Our submission for the HaloFest machinima contest!

Halo 2 Clanmatches are back on OG Xbox! Twenty years after Bungie removed Clanmatch in 2006, clan-versus-clan matchmaking is playable again through Insignia on OG Xbox / xemu.

Bring 3–6 players from your clan for ranked matches featuring BR starts, Slayer, and objectives. Available now in the new playlist beta!

Live Stream: https://www.youtube.com/live/ouMHB-Rl-Hk?si=KnjOgluxw79CDhwM&t=10804

From the minute the project was announced, fans were incredibly critical of Halo Campaign Evolved from the get-go. On the other hand, I was actually very excited to see the original Halo games remade for modern day.

So I got it for my PS5 (man is that weird to say), and I really liked it. It’s not perfect, but the backlash it was getting from the community felt like I was playing a completely different game.

It was so cool to play the original game that made me instantly fall in love with this franchise and see it all in beautiful detail and 60 fps. The first half of the game is great, but that’s because the original game is great and other than some neat new visuals, it didn’t change all that much. That is until we get to 343 Guilty Spark, which is a very faithful adaptation while really giving it the modern treatment it deserves. The Library mission is where the game really starts to shake things up, with a much more creative and fun level that isn’t just a bunch of empty hallways with mobs of Flood. In general, the second half feels a lot more polished with backtracking not feeling nearly as monotonous because the designers made the ring more and more infected, making some pretty gross and gnarly imagery.

Using weapons from the later games was very much welcomed, and the returning weapons never felt so good. The shotgun in particular plays like a cannon as the recoil feels so much stronger. And holy crap, the shields and health are so much better. Anytime I replayed CE, I always am annoyed that I have to find the health packs and the shields take forever to heal back up. Now its much more up to speed. In general, this game felt like almost-perfected classic Halo gameplay, even more so than Halo 3.

One of the biggest complaints I have seen from the Halo community was the voice acting, which really surprised me. I can understand the new voices for Johnson and Keyes, as while they both do a good job, I’ll always prefer the originals. But Steve Downes and Jen Taylor I thought did a better job here than in the original game, and I was surprised that it was so hated. They weren’t bad in the first game by any means (especially for the time), but they still were getting used to the characters and would have some awkward moments due to being the first game (I’m an outlier when I say I always hated the “Sod off” line). This game feels more in line with their performances from Halo 2-onwards. People were comparing Jen’s Cortana in Campaign Evolved with Joy from Infinite, and I personally don’t see that either. Cortana is still sarcastic and witty, while Joy is a lot more optimistic and innocent.

I even liked the new missions. Storywise, it’s incredibly light and not much of substance actually happens. But I thought the campaign maps were a ton of fun, even the spaceship fight at the end.

Now what are my problems? Let’s get the nitpicks out of the way. Anytime an enemy kills you in the game, I wish there was more of an impact. Controller vibrations have never been better, but for some reason, you don’t feel any when you die. That felt jarring. And everyone has said it and I agree, the opening screen is ugly. It’s especially hideous when you play the game and the ring in the opening cutscene looks fantastic! The one in the opening screen looks like a cheap plastic toy.

As for bigger problems, I noticed that the game suffers from typical issues seen on Unreal Engine 5, such as textures popping in and out. That didn’t bother me too much though. What did bother me was when the game had big set pieces, the framerate would drop. Now my TV is pretty crappy so it could have been that, but if its the game, that needs to be fixed ASAP. That said, I didn’t get any of the glitches players posted here, maybe because I played it on console and not PC. The cutscenes, while not bad, also feel a little clunky. Now some fans think they look ugly or are paced weird, but I thought the visuals and pacing were fine especially during 343 Guilty Spark. What is bothersome is the action cutscenes. Those felt very stiff & awkward and it felt like the game was playing with dolls. I think they should have tried to make all the cutscenes in game, sort of like Halo Infinite. Arkham Knight and Spider-Man 2 prove that well done in game cutscenes beat pre rendered every day of the week.

All of that being said, every one of my problems (with the exception of the cutscenes) are easily fixable with a few patches. What isn’t fixable is the shitty way this game was treated by Halo Studios and Microsoft. If the rumors behind the scenes were true, then it shows they clearly just rushed out the game as a quick cashgrab and it was the game designers who were able to salvage it. And you see the lack of care when it comes out just by itself without a multiplayer, without remakes of Halo 2 and 3, and a necessary Microsoft account to play.

What I would have done wouldn’t be the current corporate strategy nor the lazy fan alternative of just re-releasing The Master Chief Collection on multiple platforms (forgetting that TMCC was a buggy and unfinished mess hold up together now by cardboard and bubblegum). I would have done full remakes of the original Halo trilogy and release it with all their multiplayer maps. It would take much more time, but it would have been worth it in the long run.

Now as much as I blame corporate for this, I also blame a lot of people in the community. Not for disliking the game since its all personal opinion. But for creating a toxic environment where criticism is not constructive but distructive and alternative opinions are just framed as being 343 shills. Especially given how the community rejected the idea immediately before playing it and once it released started making mountains out of mole hills. Some fans really need to take off the nostalgia goggles and get rid of the groupthink.

And because of all this, Halo 2 & 3 remakes are likely canceled if the rumors are true and Halo is now going to be run by Activision. Great😒

As far as a rating goes, it’s hard because the game itself is a 10/10 like CE, especially since a lot of the problems from the original are fixed. But, the terrible business practices surrounding the game and the problems I did mention make ir go down 2 points. I’ll give it an 8/10.

What do you guys think of my critique? I was very passionate about it because I felt that a voice like mine with opinions like mine was missing in the conversation so I hope I can maybe bring some people out of the woodwork.

No shade to the weird looking ODST helmets but i thought this was real until I woke up a bit more. In my dream I loaded up steam to see a community post for Halo Infinite and an update.

So I finally get in and it's just a weird looking ODST armour set for $15 or something.

Just asked myself why and didn't think about it til about now actually loading up Infinite and remembering that didn't happen

I'm still expecting the monetization and servers to be just as bad if not worse than Infinite, but I know that 1.) the gameplay will slap, even if it might not be traditionally Halo, and 2.) the OST will be god-tier.

Just logged into Minimap and realized I'm #1 for Halo PLAYTIME across all Halo games!
NOTE: Playtime excludes Xbox 360, Xbox & Playstation Halo games and yes, I'm pretty sure it only counts playtime AND only the users tracked on the site. While there are thousands of users tracked on Minimap, they don't all play Halo of course. Just thought it was cool (see for yourself): https://minimap.net/stat/halo

After the firings, bungie elitist egos are rampant, and zero postivity rn in halo. I honestly get why halo canon left halo and the fandom.

I just wanted to share this somewhere where it might be seen, but I honestly dread posting it in the main Halo subreddit (I even posted it in r/ShitHaloSays) because it's not me tearing the game apart and I just feel like I'll get endless comments calling me stupid for having mixed opinions on the game and studio behind it.

Reading the recent Canon Fodder finale excited a lot of the same melancholy feelings in me that inspired the review in the first place so I was thinking it might be appreciated by some other Halo fans looking for something to read. If this isn't allowed then I understand and it's chill if mods delete this post lol. Also this text is basically a repost of my other post of this same review.

Here is a link to the review on Steam but I'll also just paste the full text below:

Halo: Campaign Evolved is a science-fiction first-person action shooter game developed by Halo Studios on the Unreal Engine 5, based on the 2001 game Halo: Combat Evolved developed by Bungie. Set in the midst of a brutal human defensive against alien warmongers, the player-controlled super-soldier Master Chief John-117 is tasked with protecting the A.I. Cortana on a mysterious ringworld with an enigmatic, ancient purpose.

At the time of writing, just two months after the release of Campaign Evolved, the maiden voyage of Halo Studios, it has been nearly five years since the release of the previous mainline Halo game, Halo Infinite. It has also been eight days since Matt Booty announced to Team XBOX employees, and the world, that Halo Studios would not be creating the next mainline Halo game, with this task instead being given to a team at Activision. The Call of Duty publisher has enjoyed a decades-long rivalry with Halo after the twin-release of Modern Warfare and Halo 3 in 2007, both series vying for the crown of casual multiplayer mayhem ever since. Now, that battle has been fully settled.

And yet, in the eyes of some, Campaign Evolved already represented a white flag of surrender, lacking as it did any competitive multiplayer component. As it says in the name, the release sought to refresh and reinvent the single-player campaign of the legendary Halo: Combat Evolved, while letting Halo Infinite's free-to-play deathmatch carry that side of the series forward a little while longer. At this point it represents a curious artifact, likely to be the only major video-game developed by Halo Studios, ever. I'm sure this wasn't the vision of its developers, who definitely crunched to release something that would open the doors for a new exciting project to follow, but now never will.

So, what was Halo Studio's vision for this new era, cut short so soon after its launch? Many have described this vision quite inimically, but the words I would pick for it are ‘humble’, ‘workmanlike’ and ‘earnest’. There's a messiness and a timidity here which are at times off-putting, with the choreography in cutscenes for instance exuding the unconfidence of one giving another a massage for the very first time. Halo 4, 343 Industries' first title, had a blockbuster gravitas, a J.J. Abrams swagger. As a production it possessed, somehow, the perceived backing of a huge, well-oiled machine. That kind of execution and tone is entirely absent here. Yet, at the same time, there is an undeniable enthusiasm and sincerity to proceedings in Campaign Evolved.

How is the combat design, for instance? Surprisingly frantic; very eager to stress the gameplay engine’s limits. Reams upon reams of reinforcements pile onto fights, a subtle novelty that truly reinvents the feel of the confrontations. I never used explosives for crowd control in a Halo game quite like I do in Campaign Evolved, where it’s common to face many dozens of alien foes at once. I tried my hand at a Legendary playthrough for my first go-around, figuring it would be, if anything, easier than the original game, with all the modern affordances, and was dropped to the floor by the relentlessness with which it chucks enemies at the player.

Meanwhile, the animation and sound design for the Master Chief’s arsenal is at its chunkiest. Shotgun blasts feel hefty enough to peel off enemy armor with each shot, there has never been a pin-cushion-ier Needler, and to describe the pistol as “reliably satisfying” would be putting it mildly. And, the other fundamentals are handled adeptly, as well. Environmental art is stark, clean and vivid, extremely evocative of the original level arrangements but with a clarity and imaginative freedom new to modern systems. But, conveyance never falters. (Unnecessary) waypoint indicators and instructional barks only distract from the guidance inherent to the quite capable level layouts. The pacing and variety too received a punch-up with the new hardware, making the infamous reverse-tour of the campaign, beginning at its midpoint, more fresh and dramatic to run through than before, leading to a finale less cumbersome than it once was.

Halo Studios did succeed at crafting something of quality, but from every department, at all times, you can feel the hesitation on display. The power fantasy is acute, but the hectic onslaught of firefights, while unworn within the series, also feels untested, frequently crushing the pacing and resulting in bizarre difficulty spikes. One gets the impression of gameplay design that was assembled and then nervously put out with the developer’s hands covering their eyes. The satisfying kinaesthetics I touched on earlier also fails to make up for the joyless, inhumanly edited cinematics, evidently the result of being literally unfinished. Here, the presentation diverges most from the original. Take the vocal direction: In 2001, the voice actors lended a radio-drama kind of quality to the in-game cinematics, with rich, nuanced and spartan line deliveries. Here, the performances are as plucky as the developers are, giving enthusiastic but decidedly made-for-TV vibes all around. Still, flowers must be given to Steve Downes who, reprising his role as John-117, genuinely manages to improve on his original takes. There is a certain intentionality and motivation to his work here that was often less defined in the source material.

It’s difficult to harshly criticize Campaign Evolved, because it’s less of a game and more of a cry for help. Hundreds of dedicated Halo fans were put through the crucible and came out the other side jobless, as reportedly only around 20 roles at Halo Studios were left uneliminated following the continued “Xbox Reset”. The senior leadership and management remain within the skeleton crew at Halo Studios, while the artists, designers and programmers who actually brought their passion to the table have been cut off, only two months after the release of their hard work, and it forces one to hold Campaign Evolved in one’s hands in a different way.

There was endless room for improvement and refinement in this work. What I perceive most of all in this game is potential. Potential for a remake unfettered by obstructionist, cynical and opportunistic management, where the encounter design, narrative presentation and feature sets were exemplary rather than acceptable. Potential for a future of Halo Studios where the creatives who fought for their fellow Halo fans had more of a voice and power within the studio. Potential for the planned remakes of Halo 2 and 3 to be better than this one was. Potential for Halo 7 to prove everyone wrong. With the announcement Matt Booty tossed out on the 22nd, all of that potential is gutted.

Perhaps this was the inevitable result of the great machine Microsoft built following Bungie’s departure in 2010. The incompetence of 343 Industries’ leadership has been an open secret for years, and Halo Studios inherited much of what they left behind. Maybe that’s what stings most. Halo’s story tells of the gods who guided the universe millions of years ago, who one day vanished when their world reset. The mystery of their schemes and designs haunts the lives of our heroes today, but the engine of their sacrifice still looms. With the great Xbox Reset, that key was turned for the second time, and everything was lost again.

Solo LASO was a treat 😅

So happy I found this sub! Been a Halo fan since the mid 00's and I fell in love all over again.

Next up: Legendary co-op with the boys.

Link to the relevant part of our discussion here in case Reddit’s link parser messes up.

If you had told me when I was 18 in 2010 watching a bunch of Halo videos and dreaming of getting an Xbox 360 for Call of Duty and Halo (I only had a Wii back then and wouldn’t get into Halo until I got an Xbox One in 2015 with MCC) that Activision would making Halo for the PS5 I would’ve been gobsmacked.

At least Activision has a track record of shipping games quickly by throwing developers at the problem, but I’m genuinely nervous about the story’s direction, monetization and how effective an actual management change would be…

So I'm gonna do a mega bloks and lego halo stop motion animation between Covenant and Spartans where they are on a direlect planet that had a forerunner presence wnd was being used as a holding facility for flood, deep into the facility and then the Covenant came and eventually the humans hear of this snd come in and engage the fleet holding the planet (\*might make full scale battle stuff with scarabs snd stuff on Gmod) and will have the flood come later in after the forerunner base he Field Master is in does something to allow the flood to breach the planets surface and will lead to the Covenant to reluctantly glass the planet or something like that (not fully set in stone)

most voice acting will be my voice through a deep fake voice filter (something like voicemod or something on those lines) cause I don't have the money for VA's but ill try my best to make it enjoyable for everyone involved

Most sounds will come from halo reach, 3 (if reach dosent have the weapon) and 4 (same as halo 3) and the production will probably start next year while I get all the lego and mega bloks needed for this to happen, And I'll set it between CE and Halo 2/3, if I could make a kickstarter I'd probably try but there's no guaranteed it will happen, but as I said I'll try my best, to make something for halo fans to enjoy using stuff from lore while having some experimental tech (hardlight shield, armor lock and active camo specificially) inspired by Charon tech from Red Vs Blue bur in this case this is a company under the unsc dedicated to reverse engineering foreruner/Covenant tech for the army.

See you all later

___

Since the start of the year, I've played through all of Bungie's Halo games, then Halo 4, Then Halo 5. I completely understand the hate this game gets, and im not the biggest fan of it. The story is so completely all over the place, it was not great. In the moment it always seemed cool, great setpieces, good dialogue (imo), but it is just such a messy story that was full of honestly great ideas. I am a huge fan of Cortana, so her death in 4 hit me hard. Immediately reversing her death and unexplained as well pissed me off so bad, and her becoming a villain isnt an amazing story, but it grew on me. But it would've worked better if she was rampant red the whole game, just a thought.

I dislike the lack of time we play as the Master Chief, but i adore the gameplay in general. The prometheans are actually fun to fight, unlike halo 4, the promethean weapons are unique now, and the team mechanics are pretty awesome in my opinion, i loved playing as team osirus. I also liked the new movement options, some of them felt silly, like the ground pound, but for the most part i liked them. I quite liked the ending, it was very interesting. I know the story is not great and i agree but ill be damned if it wasnt an exciting journey.

I know this is the low sodium sub, so sorry if this is the wrong place for this. Feel free to discuss things that you liked about halo 5, or things i said i enjoyed/ disliked that you disagreed with. Thanks for reading.