Open World Halo is a terrible idea.

SectionUnity wrote:

eviltedi wrote:

ROBERTO jh wrote:

SectionUnity wrote:

THE ONE BIG RED wrote:

SectionUnity wrote:

THE ONE BIG RED wrote:

SectionUnity wrote:

Open world Halo game gives us a beautiful path to free roam and relax especially if the landscape is beautiful. However, with an open world to just roam leads nothing exciting.. like No Man's Sky. The only thing that would be good for Halo 6 would be the missions. And you know what missions lead to? RPG game.

RPG games have beautiful open world maps to go through and roam. What tops that is the missions, the quest, something to go through besides riding around in a car or killing something. Not just that, you also have a loot system, customization, and sometimes choice making. And that isn't what Halo is. Even if all that was taken out, a free roam game alone isn't that complex/unique.

I completely disagree with this.
A free roam game with a huge map would work well with Halo in my opinion. You could find armor upgrades, and they could change the mechanics to allow for more than 2 guns for use as you find them. It could almost have a very Metroid Prime-y feel.
And for multiplayer just use old classic halo gameplay on maps based on different parts of the main map. This could be the rebirth the series desperately needs.

That's exactly what an RPG is. Gaining armor upgrades or practically a skill tree. It's like CoD Advance Warfare's exp upgrades through the campaign. Pointless, not a good idea, and completely forgotten.

They say adding thrusters in Halo was a game changer but here you are wanting a Halo to turn into an RPG with a skill tree.

What I'm describing would be much more of an action-adventure FPS hybrid than an RPG. I think it would be interesting to try out.

As much as I like new things, Halo isn't at a state right now to try new things. If adding thrusters we're too much for the community, imagine a hybrid game like you're talking about. Sticking closer to the ground is for Halo is the best idea than trying new things.

If this community had its way, every game that comes out would be a Halo 3 clone. Halo is never in a state to try new things if the community is the stick by which we measure things; I've been around since 2007 as an active online community member, and this community has hated everything that's come out of this franchise since that time. Fact of the matter is, the old way of doing story modes just doesn't fly with most gamers these days; segmented levels taking players down a linear path is boring. The only truly successful single player experience to pull that off recently was DOOM 2016, and that was both deliberately nostalgic, competent enough to do it well, and still provided enough exploration opportunities and incentives to keep the game from feeling like a hallway. DOOM also radically redefined many of its mechanics from its classic forebears, but it was still received with acclaim from fans, new and old.

If you ask most gamers outside of the active Halo community's echo chamber, the franchise's waning isn't due to Halo changing too much, it's due to Halo not changing at all. Most gamers see Halo as a washed up legacy franchise, symbolic of the mid to late 2000s era of gaming, and still desperately trying to cling to that identity while everyone else moves on--and the Halo community is seen as belligerently symptomatic of that mind set. Put quite plainly, most gamers only see marginal differences between the state of Call of Duty and the state of Halo, as both are the grandpas of console FPS, waging a feud no one else cares about anymore, with neither willing to break out of their respective comfort zones.

Halo needs something new. The campaign of Halo 5's lukewarm reception is evidence of that. Halo's lore is too rich and too detailed to explore in a linear cutscene oriented sort of campaign. Halo 4 and 5 both suffered from a lack of clarity from those who haven't read the extended fiction, and as a lover of that universe, the idea of an open world Halo game blows my mind. It opens up all new opportunities for interactive storytelling not possible in past games, which I think the trailer hinted at. The cave carvings suggest some kind of discovery mechanic, ala God of War, which could fill out an in-game codex stored by whatever new AI Chief has. The isolated Marines and the ruins of human outposts suggest some kind of territory control mechanic, perhaps involving rounding up survivors and establishing bases of operations while exploring the hostile environment of Zeta Halo. Resource gathering? Sure, to bolster your defenses and gain access to new, more powerful weapons. We can't have all those Warzone variants just go to waste, can we? Warzone weapon variation alone would be enough to justify some kind of weapon crafting mechanic, not accounting for whatever else they're cooking up for the sequel. Dialogue options? Halo 5 already hinted at friendly NPCs so I could imagine some things they can do with that, especially if other alien races are involved.

There are a million things you can do with open world and none of them necessitate skill trees or anything that changes how the Chief plays on a fundamental level--even if DOOM proved you can do that in a legacy FPS and still make it work. I don't know how I'd feel about skill trees in a mainline Halo game, but I do know the idea of exploring Zeta Halo is too enticing an opportunity to dismiss simply because this community has hang ups with absolutely any kind of change.

I could not agree more about an open world Halo. I would enjoy exploring every corner / edge lol, of Zeta Halo. I want an open world Halo. I'm remaining mildly optimistic. All we saw was a game engine demo, it stated that at the bottom when the reveal started.

I have no doubt 343i wanted us to see certain things. The detail on the Rhino thingy nose, the water with a hint of underwater exploration , the dust cloud, the grass, reflections in 117s visor. I've watched that video a lot, and there is a ton of info that can be interpretted in many ways.

I'm hopeful, but I'm being cautious.

Open world doesn't mean it make it an RPG. As there are either things you can do in an open world. That's what I got from what most of what I remember in your text. But... Do you remember No Man's Sky? That's a game that you are explaining to me.. and that game didn't turn out well.

What I had in mind was more along the lines of MGSV Phantom Pain, a game that was a shooter at its core (albeit a stealth shooter) but one that also had a wide variety of options and incentives to explore the world, which included building your army back at a hub base. The discovery mechanic is more akin to God of War in that you read or interact with objects in the world to discover new lore about that object; a codex is the simplest and most obvious solution to the lack of clarity many gamers had with 4 and 5's narratives, and an open world with lore to discover is the perfect way to tie a codex in.

What I described sounds nothing like No Man's Sky, especially not as it was at launch. You can't not try a new idea just because because other games have screwed up similar systems; by that same token, countless games have excelled wonderfully under those same or similar systems. This is what I mean about the Halo community's utter refusal to try anything new; our collective mindset is, frankly, that of cowardice, pessimism, and cynicism, so much so that I'm half tempted to say that no one hates Halo more than Halo fans. Unless we all want Halo to continue to stagnate and eventually fade into irrelevant obscurity, risks need to be made, and new ideas need to be tried.

I want Mass Effect-esque Halo with some open world elements.

I doubt, not that I am against open world

SectionUnity wrote:

Open world Halo game gives us a beautiful path to free roam and relax especially if the landscape is beautiful. However, with an open world to just roam leads nothing exciting.. like No Man's Sky. The only thing that would be good for Halo 6 would be the missions. And you know what missions lead to? RPG game.

RPG games have beautiful open world maps to go through and roam. What tops that is the missions, the quest, something to go through besides riding around in a car or killing something. Not just that, you also have a loot system, customization, and sometimes choice making. And that isn't what Halo is. Even if all that was taken out, a free roam game alone isn't that complex/unique.

I understand some of the concerns you've raised, but I'd love an open-world Halo myself. Granted, I'm imagining it as the best possible scenario - as a good, original game that expands the franchise into new, fun territory.

But, more specifically, I'm thinking of it as an open-world Halo game, not as a generic open-world RPG with a Halo-skin. What I mean is that if I imagine an open-world Halo-game the first thing that comes to mind is the uniqueness of the environment itself. I'm not exploring some vaguely European countryside with castles and villages and plains, I'm exploring a Halo and that's awesome! The Halo ring is a beautiful, fascinating and original concept to explore in a game, especially if its entirely traversable. Secondly, I imagine the mission-structure through the point of view of Chief's character. An open world wouldn't fundamentally change the way his mind works; and so they should build the mission structure of that world around Chief's priorities. So it can't be...I ride up to a village or outpost and someone gives me a fetch quest. It would be akin to what we saw in the tech demo - we see a distress signal off in the distance and it's Marines who have been marooned and we need to bring them to safety. We ride off to save them, maybe get into a firefight together, and then I return them to a protected base.

Take that basic concept and extend it to a wide variety of similarly heroic scenarios that emphasize Chief's altruism and badassery.

Let's say The Chief has an overall mission to save Cortana. Like that's the "main quest" if you will: Chief trying to deactivate the Halo or prevent Cortana from doing what she's planning. What might that involve? I imagine going to various points of interest, like giant Forerruner structures, and fighting bosses and liberating areas of enemies as these big, focuses set pieces (like traditional Halo missions). But sprinkled through the world, between these missions, are natural random sidequests that involve saving Marines, fighting off insurgent enemies, exploring Forerunner caves to gain access to new weapons or vehicles or lore etc.

Think the basic fun of original Halo CE expanded with better graphics and a touch more freedom.

Just imagining all of this from the point of view of The Chief, and imagining a way for an open-world to make sense for him, these are the kinds of missions and structures that come to mind, and I really think it could work, and that it wouldn't be boring at all.

I feel they will likely have an 8-10 mission structure with a prologue and an epilogue as they have done in the past.

However I would be surprised if the levels were the size of Destiny Maps. Fairly Sprawling and open ended, multiple objectives in the area. Can be tackled in any order.

SPARTAN BLUE 2 wrote:

I wouldn't want completely open world. But a much larger version of Halo and Assault on the Control Room from CE where they're still their own level but with an enormous space to roam around in sounds fantastic to me.

Exactly, I want big levels, but not open world.

SectionUnity wrote:

tigerninja1226 wrote:

Respectfully, I disagree

1) The trailer was only an engine demo featuring the "new" art style, it didn't suggest anything about the actual design regarding gameplay, which includes level design.

2) Halo CE experimented with more nonlinear levels, like halo, and ODST had the Mombasa streets, so Halo hasn't exactly been afraid to implement open world mechanics or influences before.

3) There's way more than one way to skin a cat, plus, open world doesn't inherently mean that the game will be an rpg or rpg-esque, would you consider GTA to be rpg-like? I wouldn't necessarily nock something until I try it, generally speaking.

4) Just because an idea isn't completley novel doesn't mean that it's necessarily a bad one. For example, Halo wasn't the first fps game on a console, but it was one of the first to make one that wasn't cumbersome to play, and had decent graphics/performance. Essentially, Halo took an already existing idea, and did it better. Now if halo had flat out copied them, or added in features for no other reason than "this looks cool" (sprint, thrusters , loadouts) like 4/5, that would be different.

I never assumed it was going to be an open world in the first place. I was only replying back to those that believe it's going to be an open world and believing it's a good idea.

Halo had non-linear levels but never open world. I loved exploring the snowing depths in CE but never we're there anything else to do unless find terminals. As for ODST, be honest enough that you'd only ever roamed around just to find more secrets, collectables and side stories. Beyond that, nothing else can interest you once they are completed.

I spoken about something similar to GTA on my post but I didn't direct it. Refer to what I said "Ride around a car and killing something". As GTA also had upgrading your life, hitting the night club, or just being a plain criminal. So if not RPG but turning it into GTA, I doubt 343i wants to turn Master Chief into something like Michael.

FPS games and RPG games are two different types of games. Because another game does it FPS first and Halo does it next, it's not copying. Just as someone does thrusters and jetpacks first, its not copying especially like you said... Halo did it better. But i'm not talking about copying. I'm talking about changing the game. Turning an FPS game into an RPG. If not RPG then a GTA. Neither a good idea. They should just stick to the old Halo formula or I'll be happy with Halo 5's formula (Scratching ot the pay to win).

Ah, thank you for the clarification, just for the record though, I don't neccessarily want a mainline title to be an rpg or GTA clone, at the most, I would want reach-style armor customization for the campaign, I simply meant to argue for a game a little more nonlinear/sandboxy. At one point I humored the idea for custom starting weapons, but abandoned it due to it most likely causing balancing issues. Also, I used ODST and Halo as examples more to show that Bungie was comfortable with at least implementing psuedo-features, despite the end result being a little weak.
Again, thank you for the clarification.

I believe the campaign maps will be similar to Halo CE, linear but still provides space to explore. Remember that open world wasn't explicitly stated.

I honestly think everyone's looking too far into it and just looking for disappointment when the game comes out.

no seria mala idea, siempre y cuando lo pongan en un modo de juego aparte, ya que eso no va con la escencia de halo.

It would not be a bad idea, as long as they put it in a separate game mode, since that does not go with the essence of halo.

Orion Crux 9 wrote:

I welcome an Open World Halo. Really, Halo 3: ODST was the closest we got to something like that.

Yeah, ODST was pretty good. I don’t think Open World is necessary for Halo (nor do I even necessarily prefer it) but it wouldn’t be a terrible idea; if executed properly.