between ADS and weapons unlocked in campaign being available as loadouts in multiplayer, i have more faith in halo 5's MP than destiny's. of course this is all open for change as we know next to nothing about destiny pvp and jack shit about halo 5.
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Is Halo dying?
- Thread starter Knocks
- Start date
Vincent Alexander
Member
Am I the only one who thinks this Destiny/Halo talk is crazy? Halo will do amazing, no matter what happens with Destiny. Hell---I'm completely anti-Xbox One, and even I'll be buying the system for Halo.
SenjutsuSage
Banned
Maybe most Halo fans disagree with me on GAF, but a lot of other Halo players I know that have been playing this thing from the start just like the rest of us, agree that Halo 4 seemingly brought some fresh life to the franchise that seemed like it was on the verge of stagnating. Halo 3 had so many flaws that I really do feel get overlooked simply due to all the incredible and innovative features that Halo 3 introduced at launch for such a highly anticipated shooter. It was a fantastic example of a dev really giving players their full money's worth with the content in the game.
However, I feel the core Halo 3 campaign experience, as much as I enjoyed it at the time, really did suffer in a lot of ways that were improved big time in Reach, and then taken to a whole other level in Halo 4. I just want certain ideas adopted from Halo 3 and placed into the next Halo title, such as the more epic battles the likes of what was seen with those scarabs in Halo 3. That said, I still believe that both Halo Reach and 4 were much better games even without scarab battles. I could really go into a long rant on this, but I don't really want to, as I'm sure I've said most of this on here or other places before. I really do feel Halo 3 is the weakest and most overhyped game in the Halo franchise. I feel in an effort to showcase just how big they could make battles, the rest of the game's design suffered as a result. Not only that, I feel a lot more focus was paid to things that weren't as crucial to the campaign experience. Halo 1, 2, Reach and 4, to me, are on a whole other level from Halo 3 in terms of the campaign experience.
I agree. I think people are tempted to compare them for obvious reasons, but they aren't competing in the same space, I feel. Halo is truly competing against the likes of COD, BF, and possibly Killzone. Oh, and definitely now Titanfall, I feel.
It's not even really popular at the moment. Their GOTY edition didn't even move the needle on the online population, and DLC required lists often have less than 100 people playing.
Then this happened
Edit) I didn't even read the graph lol. I thought it was the graph i've seen a million times that shows how the games online has decreased after 3. Whoops
I've seen graphs like this before and i always wonder...
Why did the game fall off after 3 ? Was it just because people are sick of the series, or was it the armor abilities, or was it both ? Was it the inclusion of the br in just about every gametype that changes the way the game is played ? Was it the lack of dual wielding ?
So many possibilities...
I for one always HATED the armor abilities. A guy flying in the air completely ruins almost all level design, going invisible when you want, usually easy kills, but completely ruins the flow of the game, ARMOR LOCK, no thank you, seeing through walls ? No thank you.
I wish we could go back to fighting for camo, power weapons etc. But doing that will really lock out the new crowd that is cod.
Halo has tried to change with the times, but it's in this really weird place where it doesn't really feel like halo anymore. It just feels like a mixed bag of other popular shooters. At least they tried to do something instead of keeping it just vanilla halo i guess. I personally would love for it to go back to simpler gameplay, but i'm confident in saying that if they didn't change and evolve with the times people would be sick of the same game long before now.
Would love to read that if you could dig it up. I've always been fascinated at how decisions are made on stuff like this, and other peoples opinions on this subject.
lifeexpectancy
Member
True and I don't disagree. I think I even mentioned in another post that Destiny isn't being compared directly with Halo/CoD/BF/TF. But I still think that the competition for people's wallets in the fall might influence it to an extent. If someone is a fan of Halo and is interested in Destiny, they might still buy Halo 5 if it released in say March of 2015, but if it releases alongside Destiny in the fall they might choose Destiny over Halo 5 based simply on entertainment dollar value and not being able to afford both.
Halo has a lot of fans still who are into the game not necessarily for the competitive shooter aspect, but just for the lore and universe it's set in and the gameplay. From what I've heard Destiny will feel eerily similar to Halo gameplay/gunplay wise, just with a much larger and persistent open world to explore and drop-in drop-out "instances" of PvE and PvP gameplay. There was a good write-up on it in last month's game informer.
Razgriz-Specter
Member
MGS5 is having a big dose of anti-hype
1. David Hayter
2. Ground Zeroes - Phantom Pain mess and confusion
3. A direct sequel to mainly a handheld game(one of my favorites of the series but still an overlooked handheld iteration)
FaintColt388301
Member
Halo will do decently. It's not going to pull Halo 4 numbers because of the install base but it's not going to flop.
I'm over it though. I was a huge Halo fan. I played Reach and 3 constantly. 4 didn't keep my attention at all. I have no faith that 343i is going to get back to what the original Halo's so good. They are just going to make an improved next gen 4. They aren't going to focus on the competitive crowd and will make it casual friendly sucking all the fun out of it
I'm over it though. I was a huge Halo fan. I played Reach and 3 constantly. 4 didn't keep my attention at all. I have no faith that 343i is going to get back to what the original Halo's so good. They are just going to make an improved next gen 4. They aren't going to focus on the competitive crowd and will make it casual friendly sucking all the fun out of it
Vincent Alexander
Member
I couldn't agree more. I won't go into a big long thing either---but what truly let me down the most about 3 is the lack of tension and scale. There is a massive war going on, but they don't make me feel it. The ending of Mass Effect 1 is a great example of how one makes a moment epic in scale and tense as Hell. I truly felt at the end of Mass Effect: "If we lose here, the world is fucked". Halo 3 never gave me that feeling, and it should have.
Duxxy3
Member
I was watching the 120 hour marathon (some of it) this week and that's where I found that peace walker (portable ops too) is a prequel to ground zero, and not MGS3. After that I found myself much less enthusiastic about ground zero. It will probably be a good idea, but I won't know what the hell is happening with the back story.
If Halo 5 turns out to be a Spartan-II sim then another game from 2001 and it ends up changing the Game, it sure wouldn't be in the pity problem it's currently in.
I argue MGS1, 2, 3, and 4 are all you need since 4 concluded the Patriots Story Arc. Anything else dabs before 4 is just highly expensive gear grinding. It would probably help for you to not care if Big Boss' games were only portable.
unaveragekid2
Member
My casual, Xbox playing friends plan to buy Bones when Halo 5 drops. It's losing prestige, but it's still a system seller, so it's definitely not dying.
Vincent Alexander
Member
The Abominable Snowman
Member
Everything that has been born will die.
lifeexpectancy
Member
I think that a large part of that is due to the weird nature that is the Halo IP. With games like CoD and BF, the campaign is almost an after-thought. Granted the campaigns of Ghosts and BF4 were decent and I didn't mind at all romping through them, but they're still very forgettable, throw-away experiences.
Halo has always tried to be more than that it seems. They go for this larger-than-life, epic struggle for the fate of all mankind type of thing, and a lot of fans of the series early on cared just as much about the campaign as they did about the multiplayer.
Nowadays you have more of a split. You have the hardcore MP guys that got into Halo's multiplayer so much in the early days that they became very competitive at it, and they seriously dislike how watered down it has become since Halo 2 and 3. Most I've talked to still hold Halo 2 up as being the pinnacle of true competitiveness in the MP space for the series (at least as far as console players go.... a lot of PC players prefered CE and all the modding that was done to it).
Then you have the guys that are into the lore and canon and like the campaign. Many of the afore-mentioned MP guys don't touch the campaign much, if at all. So if the MP isn't up to snuff (which arguably in Reach and H4 it really wasn't because it tried to be too many things that it isn't), then they say the series has gone to shit. The campaign guys on the other hand, much like yourself, may have enjoyed H4's campaign. But then again, there is even a split among the campaign camp because with something like the SP experience, beauty is much more in the eye of the beholder. Multiplayer can be much more easily parsed down as far as what works and what doesn't, but the campaign is at heart an artistic endeavor, aiming to entertain you but at the same time make you feel something about/for the characters. In that sense there are many more shades of grey as far as what's great and what's not when it comes to the campaign.
I don't think the Halo IP can survive on campaign alone, due to my afore-mentioned discussion of people wanting instant gratification more often than not these days. However, I also don't think it can survive on the MP alone for the same reason. If it keeps changing and pushing more and more toward the instant gratification side in the MP, it will lose all sense of its own identity and will cease to be Halo (some say this already happened with Reach and H4... I'm not sure).
It's a weird gulf to straddle, and hopefully the series can rebound from its relative low that Reach and 4 were. But at the end of the day it's far from dead and I fully expect to see H5, H6, and even the H7/H8/H9 that MS has already hinted at. Whether they'll be great games or not remains to be seen.
What's with the Halo/Destiny comparison? Is it because of Bungie or because of the scifi setting? Because from what I've seen of Destiny, it doesn't seem like the game to scratch my Halo multiplayer itch. I'm not saying I'm not excited for Destiny, but it seems like a completely different multiplayer experience to me. But no, I don't believe Halo is dead. Plus what I've read on here GAF, I'm pretty excited over the direction 343i seems to be taking.
Deputy Moonman
Member
Destiny, while it looks like a good game, is a completely different game than Halo with a different focus. I think the real "Halo is dead" talk will be more credible if Halo 5 tanks. Halo 4 is really the first game with such a huge drop off in player base. As much as it feels gross to say this, you really have to give 343 one more chance to see if they can learn from what made 4 such a bad halo game. I'm cautiously optimistic with a dash of despair.
Outside of Halo Reach, which I personally hated, I enjoyed all Halo games but Halo 4 was the best for me even if the story,etc was not the best overall. I also felt Halo 4 did a MUCH BETTER job with sound, specifically the gun sounds when firing..Bungie did a terrible job imho (too low and weak along with other sound issues) and Halo 4 made it so much better in that regard but overall Halo 4 was just so beautiful to look at while playing and it was just more exciting to play, at least for me it was!
Barrel Cannon
Member
Dead no but it'll definitely not do the numbers that the series did before anymore. I don't think the next Halo game will come close to even what Halo 4 did because Halo 4 left a really sour taste in many old time fans' mouths. It's really sad too because underneath all the unnecessary features like perks/ordanance/duplicate weapons/sprint(base speed/acceleration was already good) was actually an amazing game engine. Halo 4 dialed down plays really well. The game felt like they wanted to slap as many things as they wanted to check off boxes and they still couldn't keep feature parity with either Halo Reach or Halo 3 for that matter.
Lol I still have about 40 profiles for halo 2 spread across multiple xboxs the last time I checked. I don't delete my profiles either.
Lol I still have about 40 profiles for halo 2 spread across multiple xboxs the last time I checked. I don't delete my profiles either.
Uncle00Jesse
Banned
Halo 4 was the most worthless piece of trash I've ever seen. Everything went downhill after 2, although I played the shit out of 3.
Vincent Alexander
Member
Please explain.
Syphon Filter
Member
Nah 3 was the last good one.
maneil99
Member
Halo 3 sold 11.8 Million, Halo Reach sold 9.57, Halo 4 sold 8.97. Halo 4 Had nearly double the install base of 3, actually almost triple
Yes everyone is entitled to their own opinion but sales are sales and all Halo games have done very well.
maneil99
Member
maneil99
Member
Sales are sales and Halo 4 is the worst selling of the 3 main halo games this gen even though it had a 3 times the install base of 3
When halo 3 came out halo was at it's peak in popularity. Also, halo was pretty much the only dominate console shooter up until 2007. So the fact that they lost a little over 2 million in sales from 3, all the way to 4, WITH cod being a HUGE success, is pretty fucking good imo. Bigger install base or not...
BigEvilTurtle
Banned
Whoa now, no. Halo 3 was wonderful. The first three Halos are all equally amazing in very different ways.
Solidsoul
Banned
I don't think destiny should even be mentioned. Sure bungie created both franchises but they are different games with different ideas. I thought Halo 4 was great, I do think the franchise will no longer be relevant the way it used to be. People grow out of it , move on to other properties. Halos own creator moved on, so it's not hard to see why it's not as popular.
Are you really trying to argue that a game that sold 9 million is a failure?
Ozzy Onya A2Z
Member
The Global Championships (GC) showed what Halo 4, 343i, MS, Xbox, some updates, the community (as a whole) and some DLC maps were capable of...
Global success across industry multiple events in person combined with online qualifying culminating with LAN finals as the GC. The execution of the GC exceeded anything MLG ever put together, and MLG did some great things for Halo in the past. Infinity Halo 4 and incomplete features just missed at launch is all. Had Halo multiplayer, development choices and the studio as it is today been the launch title things would be quite different IMO.
Anyone who ignores the sales, 1,500+ Halo products, community dedication and the potential of dedicated global servers with 60fps and a more mature 343i studio is underestimating the Halo franchise and developer. Do not underestimate Halo next generation.
Sure it may not be the sole juggernaut king of FPSs but it has a very impressive sales track record and even more dedicated fans frothing at the mouth for the right multiplayer to click
into action. Dedis, 60fps multiplayer and in game rank could be a game changer for Halo X1. Now think about coop quality for campaign or firefight/SPOPS...
Do you forget the character models quality or facial animation or mocap or graphics on a 8+ years old console. How about the Forward Unto Dawn series or the CGI cut scenes. 343i had plenty of wins with Halo overall , don't kid yourself OP just because the multiplayer/maps missed that classic arena feel at launch.
Global success across industry multiple events in person combined with online qualifying culminating with LAN finals as the GC. The execution of the GC exceeded anything MLG ever put together, and MLG did some great things for Halo in the past. Infinity Halo 4 and incomplete features just missed at launch is all. Had Halo multiplayer, development choices and the studio as it is today been the launch title things would be quite different IMO.
Anyone who ignores the sales, 1,500+ Halo products, community dedication and the potential of dedicated global servers with 60fps and a more mature 343i studio is underestimating the Halo franchise and developer. Do not underestimate Halo next generation.
Sure it may not be the sole juggernaut king of FPSs but it has a very impressive sales track record and even more dedicated fans frothing at the mouth for the right multiplayer to click
into action. Dedis, 60fps multiplayer and in game rank could be a game changer for Halo X1. Now think about coop quality for campaign or firefight/SPOPS...
Do you forget the character models quality or facial animation or mocap or graphics on a 8+ years old console. How about the Forward Unto Dawn series or the CGI cut scenes. 343i had plenty of wins with Halo overall , don't kid yourself OP just because the multiplayer/maps missed that classic arena feel at launch.
Halo 3 was a cross media hype fest with broken levels.
BigEvilTurtle
Banned
I disagree.
Razgriz-Specter
Member
always thought 2 was the worst (until 4) as far as the single player went.
The cliff-hanger, awful Arbiter stuff, etc.
gutter_trash
Banned
nope, lots people still like Halo and many bought Halo 4 in droves
Northeastmonk
Gold Member
Halo's fan base shrunk because the gamers who played Halo during high school or college stopped playing. Granted that's not the majority, but I for one witnessed groups of friends and people I rarely even knew playing Halo and Halo only back on Xbox. I also saw them stop playing and rarely mentioning their love for the series when H3 came out. For me personally the game changed dramatically after 2. Halo 4 had good multiplayer, but the game itself with powerups and different weapons felt different. Halo 2's arsenal had memorable weapons that kept being manipulated. I for one did not stay on board because I started playing the campaigns for Reach and H4 and calling it good.
Plus, CoD is its biggest contender now. I still think Halo will make a million dollars and who knows how it will do on Xbox One. If Halo MP becomes as popular as H2 was I'll be shocked.
I think if MS wants to make Halo big on XB1 they'll go big and re-introduce it to today's audience. It's the same audience as before, but they need to show off why Halo is a system seller. For me, I think I moved on like Bungie did. I wanted more out of my game time than Halo.
Plus, CoD is its biggest contender now. I still think Halo will make a million dollars and who knows how it will do on Xbox One. If Halo MP becomes as popular as H2 was I'll be shocked.
I think if MS wants to make Halo big on XB1 they'll go big and re-introduce it to today's audience. It's the same audience as before, but they need to show off why Halo is a system seller. For me, I think I moved on like Bungie did. I wanted more out of my game time than Halo.
I feel like the downward trend started while Bungie was still at the helm.
Halo 3 multiplayer maps were a huge step down from 2, that was followed up with ODST which had no real multiplayer mode, and then Reach had probably the worst maps of the series. The "Forge World" maps in Reach playlists were crappy and got old quick since they all shared the same assets - so it always felt like I was playing on the same map. Plus all the lame ideas like bloom and armor lock.
Halo 3 multiplayer maps were a huge step down from 2, that was followed up with ODST which had no real multiplayer mode, and then Reach had probably the worst maps of the series. The "Forge World" maps in Reach playlists were crappy and got old quick since they all shared the same assets - so it always felt like I was playing on the same map. Plus all the lame ideas like bloom and armor lock.
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