I was a huge Halo fan despite not owning an Xbox. I’d watch the games and read the books. Later, I bought and played the Master Chief Collection.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying. To me, Halo died with Halo 5. I actually thought Halo 4 was a pretty good game. Despite the rough execution, I thought exploring the human side of Master Chief was cool.
I also was hyped beyond belief for the Didact. He was an amazing character in the books. I was looking forward to a trilogy where Master Chief had to confront his Shadow in the form of this ancient alien warlord. It would make the conflict more personal, a nice change of pace from Halo 1-3’s cosmic war.
Halo 5 threw it all away. They threw away the emotional impact of Cortana’s death. They threw away the menace they’d built up for Didact. They threw away the sense of cosmic purpose humanity had in reclaiming the Mantle of Responsibility.
I consider Halo 5 the single most significant creative failure in gaming history. Microsoft alone has the resources to compete with Sony’s immense technical expertise. What they needed was a story to channel those resources effectively. Halo, as you point out, was that story. Its death meant the death of Xbox.
I had similar thoughts myself, however, when I go back to revisit Halo 4 the game is always worse than I remember, significantly worse. The story was going in a decent new direction (but very flawed) and the Didact could have made for an interesting villain for the rest of the trilogy but what was truly unforgiveable was 343's level design; Halo 4, Halo 5 and infinite are plagued with boring 'get to three points, destroy something/flip a switch' style set pieces.
For sure, Halo 5: Guardians was the point where it became terminal, it's virtually impossible to recover when you utterly ruin the middle part of a trilogy.
The Mantle was always a plot device I liked too because it recontextualised Humanity's entire history and place in the Halo universe. The Covenant were no longer this insurmountable horde of technologically advanced beings, rather a cult, misled by false prophets into warring with those who were truly destined to lead the way. One of the strongest developments from Halo 4 and very on-brand for the always Biblical-referencing Halo.
Couldn't have said it better myself, I had to skim over so much of what made the game a catastrophic failure but that's what it boils down to really: it killed Xbox.
A great, chilling retrospective. I remember when I got my first 360 and how amazed I was by additions as straightforward as internal storage and an RJ45 port. Same goes for playing custom Forge maps in Halo Reach with the lads for hours a day. It felt like console gaming was entering a brave new world and that Microsoft could do no wrong. We've fallen far indeed, but at least Big Green's ignominious retreat from hardware might create positive ground for newer and better innovations elsewhere.
Halo's dominance is unlikely to ever return but if they can bring it back to the level of storytelling, fun and community it once had then that's enough for me; my first foray into online gaming was with Halo 3 and later Reach and I wouldn't swap those memories for anything.
While I still don’t really get the appeal of Halo (I think we had this conversation before), one thing I’ll say is that FPSes are a highly competitive business. It’s harder to stay on top there than with, say, 3D platformers, which are a genre that has basically been ceded to Nintendo and the occasional indie.
Microsoft obviously also made some bad choices, which compounded the problem. But a big reason Mario Sunshine still has its defenders is, what else was it competing with in that entire era?
Especially during the late 2000's and early 2010's, it felt like 2/3 games being released were some kind of FPS.
I can think of some Sony platformers that were great at the time but for sure, Sunshine was the only collectathon with mass appeal. I don't hate the game truthfully it's just that when I criticised it earlier this year someone had a bit of a meltdown and it's just absurd to me that it could be anyone's favourite 3D Mario, so I like to beat that dead horse for my own amusement.
Great retrospective, and I've been away from the franchise long enough (last game I played in the series was Reach) that I'm actually nostalgic to play the remake on PS5.
Two things killed the franchise for me: Demon's Souls dragged me into the PS3 camp, and Destiny (also available on PS3) scratched that Halo itch. And you nailed it: without Halo as the hook, I didn't really have a reason to buy an Xbox any more.
I was a huge Halo fan despite not owning an Xbox. I’d watch the games and read the books. Later, I bought and played the Master Chief Collection.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying. To me, Halo died with Halo 5. I actually thought Halo 4 was a pretty good game. Despite the rough execution, I thought exploring the human side of Master Chief was cool.
I also was hyped beyond belief for the Didact. He was an amazing character in the books. I was looking forward to a trilogy where Master Chief had to confront his Shadow in the form of this ancient alien warlord. It would make the conflict more personal, a nice change of pace from Halo 1-3’s cosmic war.
Halo 5 threw it all away. They threw away the emotional impact of Cortana’s death. They threw away the menace they’d built up for Didact. They threw away the sense of cosmic purpose humanity had in reclaiming the Mantle of Responsibility.
I consider Halo 5 the single most significant creative failure in gaming history. Microsoft alone has the resources to compete with Sony’s immense technical expertise. What they needed was a story to channel those resources effectively. Halo, as you point out, was that story. Its death meant the death of Xbox.
I had similar thoughts myself, however, when I go back to revisit Halo 4 the game is always worse than I remember, significantly worse. The story was going in a decent new direction (but very flawed) and the Didact could have made for an interesting villain for the rest of the trilogy but what was truly unforgiveable was 343's level design; Halo 4, Halo 5 and infinite are plagued with boring 'get to three points, destroy something/flip a switch' style set pieces.
For sure, Halo 5: Guardians was the point where it became terminal, it's virtually impossible to recover when you utterly ruin the middle part of a trilogy.
The Mantle was always a plot device I liked too because it recontextualised Humanity's entire history and place in the Halo universe. The Covenant were no longer this insurmountable horde of technologically advanced beings, rather a cult, misled by false prophets into warring with those who were truly destined to lead the way. One of the strongest developments from Halo 4 and very on-brand for the always Biblical-referencing Halo.
Couldn't have said it better myself, I had to skim over so much of what made the game a catastrophic failure but that's what it boils down to really: it killed Xbox.
A great, chilling retrospective. I remember when I got my first 360 and how amazed I was by additions as straightforward as internal storage and an RJ45 port. Same goes for playing custom Forge maps in Halo Reach with the lads for hours a day. It felt like console gaming was entering a brave new world and that Microsoft could do no wrong. We've fallen far indeed, but at least Big Green's ignominious retreat from hardware might create positive ground for newer and better innovations elsewhere.
We can only hope so.
Halo's dominance is unlikely to ever return but if they can bring it back to the level of storytelling, fun and community it once had then that's enough for me; my first foray into online gaming was with Halo 3 and later Reach and I wouldn't swap those memories for anything.
While I still don’t really get the appeal of Halo (I think we had this conversation before), one thing I’ll say is that FPSes are a highly competitive business. It’s harder to stay on top there than with, say, 3D platformers, which are a genre that has basically been ceded to Nintendo and the occasional indie.
Microsoft obviously also made some bad choices, which compounded the problem. But a big reason Mario Sunshine still has its defenders is, what else was it competing with in that entire era?
Especially during the late 2000's and early 2010's, it felt like 2/3 games being released were some kind of FPS.
I can think of some Sony platformers that were great at the time but for sure, Sunshine was the only collectathon with mass appeal. I don't hate the game truthfully it's just that when I criticised it earlier this year someone had a bit of a meltdown and it's just absurd to me that it could be anyone's favourite 3D Mario, so I like to beat that dead horse for my own amusement.
Great retrospective, and I've been away from the franchise long enough (last game I played in the series was Reach) that I'm actually nostalgic to play the remake on PS5.
Two things killed the franchise for me: Demon's Souls dragged me into the PS3 camp, and Destiny (also available on PS3) scratched that Halo itch. And you nailed it: without Halo as the hook, I didn't really have a reason to buy an Xbox any more.
Glad you enjoyed it! Honestly? You stopped at the right spot, I wish it had all ended at Reach now.
The PS3 got better and better after 2010 but the 360 was a little aimless