Before I get started, I want to say I did NOT write this. ALL CREDIT goes to ROBERTO jh from Bungie.net for writing this masterpiece. I just want to spread it. Original post [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] And please do read this. I know it's long, but it shows that Halo NEEDED to change. Here we go.


A common complaint I see on the forums, both here and on Waypoint, is that Halo is straying from its Quake origins of everyone starting equal. They cite the fact that Quake is the most skillful shooter of all time, and Halo should try to emulate such success by continuing to do what Halo's done best, which is essentially copy Quake.

Quake's charm comes from the fact that it is simple and straight forward. The restrictions that the game places on the player on account of it being very basic means that a smarter player will dominate not so smart players because the less smart/skilled player will only think to rush and gun. In Quake, you needed to play smart, because the only difference between you and everyone else was your aiming ability and your brain. Playing to both of those differences is key.

The mistake people are making is thinking gameplay defines a game franchise (which, considering the two words, is a pretty easy mistake). Gameplay is impermanent, it does not last forever. It can't. I suck at and hate complex math with a passion, but I am good at seeing general statistical likelihood. And it is mathematically impossible for a long-running game franchise to maintain the original gameplay if it wants to remain successful.

Hence why no one outside of the internet has heard of Quake Live. Quake Live is a multiplayer-only, free to purchase computer game that is Quake to the bone. Classic weapons and gameplay on a plethora of new maps. All it is is pure gameplay; minimal effort was put into even the graphics (this is a 2010 game, and items are represented by sprites, and the overall texturing looks like it did back in the 90's).

Quake Live is built for the sole purpose of tournament games. You can still play whenever you like for whatever reason, but the point of its existence is tournaments, usually QuakeCon, ID Games' own E3.

But Quake Live is not successful, compared to big names like CoD or Halo. As a franchise, it's barely heard of outside of the internet. The Quake franchise in fact has sold collectively 1 million fewer copies than Halo CE alone, which was the worst selling main game in the series.

So why is the franchise not super successful? Many reasons, but the two main ones as I see them are 1) The simple fact that most gamers aren't competitive multiplayers (I apologize for the stroke I probably just caused in half of the Flood's population). And 2) because Quake's gameplay hasn't changed in 18 years. I think the biggest change in the entire franchise was the replacement of the axe from Quake 1 with the gauntlet buzz saw in subsequent games, and the introduction of the BFG 10000 in Quake 2.

Halo, on the other hand, has changed, quite dramatically in comparison. Halo 2 added the ability to hijack vehicles while also having the vehicle provide a defense to the driver (and could be destroyed), completely changing vehicle dynamics forever. It also added dual wielding, and a melee weapon class. It also added numerous new weapons and vehicles.

Halo 3 kept all of that and introduced equipment, which changed the fundamental dynamics of how an encounter plays out. I know people will often say that Halo 3 equipment was more supplementary, and they're right, but they were no less supplementary than AA in my opinion. Like AA, they changed, with a knee-jerk reaction, the encounter. A guy getting hosed by three enemies could suddenly drop a regen field and be practically invincible, for example. They altered what the other guy(s) had to do in a fight. What first was a simple "let's go triple team that guy" suddenly became "oh crap he just became practically invincible, we need to find cover."

Halo Reach added AA, which I honestly felt was the least dramatic change in the franchise since Halo 3 basically had 1 use AA anyway. Some individual AA were terrible (screw you armor lock) but mostly they were just things that changed the encounters up so you had to think on your feet; AA never decided whether or not I killed someone. Like Quake, Halo Reach promoted smarter players, but in a different, more Sherlock Holmes way, while Quake promoted map control. And by that I mean Quake required total map control and that was about as far as team strategy goes.

What I call Sherlock Holmes gameplay is the art of foresight; you need to predict what the enemy would do and act on those predictions accordingly. You had to take into account that the enemy might have *insert AA here* and play to that possibility, to plan in such a way that it insured your victory (Sort of like the Xanatos Gambit described above). Halo 4 just further emphasizes this planning skill. Look at the map. Is it big? Is it tightly spaced? What could the enemy have that would benefit them in such a map, and how should I respond to that? And if the circumstances change, how should my team adapt to those changes?

This is why Reach is a more team oriented game than Halo 3. One guy can lock down a map in a small game in a simple playstyle. I do it all the time on Quake III Arena Arcade's Beyond Reality map. 1) Get BFG 10000 2) Center of map 3) ???? 4)Profit.

But it takes a team to respond to a team's set of skills. That's the kind of skill Battlefield relies on: coordinated, team oriented strategy. It's a different kind of skill, but still skill.

The difference is, Halo 4 does not support the lone wolf like Quake does. I can understand the problems such players would have with Halo 4, but they make the mistake of thinking skill can only be measured by what YOU can do, rather than what your TEAM can do. Both are legitimate measurements of skill, because they're two completely different skill sets.

But Halo has always supported the lone wolf. Does that mean Halo 4 is not a Halo game? No. You see, as I said before, a game franchise can't be defined by its gameplay, because gameplay does not last across generations, if the game is to remain successful. If that were not the case, and copy-paste gameplay were the key, then Quake would be more successful than it is. It's not. Because Quake is defined by its gameplay, not its setting.

Quake has 3 distinct settings, and only 1 (the sci-fi Stroggos setting) has a fleshed out story. Suffice it to say, Quake 4 and ET: Quake Wars were both the more successful, or at the very least, well-known to the general population outside of internet circles. Not necessarily the most well-received, but critical reviews are not the idea here (I'll point out that Quake Wars was a battlefront-styled game that was nothing like the others).

Quake has: persistent gameplay, impersistent setting. Halo can't do that, because its original gameplay was getting old, and it does not have the dedicated competitive community Quake has to keep it alive. Halo has: a persistent setting, but necessarily impersistent gameplay. The key factor here though is that Halo retains its fundamental style of gameplay, which is, in so many words, strafing combat, but it continuously reiterates it with new, game-changing ideas. The setting, the universe, remains the same.

I'm not saying the setting itself is what makes it famous; about as many people are into the lore as there are people who play Quake as their primary game. But what I am saying is that it's the only thing that can safely define a videogame franchise because a setting is, supposed to be, persistent. The alternative is creative deterioration, like what happened with Quake; there are only so many ways you can revisit the same exact map-control gameplay before it gets old, and, as a result, stops being successful.

So the only safely logical way to EVER think about a game franchise is to think of the setting and characters. There are exceptions; if Quake is the negative, then Call of Duty is the extreme positive. CoD doesn't need to change because it has the winning formula that keeps millions coming back every year. And it works.

Halo needs to change because it has no other options.

Quake has two saving graces. 1) Its dedicated competitive community, and 2) the fact that ID builds Quake as a sport first, and a money maker second (or never, for the free to play Quake Live). ID is its own publisher and developer, and abides by its own standards. They dedicate their Quake games to their fans, which are electronic sports pros.

CoD is a money machine, owned by a corporation other than the developer. The devs have a passion for CoD no doubt, but the frequency with which CoD games are published, and Activision's publishing stance (which is literally to exploit/milk popular games by frequent releases, I -blam!- you not) is extremely telling. The thing is, CoD has no need to worry because it has the winning formula, despite Activision being known for killing franchises that stop being profitable (like Guitar Hero, a proverbial cow milked to death). So CoD, like Quake, is safe.

What about Halo? Halo's popularity has declined dramatically--you can see it in the LIVE activity charts. It is no longer the flagship title of competitive console shooters either. Halo is also owned by a corporation, not the developers. Contrary to popular belief, 343i does not own Halo. Micro$oft still does and 343i is not M$. And as a corporation, their only goal is to sell and make profit. As a corporation, they WILL kill product lines that are unsuccessful. M$ obviously doesn't want to kill Halo, but if it is no longer profitable, then they will. Cruel as it is, Halo IS just a game, a product to make money, it is not an invincible god-delivered entity.

And it is a franchise that they have invested countless dollars into as not only a game, but also everything else imaginable. If Halo 4 cannot return Halo to at least a margin of its former glory, then the only way to go from there is downhill. It's simple economic gravity; if you don't have the momentum to go up, you go down.

So how do you reboot a game franchise? Simple answer: you reboot the franchise.

And that means gameplay. Star Trek 2009 was a reboot of Star Trek, but it didn't reboot the setting--that was still the Trek-verse because a setting is forever. It rebooted the style of how Trek functions in story development, especially in the prominence of excitement over philosophy, but the philosophical undertones were still there, just not as fore-front.

Just like Halo 4. Think of Halo 4's gameplay as the style of the franchise. The style can change because it is not canonical; you can do a math problem a thousand different ways, but the answer is unchangeable. Star Trek can tell its story however the writers want, but what is core to Trek--characters, setting, adventure, discovery and philosophical undertones, and so on--must be preserved. Trek 2009's philosophical undertones were slightly more subverted, but they were still there, as a character study of Spock and how he deals with his racially split culture and personalities. Everything was still there in Trek 2009, but it was done differently.

Halo 4's gameplay, likewise, retains what it has always been: a strafing-centric twitch shooter, but like Trek 2009, Halo 4 is a reboot of the franchise done with a whole new team, meant to revitalize a tired old formula and appeal to modern audiences so it doesn't die a slow painful death like both franchises were/are in danger of doing. People make the common mistake of thinking Trek 2009 appealed to mass audiences because it was basically a Bay film--all flash, no substance (just like how people think Halo 4 is copying CoD). The point they miss is that Star Trek 2009 was done with respect in the treatment of the characters, the setting and so on. The humor was legitimate rather than forced, the development was real rather than nonexistent, the nostalgic references were done perfectly, and it all worked under its own technobabble rules. The only similarity Trek has with Transformers is that the special effects were both done by ILM.

I don't think Trek fans would want to see Trek die, nor would us Halo fans want to see Halo die. Big change was necessary in both cases, and we already know a formula changing reboot can be the best thing to happen to a franchise since its creation, even if that means following the leader (so you can later overtake the leader).

In both cases you have a once-upon-a-time industry-defining science fiction franchise that has started to wane over the years through a series of disappointing decisions made by the original developers brought about by a waning lack of interest in the franchise. The defining elements that the two franchises invented have become common place and evolved upon by other, progressively more successful franchises. You then have a fresh new team, with a fresh new vision stepping in and attempting to breathe new life in their respective franchises because they, as fans themselves, do not want to see the series deteriorate further and fade into a quiet, obscure and painful death. And in both cases, the only way to do that is to rework the style of the old franchise to appeal to the modern audiences that other franchises have raised. So my question is to the fans: why is it that you do not think that Halo is worthy of being rebooted the same way Star Trek was?