Halo is big news, in case you haven’t heard. The Halo games are arguably the premier franchise for the XBox line of console. At the time of its release, Halo 3 set the record the highest single-day sales of any video game. At the moment, it’s hard to really find many franchises bigger than Halo. And behind all of this, behind every stroke of development genius that made the Halo games what they are, or were, is Bungie. Bungie has developed almost every Halo game to date (Ensemble Studios did Halo Wars) and is currently still working on the series’ latest title, Halo: Reach. That said, Bungie personnel have stated in the past that after Reach they may be done with franchise and for many gamers this may bode poorly for any future entries into the series.
And there will be more games. Bungie may have consistently been the craftsmen behind the Halo games up to this point, but Microsoft owns the series and you’d be naïve to think that something like the departure of a developer would be enough to halt the expansion of a franchise that has garnered more than a billion dollars worth of revenue over the years. No, unless Bungie decides to do a 180 and continue with the franchise it seems that Bungie’s mantle will fall to another group of souls with the opportunity and burden of continuing with Halo.
Maybe it shouldn’t.
Never fear, this isn’t going to be some long winded explanation about why Bungie just has to stay with the Halo games. Honestly, after the length of time it has invested in making the games and how many titles in the IP have been released in just the past few years, I can’t blame them for wanting to move on. It has to be like a painter doing the same painting over and over again, except maybe they use a darker shade of purple this time, or a brighter shade of orange. Just looking at the quality work that Bungie has done with Master Chief and his ilk, I think gamers should relish the opportunity to see them create something new.
More than that though, I think we could all just use a break from Halo. Or, better yet, Halo could use a break from us. You see, there is something that sometimes happens to popular game series. They sell well, so sequels are made. The sequels sell well, so prequels are made. Those sell well so spin-offs are produced, and so on and so forth. The Medal of Honor games, for instance, used to be great. I loved them back on the PS1 and then later on the PS2 when they set out to recreate moments from war movies. Storming the beaches of Normandy a la Saving Private Ryan (sometimes almost word for word) is still is a fond memory. That said, as time went on the sequels became shabbier and moreover, the shooter market became completely and utterly saturated with FPS games set in WW2. Medal of Honor’s influence on this trend was far from small.
Currently, sci-fi shooters are pretty big, in no small part thanks to the Halo games. So, rather than allowing the series to continue and eventually embrace the mediocrity that overcomes all too many franchises when given the time and enough sequels, wouldn’t it be nice to let the franchise retire for awhile? Just give it a break and then in maybe another 10 years, when all us gamers are looking back on the franchise with that same sort of nostalgia that makes us still want to play Goldeneye (despite its level of suckage when compared to modern shooters), Microsoft or whoever owns it in 2020 can announce its triumphant return, perhaps even with Bungie at the helm. Depending on the success of its future non-Halo projects, Bungie just might need the sort of cash infusion that only Master Chief can provide.
This is not saying that Halo is destined to suck someday. Halo: Reach looks cool and for the most part all of the previous games have been solid to varying degrees. That said, how many Halo games have we had in the past few years alone? Halo 3 was released in 2007 and has been promptly followed by three more (counting Reach) titles with little space between. We’re going to hit a breaking point eventually and I’d rather see the franchise close with a bit of grace rather than having it squeezed for every penny ….
… Same goes for Call of Duty, give it a rest Activision.
