Few franchises have seen as radical of a design shift as Halo. Once a renowned video game franchise that shifted the gaming landscape with its innovations, many now see it as just another sci-fi FPS title. With a new Halo game around the corner, 343 Industries are at an impasse.
Halo 4 and 5 are fundamentally different games than Bungie's titles, resulting in two distinct fanbases in the Halo community. 343 seems more focused on bringing Halo back to its roots with Halo: Infinite, but many old and new mechanics must be added for the game to succeed in making everyone happy. Here are 5 additions and past systems that need to be added in Halo: Infinite's multiplayer.
10 Add: Limited-Use Spartan Abilities
Ever since Halo: Reach introduced sprint and dashing to the series through armor abilities, fans have been arguing whether that style of movement fits Halo. 343 doubled down on this in Halo 4 and 5 with a mixed reception.
If Infinite plans to return the series to its roots as fans speculate, Spartan Abilities need to be pickups like Reach but limited use or duration like Halo 3's Equipment system. Combing these two allows for the developers to keep fast-paced movement in the game but make it a reward for map control as a pickup rather than a core mechanic they must balance every map around.
9 Reimplement: Dual-Wield
Dual-Wielding is a mechanic introduced in Halo 2 and brought back in Halo 3 that allowed players to use two one-handed weapons simultaneously. Likely due to balance issues, the mechanic has since been dropped and has not returned since.
Now would be the perfect time to reintroduce this system. Dual-Wielding allowed for many subpar weapons in the sandbox to have a purpose again, both in campaign and multiplayer. Combining a Plasma Rifle and SMG is devastating up-close, or running two Plasma Pistols to alternate charged shots might not be practical but it's absurdly fun to do.
8 Add: Space Vehicles
One of the most memorable moments in Halo: Reach is taking control of a Sabre starfighter to take on Covenant ships above Reach itself. Combat in space was a fantastic change of pace that has never been replicated since.
With Halo 5 adding Warzone as a large-scale PvP mode, Halo: Infinite could double down on these large-scale multiplayer modes by adding more aerial vehicles to the mix. Allowing players to control Pelicans or even Sabres for aerial dogfights can allow for much more layered engagements while also allowing for 6v6 dogfighting modes using solely spaceships.
7 Reimplement: Dynamic Maps
Most multiplayer maps in Halo 4 and 5 are surprisingly static, lacking any dynamic events to keep matches interesting. This was a common trend in Halo 2 and 3 that kept even the worst of maps memorable.
Halo 2's Terminal would have trains traverse the map, killing anyone in the center rail where power weapons spawn. Zanzibar in Halo 2 also had destroyable windows and ways to cut off pathways into the base entirely. Halo 3 followed this trend as well with maps like High Ground.
6 Add: Crossplay
Crossplay has been a rising demand amongst gamers, allowing players from different console families or PCs to play with each other. If Halo wants to rise to its popularity back in the early 2000s, fostering a larger community is a great start.
Since Infinite has been confirmed to release on PC alongside the Xbox Series X, allowing both groups to play together will help keep matchmaking times short for everyone.
5 Reimplement: Firefight
Horde modes were the current craze when Halo 3: ODST was in production. Gears of War 2 and 3 showed how intense and layered you can make a wave-based survival mode, so Bungie followed suit with ODST and Reach with Firefight.
Yet the mode was replaced with Spartan Ops in Halo 4 with both modes missing in Halo 5. Firefight never got a chance to breathe with 343's Prometheans or expanded vehicle roster. Warzone was a great example of how to pull off large-scale multiplayer matches, so there's no telling what the developers could pull off on next-gen hardware.
4 Add: Playable NPCs
Many Halo fans have wanted to play as enemies fought in the campaign like Hunters or Jackals. The closest Halo went to achieving this was adding playable Elites in Halo 3 and Reach, but that feature has been absent since.
Adding playable Elites is a start, but adding unique multiplayer modes that allow players to control Hunters, Jackals, or even standard Grunts could allow for unique PvP experience that would be impossible to find elsewhere while also empowering the Forge and modding community to create some truly incredible custom game types.
3 Reimplement: Armor Locked Behind Challenges
Regardless of your stance on microtransactions, their overabundance in gaming today has slowly ruined the prestige of unlocking cool cosmetic items through challenges. Halo 5's armor was almost entirely locked behind lootboxes which the community was furious about.
It's easy to see why. Halo 3's armor was unlocked through challenges in multiplayer. If you found a player with a katana on their back, you know they got every achievement in the base game. If you found a player with the skull helmet in Halo: Reach, you know that they reached Inheritor rank by earning 20 million credits—a feat that takes thousands of hours to achieve. That sense of prestige behind your Spartan in multiplayer kept players engaged for many hours and something Halo: Infinite should leverage.
2 Add: Mod Support
If 343 makes one innovation for Halo: Infinite, it needs to be proper mod support. Bungie knew that community passion could keep a game alive long past its shelf life, hence why Halo 2 added custom game types and Halo 3 added Forge, Theater, and a comprehensive File Share system for players to download community-made maps and modes.
PC players could take this to a whole new level if they had proper mod tools to create new assets. The modding community for Halo: Reach has done some remarkable things without one like a Battlefield-esque map named Extinction. Bethesda also proved mods can work on consoles with Fallout 4 and Skyrim: Special Edition. If 343 can create proper mod tools for its community and allow mods to work on the Xbox Series X, Halo: Infinite could last as long as Halo: Custom Edition did on PC.
1 Reimplement: Slower Gameplay
Nothing is inherently wrong with fast-paced movement shooters. The issue is its the current trend in FPS titles. If someone wants to play an FPS title with fast movement and fast-paced gunfights, what makes Halo stand out from its competition?
Besides its sci-fi setting, nothing. Compare that to Bungie's Halo titles that were slower and more methodical, relying more on map control than twitch reflexes. That style of game could stand toe-to-toe with Call of Duty because it was fulfilling a different power fantasy that wasn't available elsewhere and arguably still isn't. Infinity Ward saw major success with bringing Modern Warfare back to its roots with its 2019 reboot, so it isn't far fetched to think 343 could see a similar resurgence of players if they went back to the core gameplay style Bungie fostered.