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[The Salt Life]

I thought halo was the best because there was nothing else fun to play.

Then COD4 came out and never touched halo ever again. That was just a superior game in terms of fun to me.


Def lack of comp.
Now halo belongs in a museum, not on my console.

But hey Bungie won me back with Destiny, evolution is a great thing.

 

[Maintenance]

No, it was actually good once.

 

[Captain Zyrain]

I feel like games don't have the legs they used to, but then some games like Overwatch/Destiny/Minecraft just keep on going.

I liked Halo 5, it was fun, but after a couple months I moved on to something else. I do the same with Call of Duty 20XX, and everything else. I can't think of a game that I constantly return to anymore like I did in the 360 era. Too much content maybe?

 

[Fahzgoolin]

I thought halo was the best because there was nothing else fun to play.

Then COD4 came out and never touched halo ever again. That was just a superior game in terms of fun to me.


Def lack of comp.
Now halo belongs in a museum, not on my console.

But hey Bungie won me back with Destiny, evolution is a great thing.

You kind of prove my point in the OP. You played it until COD came out. Halo 3 still did better over COD for several years until MW2. You just never really cared for Halo, which is fine. However, I think you and other posters demonstrate that you don't want Halo to pander or change to bring you in. You already play what you want and Halo changing itself to try to bring in a wider audience just won't really matter.

And if anyone thinks that 343 didn't try to pander you are misinformed. They have admitted it in various ways--interviews, who they hire, and their blatant arbitrary design changes.

 

[Fury451]

It was popular because maybe just maybe its fun to play?

This, combined with timing, ace design, being the Goldeneye for a new generation of consoles, and yes, a lack of competition too.

Multiple things going for it that made it a juggernaut.

 

[Wedzi]

There's going to be a lack of competition when you're an innovator. A king on his mountain lol.

But I agree with pretty much 100% of everything you say.

 

[Fahzgoolin]

This, combined with timing, ace design, being the Goldeneye for a new generation of consoles, and yes, a lack of competition too.

Multiple things going for it that made it a juggernaut.

Modern Warfare, Left 4 Dead, Rainbow Six Vegas, and Gears of War isn't what I'd call a lack of competition.

Video in OP goes into more detail.

 

[Z3M0G]

It redefined a genre... it made FPS on console viable. It couldn't have competition when it got it STARTED.

 

[Fury451]

Modern Warfare, Left 4 Dead, Rainbow Six Vegas, and Gears of War isn't what I'd call a lack of competition.

Video in OP goes into more detail.

Guess I wasn't thinking 3 primarily. Still agree with you, but I was referring mainly to the first game I guess.

 

[Rembrandt]

Halo 5's MP is so good, though.

 

[Dabanton]

Halo was ahead of its time and really showed the world how to do FPS on consoles.

Halo 2 then showed the world that consoles can do online gaming and do it well.

The legion of pretenders to the throne that followed are a testament to how far Halo was ahead of the curve.

That all continued with Halo 3.

Agree. I remember a glut of FPS games labeled as 'Halo Killers' by their devs and the games press whose unsold copies lay strewn along the game highway.

 

[Fata1moose]

Pretty sure Halo would be down on the charts even if it played like "classic" Halo. I think it would be around the same place, no better or worse. Of course we have no way of knowing unless Halo 6 suddenly reverted back to old mechanics.

 

[Sulik2]

Halo 3 was an incredibly good game. I had a group of about 12 guys that played it fairly regularly for a full 3 years after release. I've never seen any other game in my friend circle do that. Halo has gotten farther and farther away from the perfection that was Halo 3 multiplayer as the years have gone on. The Xbone being a wet fart of a system hasn't helped the Halo popularity either.

 

[Wedzi]

I feel like games don't have the legs they used to, but then some games like Overwatch/Destiny/Minecraft just keep on going.

I liked Halo 5, it was fun, but after a couple months I moved on to something else. I do the same with Call of Duty 20XX, and everything else. I can't think of a game that I constantly return to anymore like I did in the 360 era. Too much content maybe?

I think this a pretty good point and I pretty much mimic your style of moving on after a little while. It's not that I hated my time with Halo 5 or Cod 20XX or even SW Battlefront, I just move on.

Actually to further this point, Nadeshot (prominent CoD dude for those who are not MLG 1337) tweeted about how Battlefield 1 had all this hype and then seemed to just die on release. But that game sold a shitload of copies, and people were playing it like crazy on release, but not every game is going to be played months after launch these days. There's just too much competition and people seem to always go home to their bread and butter whether that's CoD, Overwatch, Counter Strike, League, GTA etc.

It's interesting to see so many games shooting for the long game. Take a look at this years Holiday releases. Red Dead 2, Battlefront 2, Destiny 2, Sea of Thieves and CoD WW2 all will have multiplayer modes design around players sticking around for months and in the case of the latter four, years. But there's not enough players and not enough hours for all of these games to still see major long term success. Especially when they're competing against each other PLUS all the other big multiplayer games that are already popular.

 

[EBE]

i dont know, looking at the 'most played' games list on xbox . com shows Halo 5 is behind only 8 other FPS titles (black ops 2, rainbow six siege, black ops 3, overwatch, battlefield 1, destiny, cod infinite warfare, and cod 4), and of course 4 of those are from the same franchise--call of duty--which has long supplanted Halo in terms of overall sales (being a multiplat) and as a result, i would argue, general cultural mindshare. put simply, i think the gameplay formula cod 4 set up is just more appealing to a wider audience than the core halo formula, being faster and with a lower skill-to-entrance barrier. i mean, its constant positive reinforcement is by now well known. i think it would be difficult to connect changes in halo's gameplay formula (or god forbid, it art style or story, as so many reputed halo fans seem to argue over in numerous--in my estimation, obnoxious--videos) to its relative ranking among most played games. consider that GTA V, Minecraft, indie and esports darling Rocket League, and such free to play games like Smite and Roblox (which i guess is huge with kids?) rank above Halo 5. what do these games have to say about halo's perceived or actual waning popularity? or how it plays mechanically? does sprint and smart scope really push kids to play Forza Horizon 3? id like to know its exact online population before making such comments

 

[To Far Away Times]

This, combined with timing, ace design, being the Goldeneye for a new generation of consoles, and yes, a lack of competition too.

Multiple things going for it that made it a juggernaut.

Yeah. Halo 1 was worth the hype. It really helped modernize FPS games, and was everything you could hope for with a killer app. The series just kinda got played out though.

 

[Tunavi]

Halo 1 was fresh and incredible, halo 2 was masterful.

Halo 3, while beautiful, was lackluster. Frustrating gameplay and bad maps. Then cod took over.

 

[Wedzi]

Halo 1 was fresh and incredible, halo 2 was masterful.

Halo 3, while beautiful, was lackluster. Frustrating gameplay and bad maps. Then cod took over.

But Halo 3 was at the top of Xbox Live charts for nearly three years before MW2 finally overtook it.

How did Halo Reach perform? From memory I remember it being towards the top for a long while, then MS stopped doing the top most played lists on Major Nelson's blog.

 

[Aeqvitas]

As someone who got into consoles because of Halo CE, and has bought and enjoyed to varying extents every major halo title, my perspective is that some of the latent terrible decisions in Halo 3 is what caused the decline.

For me, its where the story started going off the deep-end, and it laid the foundation for all the controversial Cortana stuff going down in the series today. The Cortana mission in H3 is the absolute worst of the series and in my opinion is responsible for the faults of 4 and 5.

For MP, the terrible terrible gear is what led to Reach, and the ultimate low point in 4 in terms of MP design and abilities. Halo 5 redeemed all those problems and in my opinion is the true successor to the vision of CE. 3 doubled down on ruining the sandbox and turning it into a BR fest, while also having the worst BR in the series. What this did was appease a certain core base that only wanted BR battles to the exclusion in the longterm of a lot of players who found it tedious after a while. This core group was substantial as H3 maintained its player base for quite a while, but I think it was detrimental to the franchise in the long run. It turned off a lot of players who turned to many other FPS that sprung up since.

It was death by a thousand cuts, and the bigger design failures in reach left 343 on a terrible path for 4. The core base was split, and most of the casuals left were given 2 very controversial single player campaigns, which leaves us in the present.

Halo 5 to me represents a true return to form for what makes Halo Halo. There is a vocal contingent of people who jumped on for 3 who focus on singular issues like sprint and act like that is the entirety of what Halo was about, but I think they are very misguided.

For Halo 6 to cause a revival, 343 needs to double down on the good parts of 5 in the multiplayer, and craft a single player campaign that doesn't rely on any of the expanded universe media for it to make sense and be compelling. Set the chief stranded on a strange Cthulu-esque planet where he has followed a strange covenant cult who are trying to wake a new, monstrous alien threat to the universe. Pit the chief against an unfathomable cosmic horror, along side a new arsenal of unusual and exotic weapons. Get more horror moments and powerlessness that defined what made the flood fascinating in CE.

Mostly I just don't see the impending war with Cortana and AI as being appealing to bring in new fans unless it is executed in a flawless and surprising way. Take some design cues from Breath of the Wild, give a giant world ripe for exploration, embrace minimalism. Give some physics and platform based puzzles that require chief to make use of the new movement options. Halo 5 was full of expertly crafted firefights and multiple options, that alone is not enough.

I don't think Halo can be number 1 again, the market is too different now. But I do think it can grow and occupy its own unique space, but it needs to try to be different than the rest of the market.

 

[woodland]

But Halo 3 was at the top of Xbox Live charts for nearly three years before MW2 finally overtook it.

How did Halo Reach perform? From memory I remember it being towards the top for a long while, then MS stopped doing the top most played lists on Major Nelson's blog.

I think Funknown (halo poster) made a thread about Halo 4: What Went Wrong, that had ranks for 3, 4, and Reach. Reach lasted about 9mo to a year IIRC, and clearly was what killed Halo. Halo 4 dropped off even quicker I think when 343 doubled down on terrible inspiration from Reach. When Halo's quality was finally dropping due to two shit games in a row and a longer dev cycle, CoD was churning out good to decent games nonstop.

MW2
Blops
MW3
Maybe Blops 2?

I'd say a combination of Halo on a downward slope and CoD on an upswing with more mindshare. Halo 3 obviously crushed every XBL game for years though.

 

[Chronospherics]

Of course it's utterly unfair to say it has no competition. It had plenty.

However, it's fair to say that at the time, shooters weren't all on the same page. Halo was one of the first games that really got online play right on console, Halo, and Call of Duty, and these were the most popular games at the time.

That gave it a big boost, it was the multiplayer shooter to play when we moved from the original, to the XBOX 360, and it'd already established itself as that. Other games were still getting their feet with their network infastructure, Battlefield was very messy on console before Bad Company in 2008.

Halo gets a big boost in sales on its platform because people purchase the platform to paly it. Meaning it has a good chance of outmatching the sales of its competitors, even as its universal popularity dwindles, because exclusives sell the system, and Halo didn't have the power to sell the XBOX ONE, like it and Gears of War did in 2007.

That isn't to say the new game is bad, not at all, but game itself has less appeal, while the game wasn't without competition in 2007, the competition it has now, feels much closer to being on the same page. Halo just isn't one of the few titles doing things right anymore, so the fact that it is, matters less, giving it less influence in selling the system.

In 2007 if people wanted a strong multiplayer fps, then what did they buy? It was Halo, or Call of Duty. Sure, there were lots of other shooters, but if you narrow the competition down games with a good multiplayer infastructure and community, only these two spring to mind. Today we have Rainbow Six, Battlefield, Destiny, Call of Duty, Starwars Battlefront, Titanfall, all of these are strong multiplayer franchises offering a similar set of features.

it's utterly unfair to say Halo was popular because it lacked competition, but Halo 5 is less influential because it has more matched competition. Sure, you could argue for days about the merits of Halo 5 compared to the less thoughtful shooters like Titanfall or Call of Duty, but the average consumer doesn't see that. They see a franchise with a smaller following, a franchise getting lower critical scores, on a platform that less of their friends are playing on. I'm certain Halo 5 is a great game, but it doesn't matter, it doesn't stand out as much in 2017 as it did in 2007, and the performance and reputation of the XBOX brand helped cripple it.

 

[ramparter]

Yes, there was no goldeneye or perfect dark.

 

[EvB]

I think there are lots of factors.

Halo 3 still came to life at a time when Party Chat didn't exist, so the only place you could interact with other people was inside a game. Halo 3 was a great game to play online with up to 16 people.
Whilst there were lots of other games you could play, there were not many that were as slick , reliable and fun as Halo 3.

Also with COD as a franchise, we had literally had a years of major FPS franchises being typically Sci-Fi arena shooters or WW1/2. People had been choking at the bit for a game with "real guns" for so long, that by the time COD:MW came along, it was destined to be a big hit.

 

[Nosgotham]

No. I would still be playing halo over everything if they continued with the halo 2, halo 3 style with it's matchmaking as well. they ruined the series when they started adding in different perks, sets etc...

halo 5 feels nothing like halo3, the pinnacle of the series in my opinion.

 

[Wedzi]

I think Funknown (halo poster) made a thread about Halo 4: What Went Wrong, that had ranks for 3, 4, and Reach. Reach lasted about 9mo to a year IIRC, and clearly was what killed Halo. Halo 4 dropped off even quicker I think when 343 doubled down on terrible inspiration from Reach. When Halo's quality was finally dropping due to two shit games in a row and a longer dev cycle, CoD was churning out good to decent games nonstop.

MW2
Blops
MW3
Maybe Blops 2?

I'd say a combination of Halo on a downward slope and CoD on an upswing with more mindshare. Halo 3 obviously crushed every XBL game for years though.

Hmm that's interesting. I always thought that Reach maintained a pretty good player base for about two years until Halo 4. Then Black Ops 2 took Halo's lunch money and Halo could never take it back.

I also thought Halo 4 was some weird mashup of Halo 3, Reach, and elements of CoD with the odd class system plus the ordnance drops.

Also Firefight was pretty popular in Halo Reach and 4 just completely dropped it.

 

[TRD Mr Blonde]

No. Halo 2 did some things so well on console that online games even struggle with today.

This right here. I still played Halo 2 when 360 came out and couldn't believe new 360 games couldn't provide what H2 did. Still to this day I haven't found a game that has the amount of features.

 

[VincentMatts]

I believe that it was a mix of things, it not having much competition on the console space was one of them.

But lets get one thing straight, Halo CE was a fantastic game. The gameplay was incredible, the graphics were some of the best of its time, the controls were tight, the sounds were unique "wort wort wort", the universe/covenant were super interesting and the MP was the best of its time.

And this:

I don't think so, Halo was popular because it was expertly designed and well supported by both the developers and the community.

While 343 have done a good job with Halo 5 it still doesn't quite come close to the sheer quality of Bungie's efforts. Halo defined the Xbox, Halo 2 defined Xbox Live and Halo 3 defined the 360. Bungie's Halo's were events that held true weight whereas Halo 4 and 5 are more like side dishes.

 

[Garnox]

I don't think so, Halo was popular because it was expertly designed and well supported by both the developers and the community.

While 343 have done a good job with Halo 5 it still doesn't quite come close to the sheer quality of Bungie's efforts. Halo defined the Xbox, Halo 2 defined Xbox Live and Halo 3 defined the 360. Bungie's Halo's were events that held true weight whereas Halo 4 and 5 are more like side dishes.

Well said.

 

[EvB]

This right here. I still played Halo 2 when 360 came out and couldn't believe new 360 games couldn't provide what H2 did. Still to this day I haven't found a game that has the amount of features.

It was super impressive, as you say there are plenty of games now that can't even deliver what Halo 2 could 13 years ago.

It spoiled us, all the ubisoft games had grotesque server browsers for years.

 

[Majima Everywhere System]

The competition at the time was much more popular genres on consoles (TPS, RPGs, GTAs, racing, stealth), and it overtook those. People adopted broadband and then paid an annual fee just to get into Halo multiplayer. That's quite a hill to climb, and I don't think it would have done it if the gameplay wasn't special.

My guess is progression systems killed Halo.

 

[Fahzgoolin]

Hmm that's interesting. I always thought that Reach maintained a pretty good player base for about two years until Halo 4. Then Black Ops 2 took Halo's lunch money and Halo could never take it back.

I also thought Halo 4 was some weird mashup of Halo 3, Reach, and elements of CoD with the odd class system plus the ordnance drops.

Also Firefight was pretty popular in Halo Reach and 4 just completely dropped it.

Halo 5 still ignored it. Lol

We have some weird hybrid that's not that good.

Reach had incredible custom games options for it too...Which is another thing Halo 5 oddly lacks. Halo 5 doesn't have the settings and flexibility that other Halos did.

 

[HeatBoost]

It was popular because it was good

...and yet

I do think that if the console FPS scene was as competitive at the time of Halo's debut as it is now, it would've not quite been the blockbuster that it was. Still popular, but maybe not quite strong enough to be hardware posterboy popular.

 

[GungHo]

No, it would have been popular in its own right, but it did arrive at the time it needed to arrive to keep things progressing in the right competitive direction, just like COD:MW did after it.

 

[Red UFO]

was the Nintendo entertainment system popular because of lack of competition

 

[Fahzgoolin]

It was popular because it was good

...and yet

I do think that if the console FPS scene was as competitive at the time of Halo's debut as it is now, it would've not quite been the blockbuster that it was. Still popular, but maybe not quite strong enough to be hardware posterboy popular.

I agree with this, but if Halo remained confident in itself I don't think it would be a series surrounded by controversy or contention.

Just look at how nearly almost everytime Halo is brought up on forums it becomes a huge argument. This thread has been pleasant though. =)

 

[Swarna]

Trilogy still stands as the best console multi-player FPS franchise. It just didn't evolve in the correct ways. Seriously, ADS and sprint in HALO? Wtf?

 

[Wedzi]

Halo 5 still ignored it. Lol

We have some weird hybrid that's not that good.

Reach had incredible custom games options for it too...Which is another thing Halo 5 oddly lacks. Halo 5 doesn't have the settings and flexibility that other Halos did.

True. I remember watching my bro spend hours and hours in forge on Halo Reach. Of course he hates Halo 5 though lol

Halo Reach also had head hunter which is one of my favorite Halo modes. It's interesting how that game launched with so much content that Halo 5 couldn't even match. Idk I just never liked the idea that Halo Reach was the death of Halo. It changed things sure but everything felt contained and structured.

Trilogy still stands as the best console multi-player FPS franchise. It just didn't evolve in the correct ways. Seriously, ADS and sprint in HALO? Wtf?

Honestly I'm kind of hoping Doom and Overwatch can show 343 that you don't need those mechanics to make a popular FPS lol

 

[randomengine]

Halo was popular because it was Goldeneye for the non-Nintendo set who never had a chance to enjoy and explore Goldeneye and were too cool for an N64.

 

[pantsmith]

Halo was popular because it was Goldeneye for the non-Nintendo set who never had a chance to enjoy and explore Goldeneye and were too cool for an N64.

Goldeneye is a great game, but its not Halo. By any means.

 

[VincentMatts]

Goldeneye is a great game, but its not Halo. By any means.

Not even close.

 

[Fahzgoolin]

True. I remember watching my bro spend hours and hours in forge on Halo Reach. Of course he hates Halo 5 though lol

Halo Reach also had head hunter which is one of my favorite Halo modes. It's interesting how that game launched with so much content that Halo 5 couldn't even match. Idk I just never liked the idea that Halo Reach was the death of Halo. It changed things sure but everything felt contained and structured.


Honestly I'm kind of hoping Doom and Overwatch can show 343 that you don't need those mechanics to make a popular FPS lol

Yeah same. I never thought of Halo Reach as the new Halo. It was a prequel that functioned more or less like a spin-off title. I expected the next game to continue where Halo 3 left off, not continue in Reach's footsteps.

Reach was still feature complete and had a ton of fun to be had. It had a some new game types like Invasion as well.

 

[Lightbreaker]

MS's control of the franchise was one of the glaring problems that caused the decline in Halo. The franchise should have been their GTA, coming out once every 4 years with tons of content and future add-ons, but instead they made it their COD their releases.

Other than that, general decline in popularity kicked in.

 

[godhandiscen]

A whole generation went by without competition. Nothing competed with Halo in the console space until CoD:MW 2007. It is a testament to how good the Halo formula was.

 

[CertifiedFP]

Yeah, the only way Halo is ever recovering is if they let it rest for a few years and do a soft-reboot, if not a total reboot.

I'd argue one of the biggest factor's in Halo's decline is that the lore has become a fucking parody of itself. It's become wrapped up in uninteresting Geopolitical bullshit infinitely removed from the plot of Combat Evolved, went off on dumb tangents it shouldn't have, and worst of all, Did In The Wizard by putting the Forerunners at the Forefront of the plot and completely killing the mystery that surrounded them.

tl;dr:

1. Shut down this Assembly-Line development model
2. Reboot this shitload of fuck
3. No Geopolitics and/or Realpolitik in the plot
4. Don't answer any grand-scale mysteries unless it's the absolute end of that mystery's plot-arc.
5. Go back to the simple and concise Quake-Lite/GoldenEye gameplay of the original trilogy.

Bam, there it is.

 

[Jonneh3003]

Yeah, the only way Halo is ever recovering is if they let it rest for a few years and do a soft-reboot, if not a total reboot.

I'd argue one of the biggest factor's in Halo's decline is that the lore has become a fucking parody of itself. It's become wrapped up in uninteresting Geopolitical bullshit infinitely removed from the plot of Combat Evolved, went off on dumb tangents it shouldn't have, and worst of all, Did In The Wizard by putting the Forerunners at the Forefront of the plot and completely killing the mystery that surrounded them.

tl;dr:

1. Shut down this Assembly-Line development model
2. Reboot this shitload of fuck
3. No Geopolitics and/or Realpolitik in the plot
4. Don't answer any grand-scale mysteries unless it's the absolute end of that mystery's plot-arc.
5. Go back to the simple and concise Quake-Lite/GoldenEye gameplay of the original trilogy.

Bam, there it is.

Killing the mystery is indeed a legitimate point. In 343's first game they revealed a glimpse at Master Chief's face, something Budgie didn't do even when finishing off a definitive trilogy.

 

[Crayon]

It wasn't a lack of competition. It blew away the competition. That was a long time ago. Things get old.

 

[Liliana Eileen]

I'm sorry, but... what?

Halo did for consoles what thought couldn't be done. It revolutionized so much, and showed that consoles can be as popular if not more popular for competitive gaming.

CoD4 was great (my favorite CoD aside from Black Ops 2), but I've always been of the opinion that it catered to the masses more so than Halo 3 which is much more skill based. It was a game that can make anyone feel like they're good at times.

 

[Trup1aya]

It wasn't a lack of competition. It blew away the competition. That was a long time ago. Things get old.

Most of 'the competition' is older than halo... COD is just 2 years younger than halo.

Age has nothing to do with it.

As some FPS' got bigger, Halo tried to conform, rather than embrace its differences, and in doing so, killed many of the things people enjoyed about halo.

 

[Fahzgoolin]

Most of 'the competition' is older than halo... COD is just 2 years younger than halo.

Age has nothing to do with it.

As some FPS' got bigger, Halo tried to conform, rather than embrace its differences, and in doing so, killed many of the things people enjoyed about halo.

You're speaking my language bro.

 

[El Txou]

Halo was popular because a lot of people enjoyed it, and it was so, because Halo is, and still is, a great franchise. The negativity towards Halo, and so many gaming related things lately is depressing. Halo 5 has its issues, yeah, but man, this of course my opinion, and obviously a preference, Halo 5 has my favorite multiplayer this generation and my favorite Halo multiplayer ever. Halo is still big for a lot of people, not as big as before because of competition, but does not mean it wasn't good before competition, and in no way do I think it is bad now. That, in my opinion, is a horrible reach, and undermines what Halo meant for the industry, and what it offers today. It is a shame, because a lot of people are missing out on a freat multiplayer, a unique one at that today, because of negativity like this. One thing is constructive criticism, and another thing is saying it was only good because there was nothing else.