Is Halo still relevant?

Remember the multiplayer that came out with Halo 2 was not what was originally planned. The MP that shipped was a panic move. It was originally going to be grand like BF1942 + Chromehounds but eventually shifted to 4v4 arena when they fell massively behind.

Bungie kind of made one of the best arena shooters of all time by accident.

Hell. Halo CE was basically completely remade in 8 months.

yep all Bungie's good work came when they were trying to put something together last minute.

kind of like a college student.
 
Based off of how COD Ghosts was recieved, I'm more excited about Halo 5 than COD Advanced Warfare. However I'm more excited to see COD Black Ops III than both. The developer makes the difference for my hype.
 
odst had a small team just like the first two games, so it kinda still applies.

too many cooks in the kitchen spending too long preparing the food leaves the dishes unfocused and grow cold. in some cases, it even spoils.
Yep, Bungie's work is a textbook example of the benefits of limitations and the pitfalls of excess. It's pretty telling how quickly Bungie's games tanked in quality once they got fat and happy.
 
Doesn't seem like it's as mainstream anymore. I feel like Halo 4's launch wasn't as much of an event as Halo 3, which seemed like the biggest thing that year. Anecdotally, a lot more people were excited about Skyrim in 2011 than Halo 4 in 2012, and I know Skyrim is multi platform but still. When my Econ professor asked what came to mind when people saw the date 11/11/11, Skyrim was by far the most popular answer. In an Economics class! The next year, very few people even seemed to care about Halo. If you look at the growth from Oblivion to Skyrim, it's something like 6m to 20m+, which is absolutely ridiculous. Conversely, Halo 1/2 to Halo 3/4 wasn't really a huge sales bump even though there are more than 3 times as many Xbox 360s as there were Xboxes. Halo 3 -> 4 wasn't massive either, even with the increase in the Xbox 360 installed base. So as a franchise, it seems to have peaked already. It may still continue to sell roughly 10m copies per entry, but I only see it declining from now on. The world has largely moved on in a lot of ways. Old franchises rarely go on forever, especially if new entries are numbered. Maybe 343 saying they want to get rid of numbers is a way to ensure that potential new players aren't afraid to jump in without having any understanding of the plot. I see that as the only way to make it as big as it used to be, or maybe even bigger.
 
Halo could go ether way as nothing lasts forever. But the story is still great and the games are still based on solid Bungie gameplay ideas. Those first 4 games in the Halo MCC are luring me to buy an Xbox One for sure. As for Bungie I think Destiny 2 will be great. Or a heavily patched Destiny 1. Bungie still knows how to get that "30 seconds of fun". Given enough time I have faith in them.
 
What kind of a silly question is this?

I personally don't care for the franchise, but it's still huge. The MCC is going to be massive on the Xbox One.
 
Every time there's a Microsoft press conference and someone comes up on stage to announce a shitty Halo live action thing or that WETA built a fucking warthog... seems Halo is relevant to no one but Microsoft execs trying to justify the creation of 343.
 
If Microsoft hadn't told them to go after the "COD crowd" with Halo:Reach, I'm sure the series would be almost as popular as it was when Halo 3 launched.

I'm pretty certain Reach was all Bungie. It seems like they used Reach to test out all their ideas for Destiny.

Every time there's a Microsoft press conference and someone comes up on stage to announce a shitty Halo live action thing or that WETA built a fucking warthog... seems Halo is relevant to no one but Microsoft execs trying to justify the creation of 343.
Say what?
 
It's pretty simple: when was the last time you heard the term "Halo-killer"? If you're anything like me then it's been YEARS.

Halo is still a great franchise and the poster boy for Xbox but Halo stopped being as relevant and THE go to console FPS the minute Call of Duty 4 launched two months after Halo 3.
 
Is it relevant? Yeah
Will it be as big of a system seller as the past Halo's? ..we'll have to wait and see for that.
 
It's not what it was (the build up to Halo 3 was insane) but the number of franchises bigger than Halo is not large.

GTA, CoD, Minecraft and Mario are the only ones that come to mind that are bigger.
 
It's still a huge franchise, and incredibly important to Microsoft.

It's one of the few franchises that gets identified as being a video game. Halo is extremely iconic and for better or worse a cultural touch stone at this point.


I don't think it's a matter of if the public still thinks Halo is relevant. With Microsofts marketing team and money they will make Halo 5 relevant simply due to their ability to craft hype and their marketing skills.
 
Nah. Halo died when it went from saving the galaxy as a single badass to dealing with your feelings while trying to bang the hot blue chick living in your head.

Halo is dead. The brand is on life support.

lol... Kinda agree. and showing MC face. Didn't like that and it ruined my expierence.

I think they need to get back to what made halo halo, And Halo 5 is a wait and see case for lots of people.

OT: Relevant: Sure

If Halo dies then all game are dead to me.
 
Every time there's a Microsoft press conference and someone comes up on stage to announce a shitty Halo live action thing or that WETA built a fucking warthog... seems Halo is relevant to no one but Microsoft execs trying to justify the creation of 343.

*sigh*

Why even bother.
 
Not for me. Plenty of other FPS games have successfully adopted enough of the series to make it feel generic - Generic enough that you can just hire a batch of yahoos to churn out new Halos for you, ha-ha.

What last bits of identity Halo still had has been co-opted by Destiny. I finally did make my own Spartan, and he punches space wizards all day. More importantly, the Crucible feels like Halo MP to me. Given how incredibly lackluster recent Halo multi has been (I include Reach in that, best Forge notwithstanding), it's 'good enough' that I feel no desire to spend any money on Halo ever again.

And even if Halo 5 is the best ever, it would only be the first of the three 'system-sellers' I need before I'll even consider buying a system.

It's a shame I'm settling for good enough, though. I spent all day at a card shop around the time Halo 3 launched, and let me tell you, there was nothing before or since like having the back rooms literally bursting into the hallways with people playing, watching, cheering and jeering. I miss that.

Having played Halo and then Destiny tonight, back to back; I can assure you, the crucible is nothing like Halo MP.

Also, dickish comments about the developer. Way to be a douche.
 
If Microsoft hadn't told them to go after the "COD crowd" with Halo:Reach, I'm sure the series would be almost as popular as it was when Halo 3 launched.

Yes, it was all Microsoft. Bungie were just the innocent, downtrodden party who were forced by the out of touch bigwigs at MS to turn Halo Reach into a big pile of steaming shit.

Bungie had nothing to do with it at all. It's not like their next game followed a similar trend at all.
 
Halo will never be as it was since Bungie isn't developing it. It'll be good, it has good developers behind it but just won't be as good as it would be if Bungie was behind it. Same with Gears of War.

Looking at Destiny, I am GLAD Bungie is not developing it.

After leaving MS and Halo, all Bungie has seemed to have is problems putting out a proper AAA game.
 
I don't feel like it has ever been that relevant here in Germany. Halo seems to be a US game because thats where the xbox dudebros are.
 
It still sells a shitload doesn't it? So yes, I'd imagine so.

MCC won't. Halo 5 will probably be down on series highs too.

Reach damaged the IP, no denying it. Sales for MCC and H5 will show this.

It's going to be a long road convincing people that Halo isn't trying to chase the CoD dragon....
 
Every time there's a Microsoft press conference and someone comes up on stage to announce a shitty Halo live action thing or that WETA built a fucking warthog... seems Halo is relevant to no one but Microsoft execs trying to justify the creation of 343.

Derp
 
I for one are glad bungie are no longer involved with halo. There was bad choices in halo 4s multiplayer, but it was far better than Reach's, and the campaign was the best IMO since halo CE

Going back to bungie, reach and now destiny have mediocre multiplayers with what are probably the worst maps in history.

I thought that the maps where bad in reach, but I think that destiny has topped it.

Yes halo is still a high drawing franchise, not the juggernaut it once was, but still a system seller
 
With no next gen console shooter that people are playing constantly online, I think Halo has a great chance to become the most popular online shooter again.

Ghosts had a big drop off and not many play it. The same can be said about titanfall. Battlefield 4 was a mess. I don't think Advanced Warfare will be a big success online.
 
It''s still relevant but it's clearly not as relevant overall, if for no other reason than:

  • it's no longer judged as the sole shining example of getting FPS right on console
  • there are more big selling franchises surrounding it now (CoD, GTA, AC, etc)
  • it's no longer viewed as being hugely innovative with each release
  • it's no longer the sole gold standard for online gameplay on console

But it's a huge, influential franchise that did have a lot of influence historically so it still has some relevance. Another bland entry like Halo 4 won't help it maintain its place though that's for sure - fair amount of pressure on Halo 5 IMHO from general market perspective to stand out from the pack more.
 
A lot of unnecessary criticism in this thread, at both Bungie and MS. Halo is still very relevant but maybe not as big as it was. I'm hoping MCC will bring in a few new fans though.

MCC. Damn, I can't wait!!!
 
A lot of unnecessary criticism in this thread, at both Bungie and MS. Halo is still very relevant but maybe not as big as it was. I'm hoping MCC will bring in a few new fans though.

MCC. Damn, I can't wait!!!

I've heared lots of people who are getting the MCC, because they never played any Halo game before and think it's the perfect collection to get into the Halo franchise. Of course, that isn't any indication of how it will actually be.

I wasn't following the latest Xbox One sales, but assuming the install base is still not very big, it will come down to people buying the MCC with a Xbox One.

That MCC bundle in Brasil better be available everywhere, because Halo is a system seller.

And to the bolded part: Agreed. Halo 4 might have been doing great sale-wise, but that doesn't mean anything, if people are leaving in order to play other games. I'm hoping for a >500.000 peak population again.
 
It's pretty simple: when was the last time you heard the term "Halo-killer"? If you're anything like me then it's been YEARS.

Halo is still a great franchise and the poster boy for Xbox but Halo stopped being as relevant and THE go to console FPS the minute Call of Duty 4 launched two months after Halo 3.
Because ota been years since anyone has claimed to make a halo kilker
 
Just look at how hyped MCC is right now.
Is it though? I see more hype for sunset ocerdrive

Halo represents yesterday's game play, that's why the series has been second fiddle since COD4

Those sadly are the facts, I don't think it's a system seller (no bundle) the people who want it already own a x1
 
Is it though? I see more hype for sunset ocerdrive

Halo represents yesterday's game play, that's why the series has been second fiddle since COD4

Those sadly are the facts, I don't think it's a system seller (no bundle) the people who want it already own a x1

"Facts"
 
I've heared lots of people who are getting the MCC, because they never played any Halo game before and think it's the perfect collection to get into the Halo franchise. Of course, that isn't any indication of how it will actually be.

I wasn't following the latest Xbox One sales, but assuming the install base is still not very big, it will come down to people buying the MCC with a Xbox One.

That MCC bundle in Brasil better be available everywhere, because Halo is a system seller.

And to the bolded part: Agreed. Halo 4 might have been doing great sale-wise, but that doesn't mean anything, if people are leaving in order to play other games. I'm hoping for a >500.000 peak population again.

Absolutely, they'd be mad to not have a MCC bundle.

My 13yo son and his friends are getting into Reach atm (free GWG), only forge because his mum is a bit stricter then me but his friends have bought into the universe. At 13yo. MCU is perfect for the next generation of gamers to get into it. If they follow it up with a good H5: winner.
 
i think it still is..even though I never got why it was revelant in the first place..tried halo 3 and reach and i was utterly unimpressed
 
Of course it is.

Not a fan myself, but for those that are, the MCC is anticipated greatly, that much is clear.
There seems little else to say about it, if millions still want it, it cannot be anything but relevant.
 
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