Halo 4: Five problems that 343 can improve in Halo 5

4) The Story

Halo 4’s story is a solid effort to humanize the Chief and Cortana. It forges a bond between the super soldier and his AI companion that comes off as heartfelt, without the questionable melodrama that Halo 3 drifted towards. That said, the overarching plot surrounding their relationship is riddled with plot holes, poorly explained, and dangerously cliched.

The Forerunner backstory has some really cool ideas, if you’re willing to dig to find them. Without hunting down the hidden terminals in the game and exploring the backstory of The Didact and The Librarian, it’s easy to play through Halo 4 with little-to-no idea of what’s actually going on. Some explanations are even locked away in a stack of novels. That’s not a good way to tell a story.

What’s worse is that the direction going forward seems to fall in line a bit too closely with other recent games. Halo 4, Mass Effect 3, Assassin’s Creed 3, and even Dead Space 3 all share a lot of the same story tropes, and that’s unfortunate because Halo has always felt like it’s own, uniquely weird sci-fi thing. I don’t know how you fix something that’s already in motion, but I’ll offer up a few ideas: run wild with the rampancy concept, go deeper into the digital world, avoid Master Chief as a Christ-figure, and fix the Forerunners, because The Didact was a chump.

5) The “30 Seconds of Fun” feels more like “25 Seconds” this time around

Halo’s campaign combat has always been centered around some simple tenants, like:

1) Smart, dynamic AI with strong relationships. Elites get killed and Grunts flee in terror, for example.

2) The gun/grenade/melee dynamic that empowers you with many immediate options.

3) The two weapon limit, forcing you to make tough calls on the fly.

4) Dynamic physics, from grenade chain reactions, to overturning vehicles and objects launched around the environment. An element of randomness that makes for some great stories.

Halo 4 makes some questionable modifications to these tenants. Some of the complaints come as a result of Halo 4’s impressive graphics. There were some clear sacrifices made for the sake of stunning visuals and a somewhat consistent framerate. Explosions are less impressive and there seems to be less debris thrown around in combat compared to the last few Halo games. What’s worse, dropped guns disappear so quickly that it’s impossible to manage your resources the way you could in previous games.

The results of Halo 4’s obsessive compulsive clean-up crew are encounters that are less dynamic and environments that feel sterile. Armor abilities, melee strikes, and grenades have been nerfed a bit as well, creating combat that emphasizes precision weapons over everything else.

Prometheans, billed as an entirely new class of enemy that would surpass the Covenant, are actually less interesting to fight. Knights are bullet sponges, while Crawlers and Watchers are mostly target practice for Battle Rifles and DMRs. That there’s only really only three new enemies only adds to the sensation that Halo 4 waters down the experience.

Most of these complaints go out the window if 343 forges ahead with a completely new vision. Halo thus far has been a lot like Mario, with it’s mechanics set in stone across so many games. I wonder if it really has to be that way though. Can Halo evolve into a very different shooter, or is it stuck in its ways? Halo 5 will either have to address these issues or toss them all aside in the name of innovation.

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Halo 4 is a fun and solid entry to the Halo franchise. Sometimes I forget that it took an entirely new studio saddled with impossible expectations to make it happen. The multiplayer is fast and addictive, and the campaign was one of the most brisk and digestible entries in the series.

That said, even 343 admits that they can improve. For most people, Halo 4 is indistinguishable from any other Halo game, but for an eagle-eyed super fan of the series, it’s easy to see where some of the Bungie magic is missing. At the same time, 343 has a unique vision for the franchise going forward, something that I think they didn’t take far enough in Halo 4. Here are five problems with Halo 4 that a sequel could fix…

1) Spartan Ops isn’t Firefight

Halo ODST and Reach’s Firefight modes were brilliant. Yeah, sure, it was basically Horde mode from Gears of War, but the Halo gameplay makes all the difference. It created a way for four players to tackle Halo’s combat sandbox with endless variety.

Spartan Ops, in some sense, is the more ambitious mode. It attempts to funnel Firefight gameplay into an episodic story that continues the saga on the planet Requiem. The weekly episodes, in theory, are a great way to keep players coming back.

In practice though, Firefight told a better story through its gameplay than Spartan Ops ever tells through its rote mission design. Firefight offered a sense of escalation and danger that Spartan Ops rarely approaches. When the odds are stacked against you, Spartan Ops feels less like peril and more like BS.

Almost all 50 Spartan Ops missions follow the same basic design. They simply barf out walls of enemies without much thought, and then run you around the map pressing buttons while poorly written/acted dialogue blares over your comms. The resulting grind, as you endlessly respawn and chip away at the enemy, doesn’t really feel like being in a Spartan’s shoes. In the last few weeks it has really started to feel like work.

In Halo 5, Spartan Ops should instead follow the campaign design, with linear missions and proper checkpoints. It should feel like a special co-op campaign. Meanwhile, Firefight should return as a separate mode that people can enjoy between Spartan Ops episodes and seasons.

2) The Multiplayer Progression System is Weak

In Reach, Bungie limited its progression system to cosmetic upgrades, refusing to fall in line with the rest of the FPS crowd. Playing Spartan dress-up was fun because the armor pieces were well-designed (compared to Halo 4’s anime armor) and the progression was smartly implemented across all modes. The most important thing is that people didn’t play any less Reach just because they couldn’t unlock guns.

Despite this, Halo 4 includes custom loadouts and a weapon/perk unlocking system a-la Call of Duty, BF3, and everything else under the sun, and it feels like a compromise. Halo 4’s multiplayer combat is changed substantially without concepts like map control and scavenging for weapons. Everyone can start with precision weapons across any modes, toss plasma grenades with wild abandon, and more.

That would be fine, except the benefits of all this change aren’t really there. Halo’s combat balance is so particular that 343 had to limit the variety. Your primary weapons are easily boiled down to two styles (precision and rapid-fire), grenades are toned down, Armor Abilities are less game-changing than they were in Reach, and the various perks are so minor that you’d never know what an opponent was using. Armor Lock may have been controversial, but its Halo 4 counterpart, the Hardlight Shield, is boring and nearly worthless.

Compare this to Call of Duty on a good day, where players vary between sprinting shotgun ninjas, scoped-in military warriors, gadget geeks, and riot police. Sure, the player base has watered down that variety in recent entries, but at least it’s offered. In Halo 4, the customization doesn’t go far enough, and Halo 5 should be more ambitious if 343 plans to stick to a progression system.

3) The Multiplayer Maps are a Mixed Bag

Halo’s map selection hasn’t felt truly special since Halo 2, but in the one area 343 had a good chance to ascend past Bungie, they seem to have taken a step back. Say what you will about Halo map design in the last few games, but every Bungie map was easily understandable from square one. Halo 4’s selection, on the other hand, is maze-like. It isn’t more complex, it’s just harder to identify where you are without the smart landmarks and sightlines of previous entries. Once you get your bearings the maps are fine, but special or memorable? Not by a long shot.

Look no further than Haven, which has become the most played map in multiplayer as far as I can tell. The reasons are twofold. One, it’s a bright, simple, symmetrical map. Out of the entire selection it’s the easiest to learn, so players seem to skip the curve and just replay Haven all day. Two, the map plays into that gross mentality among the tourney crowd to boil a game down to only a handful of variables. This isn’t a good thing, Halo 4 is already a bit watered down on its own.

The map selection is made worse by the almost immediate DLC map pack grind. Don’t get me wrong, the new maps are solid entries, but they aren’t exciting in the least. Halo 2’s DLC maps added elements like bullet trains and evolving bases that made them feel special. Nothing about Halo 4’s DLC makes it stand out. Is that really worth splintering the community between haves and have-nots so early on?

Oh, and Forge? Don’t even get me started on that. Just watch this hilarious video:

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