you could look at another player's File Share and check out what they had on it. Looking at screenshots and downloading videos you might want to watch later was a good way to pass the time before a game started.
bungie.net integration
On bungie.net, you could look at your profile and see general stats and even stats for all of the individual games you played. The stats are really in-depth too. You can see how many times you've killed with or died to a specific weapon, how many medals you've earned, heatmaps for kills and deaths on every map, and more. You could also check out yours or other players' File Shares here. All of this is still up too, although it's no longer updated.
MLG and esports
I'm not even sure if the word esports was around at the time, but competitive Halo was pretty popular and had a sizable community. From what I remember, I think Bungie's relationship with competitive Halo was pretty hands-off but supportive. MLG was the main league and ran most of the big tournaments. Bungie put an MLG playlist in the game, which was great for those who wanted to practice with the official maps and game types. Esports are huge nowadays, and a console shooter having an official playlist for a professional gaming league all the way back then is pretty crazy to think about.
Community engagement
This is a big part of the reason as to why Halo 3 felt so alive, even years after it came out. Bungie did a ton to engage with and foster its community. I still don't see or hear about things like these nowadays in games. This is one of the things that made Halo 3 feel so special. Here are some of the things that come to mind:
- Infection was a popular custom game type in Halo 2. Bungie decided to make it official in Halo 3 with its own medals and announcer voice clips and such. Taking a community-made game type and making it official is really cool to see.
- Similar to this, Grifball was a community-made game type in Halo 3 that was officially adopted by Bungie. Grifball is a sport-like game mode in which a bomb is placed in the middle of a square map and all players start with Gravity Hammers. The bomb must then be taken to the opposing team's side in order to make it detonate. I think it ended up having its own playlist in Halo 3.
- Recon armor was a special set of armor given to players who contributed to the community in a certain way or just happened to do something that Bungie liked. It was very rare to see online, but was probably really cool for the few who had it. In 2009, on Bungie Day (7/7), there was a playlist called Bungie vs World in which Bungie employees played all day. If you got matched with them and beat them, you and your teammates were given Recon armor. Eventually, I think there was also a way to get the armor by getting certain achievements in Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST as well.
I should note I haven't played much of Destiny and haven't played the 343 Halo games, so I'm curious if they have a similar level of community engagement.
What are some features or aspects of Halo 3 that you liked or think were ahead of their time?
What did I miss? And even if you disagree with my premise, what features or aspects of Halo 3 did you like?
