Halo's franchise director also told us what Halo 6 would be about
Halo 5‘s campaign didn’t exactly work for me, this much I’ve written. Not in snobbery. I don’t hate popular done-over-and-over-again things in principle, any more than I hate baseball, chess, or the Tour de France. As Stephen King put it in his National Book Awards acceptance speech, you “don’t get social or academic brownie points for deliberately staying out of touch with your own culture.”
But popular doesn’t entail safe, and Halo 5‘s story, despite what I’m sure comprises an unfathomable amount of developmental work, feels too much like kicking back in the easy chair and putting your feet by the fire. Characters end the game as they began it. Even the twist at the end just feels like a tee-up for Halo 6.
Halo franchise development director Frank O’Connor graciously engaged some of my criticisms after I’d finished the game. Here’s what he told me:
TSA asks what is the future for Xbox.
They clearly never did, hence why they spent so many BILLIONS on other publishers as a last resort.
There are two reasons why all those Bethesda studios closed, and neither of them have anything to do with Bethesda (directly)...
Game Pass and Activision.
The guy confirming what we've all (well, most of us) been saying since the latest purchase.
Honestly i think Bethesda needs to buy themselves out of zenimax/MSs hands and do their own thing, i honestly think that would fix a lot of issues and save them from a potential closure.
Ah, we can see how the Microsoft media machine works.
Every article I read now is some kind of attempt to shift the blame off Microsoft and paint them as the victims or convince people that Microsoft mistakes were just some kind unforeseeable unfortunate twist of fate.
The shills are out in full force today.
It's greed. MS has the IP's it wants now it's dumping the studios that it's raided, MS will still make money from Tango's games unlike the people that made them. If anyone follows MS outside of gaming you'll see this is what they do, buy companies take what they want consolidate some of the workforce and shut them down. I don't know why people are acting so surprised when this is Microsoft being Microsoft.
MS is a three trillion dollar company, if it enters a market it has no need to compete, they take what they want and with the financial influence it can bypass laws that are meant to protect the consumer and the workforce. Just look at how they are cornering the AI market right now with buyups and investments.
Back when the Xbox 360 launched, Microsoft pushed the big budget game as a differentiator. Following all the recent layoffs, it’s clear this strategy has run its course.
The Microsoft shill take on the Microsoft causing the death of big budget gaming...
The whole driving force for growth in gaming both technologically, creatively and financially was all nonsense, and it was definitely not because Microsoft ran the industry into the ground with obviously bad decisions and creating an unprofitable business model that massively disrupted consumer spending habits. /s
LOL, this article is a big pile of dog crap...
Spencer has been constantly telling ppl that NO they would not go the route of having games like TLOU, Uncharted, etc because Playstation exists and prefers to focus on a diverse portfolio.
How many years have we seen Xbox as no game and we don't want small games like ORI, Pentiment, Grounded, etc.?
That's the real tragedy and why lots of gamers are mad at MS right now
because they have been championing smaller titles and yet fired the ppl delivering exactly what they were proning about.
So no the only nonsense is that MS seems now to be going BACK to AAA popular titles..sorry, I meant refocusing effort on core established IP where broken GAAS might be rewarded versus praised and rewarded work.
I liked it but the problem i had with it is that a lot of the campaign story stuff requires knowledge of the Halo lore and tie-in stories.
They clearly made this Halo for multiplayer, but the campaign was the worst in the series. I will play the campaign again for the fun factor and coop play, but you got to admit they could of done better. The problems with the campaign is the repetitive boss fights of the same enemy over and over again for like 5 times. It made me feel like 343 ran out of ideas to make more variety of enemy bosses! We got 3 version of the same boss at the end that made the game more frustrating, and the storyline was the weakest one. The campaign have some good moments like that (spoiler free no worries) coming down from the sky moment, which I can't spoil is the highlight of the game wow! It is the closest we will ever get to that Locke team sliding down the snowy mountain cutscene you wish was playable. You have the multiple path ways through the battlefield where all 4 players go through to reach the same point(another highlight). One thing to take note is that there are only 12 missions, not 15 missions as stated. Those 3 missions are nothing but fake rpg open world like hubs, where you talk to 2 npcs then mission complete! Not joking. One of those hubs you revisit to do the same thing? I wish these hubs were not apart of the missions. All Halos before this had all full level missions, so what is the point of these hubs? I see this game as an 8.5 for the best multiplayer in the series,but the campaign is a bit lackluster.
Plus alot of people need to take note of this, and I hope the developers fix this, which is the low framerate from a distance issue. I notice this issue in both single and multiplayer. Yes the game is smooth in 60fps, but the enemy and player walking animations look weird, wonky, and downright ugly! Its like those animations are moving in 30fps, and while the whole game world is in 60fps at the same time. The problem is up close also. The only other game I can think of that had this problem, was Dark Souls 2 back when it was for PS3/360/PC.
At the end of the campaign when i beat it my instant reaction was the game was the best campaign.
Frank is right you cant please everyone.
But i dont see how any of the halo`s from 1-4 is touching halo 5.
Its just not possible even the places you go and the traversal through the enviornments.
Even the story really takes the halo series to the next level.
People need to get that the whole covenant and flood stuff is lower level.
We are on a whole different journey now. Stuff went down in this game i tell ya.
As a long Halo fan, I can safely admit that this was the best Halo thus far. Not in terms of story, but as a whole package, it's an amazing game. 60fps makes a big difference, and it was a welcomed trait that I'm glad 343 studios committed to. Story wise, it's better than all but the first game. I don't think any entry in the series will repeat the magic of being a lone survivor and feeling the adrenaline of being the last spartan. The series is in safe hands, no doubt, and most of the negative reviews from major gaming sites are simply taking shots for more generated view counts. Gaming journalism is no longer something you can trust when it comes to honest reviews. Read user reviews and play the games for yourself to find out whether a game is great or not. Just my opinion.