All I hear is but my BR?.....
The sandbox list of keep vs remove is laughable. Oh so you want MLG Halo 2/3 back. Right. Same maps, same sandbox. Fuck me. If you're pro adapt motherfucker.
This clip below is far better than anything Halo or Halo pros have offered in 10 years. I'm not talking about my skills. I'm talking about the map, the teaming, the movement, the cover, the shield/health systems, the weapon specificity and knowing how to play to those strengths etc.
Respawn have refined Apex into what Halo 4 or 5 or Infinite should have been. No rockets, no OHK, clear comms on all things e.g. players, enemies, damage, weapons, characters/abilities, directions, surfaces etc. It's so fucking well balance by comparison to Infinite or anything these upset pros are on about. 343 and these pros again miss the entire boat of what made Halo so good for so long in the original trilogy; 4v4 light slayer and objective games not based in territory boxes or player highlights signalling the whole map. This Apex clip from their latest map and matchmaking absolutely shits on Halo 4/5/Infinite in every way e.g. networking, UI, map design, sandbox, weapons, movement, teamwork, visual/audio clarity, feedback, character designs etc. I could write a fucking thesis on this Apex clip evolving from the FPS genre/industry/Titanfall alone and all the lessons Halo devs and "classic default" players should take from the proven sustain and success of Apex. One could even argue things like Apex Replicators and cargo drops are evolutions in game and real time of Halo REQs and "fairer" streak drops while giving risk vs reward awareness issues.
The pros again are aiming at diminishing returns. The 343 decision makers made repeated moronic choices catering to that hypercompetitive crowd for 50% of their Inifite game, yet again for the third mainline game release after Halo 4 & 5. Pathetic. The gutting of the leadership at 343 was so long overdue, it should have happened before Halo Infinite even left the drawing table. The exodus of pros and player population should have been stemmed with Infinite's release. All that had to do was campaign and sustain every 3-4 months along with condensing the population right down to Battle Royale. You could literally provide game systems where teams could lock out other enemies, have a multiplayer match between set teams and then continue on in the larger map world. Dynamic drop in and out, statis type sections of a map, risk vs reward, team vs team or just stay in the open BR world.
Honestly the lack of creativity to remove this Halo faux dependence on esports is such a waste of time. Halo had its time, that zeitgeist isn't going to be the next Counter Strike. Keep it going but don't put so many resources and game allocation. Had Infinite focused on leaving MCC as the go to and the wonderful sustain there they could have had Infinite at the pinnacle of Battle Royale and launched campaign, multiplayer and Battle Royale all in one map. Imagine an Apex map where you go to a mini-hub to start e.g. destiny shared world, you gather solo or your fireteam and proximity chat/share/trade resources and then head into battle of your choosing. Did that squad head on out and attack random in the open squads? Did they pursue a high value target to use their hard-earned loot in the rest of their BR adventures? Did they run a locked virtual sim against a ranked matched squad in the area (e.g. maps to play on are actually in the open world map)? Did they fall into a Banished trap while on patrol for the next solo/coop campaign waypoint?
It's this sort of creativity and shared experiences that wins audiences in big numbers and keeps them coming back. A completely even playing field isn't going to grow your game over time, it's going to shrink it generally. 343 focusing on competing for that esports FPS crown was/is always a diminishing return and fraught with ebbs and flows of current leader. 343 failed hard to take the Halo universe from all media and bring a well-developed world for online players to share en masse but drill down to their favourites to play. This sort of visionary leadership would have delivered new sustained audiences and mixing of players that Halo divisions so desperately need to coalesce into a seamless GaaS title more than just PvP. Look at Destiny 1/2 and you'll find the presentation layer similar to what I'm on about, you'll also see Bungie having this developer vision/insight over 343 and executing on it. Jason Jones/Bungie read the market gaps really well and following that through to something new from that repackaging. Games like WoW on PC were doing what Destiny does but Bungie brought it FPS/console and cross play etc. Halo missed another boat, it has an audience there in waiting. Fools I tell you.
Imagine playing BR and coming across a no damage zone that is bumper mongooses in action or you spectate a live pro match from an event streaming into a glass arena etc. Join in, have fun, then boom back to running BR. Fortnite had a near roadmap, as did Destiny 1/2 but 343 simply tried to get good at what they perceived as the "best" Halo, esports and some random shit like Warzone or BTB. Apex is the evolution of condensing population pools, driving player recycling and retention while delivering loot players actually want e.g. designs or characters/abilities. Isn't it ironic how pros make a fortune off of Fortnite but then scream at the clouds for their MLG/HCS to curb stomp even further on the masses. Nah, keep that shit in HSC playlist or esports events. Hopefully the new leadership at 343 understand why Bungie never fully embraced MLG to override their game developer decisions or majority game output.
Just an example of how the focal point of 343 for so many game releases was esports for half a game. In 3 releases there was so much there to build out with Azure driving the whole thing, so many ways to capture existing Halo fans with new modes of play to share, we got none of that and still don't. Honestly, in that time 343 could have realised the Bungie publishing platform dream from back in the day and developed a resalable backend system/support for online world building; integrated right into Unreal, if they hadn't of been so silly and gone out on their own with ShitSpace. MS/Xbox don't think big enough with their holistic company and talent/technologies. Christ it even suits their Gamepass/MTX/MAU mantra.
EDIT: Aside from all of the above, fingers crossed Max Hoberman knocks it out of the BR park. I hope he has more than just PvP/BR. I'm really hoping 343 have something with Max or soon aligned for PvE/shared/campaign hitting the wild.
