“Spartan Ops 2.0” Should Be In Halo Infinite

Hear me out. I know Spartan Ops in Halo 4 wasn’t the best part of the game, but I thought (and still think) it is the best idea for a game mode in Halo for awhile and that it is perfect for Halo Infinite. Let me explain, in rough/loose terms, what I think Halo Infinite’s Spartan Ops should look like.

1. You play your multiplayer Spartan. Designed from the ground up, it is all you. Just like how you designed YOUR Noble Six. Cutscenes and everything show you.

2. You are a Spartan or Elite (or Spartans/Elites for co-op) assigned to missions by Laskey/Locke/ONI/Arbiter/whoever to keep the momentum going from Chief’s inevitable win on Zeta Halo/fighting somewhere else/something. You go on missions in your own SELF CONTAINED campaign doing things that are in expanded lore/people want for nostalgia/whatever which don’t tie directly to Infinite’s story, but are still totally canon and help the overall scheme of things for humanity. This lets 343 deliver stories with less whining from the community and that won’t muddy up the main campaign/story. Just a few ideas of levels or story beats they could hit are:
-A self contained Flood level(s) a la Awakening the Nightmare. They aren’t back in a way that affects the galaxy, but people can have a level or two for nostalgia’s sake. I know there are Flood haters, but they are central to Halo lore. Let’s bump into them in a small way, but not in a way that complicates the bigger story arc right now. They really are the ever present danger in the Halo universe.
-Helping liberate worlds from Guardians or Created control.
-Fighting with the Swords of Sanghelios.
-Helping Shipmaster hunt down some San Shyum.
-Exploring a Palace of Pain.
-Revisiting Reach, the ruins of Installation 04, Delta Halo, or the Ark for whatever reason.
The possibilities are endless.

3. We get a new “season” of it every so often during Infinite’s lifetime and it helps fuel things like the challenge system in MCC. If you don’t want to have it, you don’t have to. It doesn’t hurt your understanding of the mainline story at all.

This is just a rough outline, but I think it gives an ok version of what I am trying to get across. Basically, it is your Spartan’s own story. Please don’t just write it off because it is called Spartan Ops. The idea was sound, if poorly executed. I’d love to team up with my friends as we squad through our own campaign/story. What are some other ideas you’d like to see though? Considerations? Let’s discuss! Just keep things civil.

I don't want them to use the term "Spartan Ops" in anything again.

Just the name alone leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I really enjoyed the bonus story content that it provided in Halo 4, but I spent most of my time playing through it and listening to a few different podcasts because it's so damn boring and annoying to play.

I like the direction your idea is heading, but let's drop the name Spartan Ops entirely.

I’d be open to it as long as it functions a lot better compared to the first and doesn’t get overly repetitive.

Nate00000000000 wrote:

Biggest problem with Halo 4 Spartan Ops is that it replaced Firefight. As long as Halo Infinite has a fully fleshed out Firefight mode at launch, I wouldn't mind if they tacked on some Spartan Ops-like extra stuff later. And I'm guessing they will anyway, due to how they're talking about Halo Infinite being a "ten-year platform" or whatever.

Oh and, don't conclude its storyline in some outside media like a comic book, again 😒

This. Many fans, myself included, were extremely disappointed in SpOps on account of it having been pitched as a bigger and better replacement for Firefight.

However, it lacked the arcade flavor and custom options that made Firefight so beloved and repayable in favor of longer, more linear missions which ultimately ended up repeating themselves more often than not over the entire series. The stories were convoluted, the characters in Fireteam Majestic (Thorne excepted) were a horrible slog to watch and didn't directly affect your situation anyhow, etc.

As far as seeing some additional story content kind of like Spartan Ops crop up for Infinite a few years in, I have no doubt we'll get something like that. Timewarptrio's totally right in saying it almost certainly won't be called SpOps, considering the sourness that exists in general around that name, but I'm very confident we'll see something akin to it.

But I'd much rather see a Firefight comeback prioritized after ten years of 343i leaving us in the cold than a SpOps follow-up... I'm not counting on seeing either at launch though.

Very good idea

Maybe not with the same name, but something similar to the gameplay of spartans ops, where they can explain things about the world of halo,

Would you rather have this over a great new Firefight mode exclusive to Halo: Infinite? Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach set the golden standard for quality horde mode gameplay in a Halo sandbox. If they can do both firefight and a quality Spartan Ops than yes. If not, I would choose a solid Firefight mode any day.

OP here. Just checking back in. I’m so happy at the great and positive comments being generated. I basically agree with all of you.

1. We can, and probably should, rename the mode.

2. Firefight should be kept as a mode too. I want both. They serve different functions, right? I think the maps they make for this Spartan Ops 2.0 would be a great way to keep Firefight fresh too. As they spend their time making the maps for Ops, they can then reuse them as new MP and Firefight maps too. I’d set the newbies on things like this as a way to sharpen their teeth for bigger things. This could be the little thing that we keep coming back to in between them launching new Chief stories.

If it were up to me, I’d say Firefight, Infection modes, and “Spartan Ops” something should be a standard right alongside Forge, Multiplayer, and Theater.

3. Maybe one of the bigger things to me is that I get my Spartan his own story. I spend all of this time working to customize and play with my character, it’d be nice if they validated OUR Spartans as part of the lore. We could just be referred to generically as (insert name here) Leader or whatever. That maybe my favorite part of Reach. We all played Noble Six, but he/she is different to all of us. Not to mention I feel it could help 343 branch into non-Chief stories. It’s a big universe. There’s room for multiple Spartans alongside Chief. (Even if we just were our Spartans in co-op alongside the big guy.)

I mean at some point Steve Downes won’t be Chief. If we need a replacement Spartan, rather than recast Chief, why don’t we just make our own protagonist? People crapped (unfairly) all over Locke, but I feel like the fact that Six is basically us has shielded him from a lot of that. Nobody is gonna crap on their own Spartan, ya know? I mean I hope Chief is around forever and Steve Downes outlives us all, but I’m also a realist...

C0RRuPTT wrote:

Would you rather have this over a great new Firefight mode exclusive to Halo: Infinite? Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach set the golden standard for quality horde mode gameplay in a Halo sandbox. If they can do both firefight and a quality Spartan Ops than yes. If not, I would choose a solid Firefight mode any day.

I think FF and Ops should both be separate and standard modes going forward. Maybe we can use maps they make in Ops to keep FF fresh too.

Rhym wrote:

Maybe not with the same name, but something similar to the gameplay of spartans ops, where they can explain things about the world of halo,

Ya, rebranding would help given Ops history.