Today’s game is some more Halo 5. Me and my friends were in voice call while playing this, and we finally nailed what feels so off about this one to us (at least on a personal level). It feels too much like Borderlands. It’s something about the art style, the fast pace, and the way missions are structured. It’s not bad, but it is far from what we want in a Halo game. Someone mentioned last time that 343 at the time were hiring a bunch of employees who weren’t invested in the franchise, and as a result basically had people redoing the game in a way that disregarded what Halo was. I’m not sure how factual this is, but if it’s the case I can totally see them taking bits from Borderlands with how big it was.
We got too this one section in specific where we have to hold off enemies from a gate. It has been giving us so much trouble. We’re playing on heroic and we’ve spent maybe an hour on this section. It doesn’t help that the enemies are able to hijack vehicles now. So now we have Knights, in all their Spongy Pain-in-the-assiness on the back of a Puma. I might be being a little harsh on the Knights, here. I just have some disdain for them after how spongy they were in Halo 4. They just don’t want to die.
There was also this section in the beginning of the level we were struggling with. Turns out, we needed to find a control panel to enable the turrets. The panel was hidden behind a shutter door we had to blast open. It took a few tries, but I really didn’t appreciate it being so hidden. I think that’s this game’s other biggest flaw, sometimes everything blends in. There’s nothing to discern what can be destroyed or shot at from the environment. Idk how Halo 3 and Reach solved it with their fidelity level, but it’s an issue here.
Besides all that though, I would say I’m enjoying it. I’m sure having friends on makes it a bit more of a fun time. But I’m enjoying playing it nonetheless. It does make me miss Halo 3 though. (Though, in this game’s defense I’m a fucking addict for Halo 3. I’ve legit gotten to the point where I can play through the campaign on legendary in a single day)
Someone talking about how a bunch of employees who weren’t invested, oh hey that’s me! Gamasutra has since gone belly up, but I found an archive of the interview with Frank O’Connor, halos franchise development director (at the time? Idk if that’s still the case). On this page specifically, we open with the quote “We hired people who hated halo” https://web.archive.org/web/20210116045012/https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/191234/making_halo_4_a_story_about_.php?page=3 I didn’t reread the full article, couldn’t say in 2025 whether it’s worth a full read, but that sentiment did stay with me all these years later as a strange choice
I almost considered referencing you when I mentioned that, but I know some people aren’t cool with that.
Thanks for the source too. I was thinking to myself last night “I should look for a source for this” but decided to put it off for today lol.
Hiring people who hate the franchise seems like a horrible move. I suppose I can see what the idea was, but I still can’t believe nobody higher up thought “wow. This seems like a horrible idea. Why are we doing this?”