Support NeoGAF

[Yoboman]

With all the Halo focus, I would like to remember the month that COD4 Modern Warfare stole Halo 3s thunder to take the throne as biggest FPS in the world.

I remember these days like they were yesterday. The Xbox 360 got an exclusive public beta to COD4, it was to launch and be available over the full month of September 2007. A big dick move if ever there was one, because this was the month Halo 3 was launching on September 25

The landscape was quite different back then. Halo was the biggest dog in the FPS genre at that point. It didn't come close in sales and scores. What was Call of Duty? A decent, moderately successful WW2 FPS, more known for its single player than multiplayer.

Infinity Ward were so cocky as to overlap their beta with Halo 3? Well they had reason to be cocky because the Modern Warfare BETA became an enormous success

I dont think I have ever seen this forum as universally united in anything as its praise for the quality of the Modern Warfare beta. Friends lists lit up with 100% of them playing this beta. They were great times having everyone you know available to play this one game

It was so good that when Halo 3 came out, most of my friend list was still playing the Modern Warfare beta until it finished before playing Halo 3.

Halo 3 came out and was a big success, but in the back of everyone's mind was the release date of the full Modern Warfare.

Halo 3 would go on to score 94 on Metacritic and sell 14.5 million copies.

COD4 Modern Warfare would go on to score 94 on Metacritic and sell 15.7 million copies, dethroning the former King of FPS: Halo

 

[Chiggs]

I’m honestly more impressed by Halo 3’s sales, considering it’s only on one platform.

It’s also the game I would choose to play today; doubt CoD4 could even hold my interest for more than 10 minutes.

No slam on CoD4, though. A groundbreaker in many ways. Good thread. I miss the 2000s.

 

[JLMC469]

Hands down the best year I experienced gaming. The amount of AAA titles was absurd:

Bioshock, Mass Effect, COD, HALO, Crysis, Mario Galaxy, Assassin’s Creed, Uncharted, The Orange Box, Skate, God of War 2...

 

[Thugnificient]

Halo 3 was a much better game than COD4 and pretty much all of them, really.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

Both masterpieces of the FPS Genre

 

[JLMC469]

Both masterpieces of the FPS Genre

You are a masterpiece of the fps genre...

 

[-Arcadia-]

Halo 3 was a much better game than COD4 and pretty much all of them, really.

At least in terms of campaigns, time has revealed which one was the classic, and which one was a paper-thin shooting gallery buoyed by awesome real-time events and story.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

Halo 3 was a much better game than COD4 and pretty much all of them, really.

Sounds like those MP lobbies really did a number on you

 

[godhandiscen]

This happened during my cherished college years of Doritos and Moutain Dew.

Halo 3 was the better game experience, but CoD 4:MW introduced incredibly addictive progression loops to multiplayer. Infinity Ward realized that people loved filling those experience bars, and Bungie had no answer to that.

The ass-kicking was so traumatic for Bungie, that they designed Destiny specifically to have an everlasting progression loop.

Others developers caught on the fact, and that's why nowadays we have such an abundance of RPG mechanics on everything.

Those years were wild, developers would copy the CoD4 template, and apply it to other genres with instant success.

Edit: CoD4 also had a better framerate than Halo 3, (~55fps vs ~28fps) and did it at proper 720p while Halo 3 was upscaled from 680p iirc. Halo is a series that always ends up disappointing in terms of graphics.

 

[tusharngf]

I played both but enjoyed cod4 mp more on PC.

 

[Evangelion Unit-01]

Big fan of both titles/franchises. The COD killed Halo theory has always bothered me. The two franchises are/were different enough that the success of one didn't spell doom for the other. If today's shooter market is any indicator there is room for several games with active communities; COD, Fortnite, Siege, CSGO, Valorant, Overwatch, PUBG, Destiny are all doing incredibly well.

COD didn't kill Halo; Halo killed itself.

Halo 3 was bigger than COD for being a console exclusive. Halo 3 dominated the XBL MP charts after release w/ the most UUs in 2007, 2008, and 2009 beating out COD and Gears. By 2009 MW2 and Halo 3 were battling it out for the tight spot every week. It was a pretty tight race. Ultimately Halo 3 remained on top in 2009 despite being 2 years older than the sales record setting MW2.

Halo did not actually fall off the top spot until the release of Reach in 2010. The new gameplay mechanics introduced in Reach did not land with the community at all and the game struggled. It remained in the top five/top ten in 2011 and 2012. Fans were hoping for a return to form in 2012 with Halo 4. Unfortunately Halo 4 was even further removed from the previous titles and the population fell off a cliff (pictured below):

Here are the top XBL charts by year (2012 is the last year Major Nelson published this data):
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012

Yes, this has been a stealth sprint and other borrowed mechanics broke Halo's core identity and killed it post.
Bring back classic Halo!

 

[Chiggs]

I always get mad when people bring up Halo Reach and say bad things about it.

 

[SupremeHoodie]

I played halo 3 for 3 years. Cod 4 for a couple years because world at war was trash compared to cod 4 so all my friends went back to cod 4. Great time to have an xbox.

 

[SupremeHoodie]

I always get mad when people bring up Halo Reach and say bad things about it.

Reach was the downfall of the halo franchise but it was way better than 4 or 5.

 

[SpartanN92]

Make Halo Great Again!

 

[Evangelion Unit-01]

I always get mad when people bring up Halo Reach and say bad things about it.

There are a ton of things I love about Reach on the singleplayer side-I thought it was a strong Halo campaign and it brought a lot to the table. The level design, story, art, and music are all absolutely incredible.

On the multiplayer side there are also things I enjoyed-expanded Forge, Customs, new sandbox additions, etc.

Unfortunately the competitive 4v4 traditional arena mode, Halo MP's bread and butter, just fell apart with loadouts/armor abilities, reticle bloom, and map selection. The armor abilities themselves were really interesting and worked well when implemented in MLG rules by being placed on the map but fundamentally broke the rhythm of Halo's gameplay when applied to loadouts/starts. Reticle bloom has no place in Halo, a game built around precision and accuracy, as it turned gunfights into a game of RNG. The map selection was just unfortunate-a lot of fantastic maps but being repurposed campaign spaces they fall just shy of the excellent arena maps from the prior three entries.

 

[bender]

COD4 was great. All Achievements. 10 Prestige levels and I earned every golden gun. Halo 3 great as well. It was a major course correction from Halo 2's campaign but still not as good as CE and the best non-CE game was yet to come (Reach). I don't really care for Halo multiplayer outside of splitscreen.

This happened during my cherished college years of Doritos and Moutain Dew.

Halo 3 was the better game experience, but CoD 4:MW introduced incredibly addictive progression loops to multiplayer. Infinity Ward realized that people loved filling those experience bars, and Bungie had no answer to that.

The ass-kicking was so traumatic for Bungie, that they designed Destiny specifically to have an everlasting progression loop.

Others developers caught on the fact, and that's why nowadays we have such an abundance of RPG mechanics on everything.

Those years were wild, developers would copy the CoD4 template, and apply it to other genres with instant success.

Edit: CoD4 also had a better framerate than Halo 3, (~55fps vs ~28fps) and did it at proper 720p while Halo 3 was upscaled from 680p iirc. Halo is a series that always ends up disappointing in terms of graphics.

Blur was so good. PGR2 was one of my favorite racers ever. I miss Bizarre Creations.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Halo 3 came out and was a big success, but in the back of everyone's mind was the release date of the full Modern Warfare.

Halo 3 would go on to score 94 on Metacritic and sell 14.5 million copies.

COD4 Modern Warfare would go on to score 94 on Metacritic and sell 15.7 million copies, dethroning the former King of FPS: Halo

Sign of the times.

When Halo was big, so was the sci-fi scene in fps. WWII games were big too. So if you were a shooter fan, you either went the space-age Epic or Halo games or WW.

On console I don't think there were any modern soldier kinds of shooters, and on PC I'm not sure.... maybe those BF 2 games.

But Call of Duty 4 really put modern soldier games on the map for PC and console at the same time and it stuck even to now. It seems for shooters, people either do the modern military thing or do the crazy Fortnite/Apex Legends route.

But Quake, Doom, Unreal, KZ, Halo, Resistence, Gears.... have all trended down or disappeared. Gamers don't seem to care about human vs. aliens shooters anymore.