Halo's "Reclaimer Trilogy" Expands Into A Saga

[GodzillaGuy92]

From what I'm given to understand, didn't Halo 4 sell significantly less than the previous Halo games? Surely if your main franchise is starting to suffer from dwindling sales, it's a better idea to take a few years off in order to work on some really fresh ideas, then surprise people with it and get them hyped a little way down the road.

Milking the tits off a cow people are already getting tired of doesn't seem like good animal husbandry to me. You just end up with a dead cow, and no-one to sell any beef to. Or something. Analogies.

Technically yes, but arguably not to as great a degree as what you've heard. Halo 3 was the peak of the series sales-wise, at slightly less than twelve million; the following game, Reach, dropped to about nine and a half million. Halo 4, at over eight million sales, runs about neck-and-neck with Halo 2, which claimed an absolute monopoly on Xbox Live multiplayer at its release. Heck, the first game "only" sold about six and a half million copies, and that was the game credited with selling the original Xbox. Personally, I'd pin a lot of the sales droop since Halo 3 on the online-multiplayer-only crowd jumping ship to Call of Duty, since that franchise stole the crown between Halo 3's release in 2007 and Reach's in 2010. Thanks to the franchise fatigue you described, I don't expect sales to pick up for the foreseeable future, but what with Halo being Halo, future games' sales should at least remain relatively stable. (Granted, whether that reprieve is warranted - i.e. probably not - is a different matter.)

However, that means 343i is pretty much bound to only make Halo, kinda sucks from the developers' point.

Considering that 343 Industries was created specifically for the purpose of continuing the Halo franchise (hence the name), I thought that was kind of a given, both for us and the 343 employees.

 

[electric method]

Right. Riiiiiight. It's not like 343i has proven to be almost completely incapable of delivering a quality product that remains true to the franchises roots. Oh wait, they have proven exactly that. I can only imagine how many more franchises 343i will rip off to stick into core Halo gameplay cuz "they saw it in this game and thought it was cool." Which is why H4 has loadouts, perks, Ordinance etc. etc.

Seriously, after how badly 343i has mishandled H4, communicating with the fan base and losing over 80% of the online population for Halo 4 in less than 6 months, MS should pull the plug on Halo and let 343i PROVE they can make a quality game and can communicate well with fans. But, that won't happen. We'll keep getting more Halo's that keep moving farther away from what made Halo, well Halo. Sigh. Let the franchise die please before it becomes even more of a joke than it's already become.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

And this is why I am no longer a part of that fan base.

The Bungie games were brilliant and they knew exactly when to quit. So did I.

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

Well, if it comes to PC I might pick it up.

 

[Ruley]

I think if they were loser with the brand and let other studios have a stab at taking the halo universe in new directions we might see some interesting results. The books have so much rich lore to draw from for story ideas. Halo Wars was a good stab at that, it might not have sold like hot cakes but i enjoyed it!

am i the only one thinking this? Heck, i don't mind if its more shooters really, just give us something interesting.

 

[Poetic Nova]

The story ended for me with Halo4 (I did enjoy it but for me it closed the whole story).

 

[Gearhead mk2]

Soeaking as a diehard Halo fan, NO. NO. NONONONONONONONO. As far as I'm concerned the series ended with Reach. I won't be buying any more Halos and not just because if I get a next-gen console I'm not gonna get an Xbone. Please, Karren Travis nearly ruined it, just let it die with dignity!

 

[Olas]

And I thought 2 was too many.

Honestly, Combat Evolved had a nice brilliant little story that was perfectly concluded with the destruction of the actual Halo. Everything after that has been complete nonsense.

I guess the important thing is that it keeps making them money.

 

[Korten12]

Interesting. I was fine with a trilogy but a Saga could be good if done right.

Although I wonder if will take the Assassin's Creed Route:

So like: Halo 4, Halo: Subtitle, Halo 5, Halo: Subtitle, Halo 6.

 

[LordMonty]

This them trying to get our mind off the mega U-turn? Move impressively foolish but hey lol's where they're at microsoft are legendary at this point so lets keep the canned laughter rolling.

 

[Fijiman]

The story ended for me with Halo4 (I did enjoy it but for me it closed the whole story).

Agreed. For me there's nothing I can see them doing that would make me want to buy it and an Xbone just to continue the story. Sure there are some major plot holes that could do with a little explaining, but not nothing that I can see them basing an entire story off of.

 

[Ninonybox_v1legacy]

Hmmm....well good, I enjoy the halo games.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I felt that Halo 4 lacked the "Heart" of the older games. It felt way too serious, without the more cartoonish and fantastical elements of the original series. The enthusiasm and energy of the characters and the setting are what sold me on Halo, not the melodrama and hard faced military men doing everything with a grimace.

I still want a Halo game based around the Sangheili-Jaralhanae war from The Return.

 

[Asclepion]

I felt that Halo 4 lacked the "Heart" of the older games. It felt way too serious, without the more cartoonish and fantastical elements of the original series. The enthusiasm and energy of the characters and the setting are what sold me on Halo, not the melodrama and hard faced military men doing everything with a grimace.

I still want a Halo game based around the Sangheili-Jaralhanae war from The Return.

Agreed, though I would add that this problem started before Halo 4.

The best parts of Halo were with open environments, blocky brightly colored Spartans and sympathetic, 'kind of cute in a bizarre way' Covenant. I loved Halo 2 because it kept the same things that made Halo great while also adding depth to the story with the Arbiter (who is a better character than Master Chief in every single way. I wish all the games were about him.)

Where Halo falters is when it tries to be the opposite and be grimdark. I though the Halo Reach characters looked ridiculous when they were wearing gear and straps everywhere but still had bright blue armor underneath. The whole ONI kidnapping thing doesn't make any sense at all. The tone tries to be serious, but then shows me a battleship-sized IFV and expects me not to laugh at it.

 

[tdylan]

I know Halo fans throw this around a lot so I'm sure you've heard it before, but have you ever read the books? I actually read Fall of Reach before I played any of the games, so when I did I could see all the little touches that they were alluding to and it made the storyline much more interesting. 343 brought a lot of that much more up to the front in 4, if you liked that it might be worth checking out.

I read Fall of Reach, Halo, First Strike, and Ghosts of Onyx. Halo Reach - The Game, contradicts things in Halo Reach - the book. They even went so far as to establish "a policy of "superior canon" in the halopedia. They call it a freaking "ladder of canon." They say that everything is canon, except for where there is contradiction. If there is contradiction, the games take precedent over the books. Cuz **** continuity. We'll make this **** up as we go along to move units.

 

[Glaice]

Put it to rest, make a new IP. Stop milking the same old stuff please.

 

[VoidWanderer]

And this is why I am NOT excited about the Xbone. Resistance was a fun FPS series, which ended well. Gears of War wasa great FPS series that ended well.

Halo...

I think Halo is the western version of Resident Evil. Only the most devoted fans of Halo love the fact this series will never get taken off life support as they come up with more contrived enemies for Master Chief to fight. They will probably get some new fans, but not as many as they would like, but they seem to be forgetting what the series was like, and are following Capcom as they drag their handicapped poodle 'Resi Evil' around by it's leash.

 

[Jamous]

Really? They're still stretching it out? All you're going to do is drag Halo's legacy into the dirt. Should have left it at 3 and maybe Reach. Now they're just pushing it too far. Unless they really step it up in the quality, this is going to hurt.

 

[Polarity27]

I read Fall of Reach, Halo, First Strike, and Ghosts of Onyx. Halo Reach - The Game, contradicts things in Halo Reach - the book. They even went so far as to establish "a policy of "superior canon" in the halopedia. They call it a freaking "ladder of canon." They say that everything is canon, except for where there is contradiction. If there is contradiction, the games take precedent over the books. Cuz **** continuity. We'll make this **** up as we go along to move units.

That's every multimedia franchise ever, really. Star Wars does the exact same thing with "G Canon" and on down. Once a canon gets sprawly enough and it's still open canon for the main media type, you pretty much have to.

OT: I love the Halo universe in general, but I'm not feeling any of this Forerunner stuff. I got through one of the Bear books and that only after putting it down multiple times out of boredom. I was surprised to find that I had to turn to Halo wiki to make sense of the game-- this really wasn't true of the earlier games. One thing I liked about how Bungie handled it was that you could follow the plot pretty well if you weren't an expanded universe reader but there were always bonuses for people who were (e.g. "it's the coin's fault"). I just felt like the storytelling wasn't up to Bungie's standard, and I'm still pissed at how they (mis)handled Cortana in every possible way.

If the focus was seriously different (oh gosh yes! to inter-Covenant controversies and more Arbiter) I'd be all behind it, but the Forerunners are dull, Didact was a wet fart of a villain compared to H2 Truth and Gravemind, Cortana is not a hysterical woman stereotype who looks like a porn pinup (there's a difference between fanservice and that... thing... they did to her in 4 with the boobs and the open-mouth pout), these new human officers are a poor replacement for Sarge, I *hated* every single thing about the new Grunt and Elite designs, it was just IMO an inferior game. It's a shame, too, because Forward was so good.

 

[Woodsey]

Ugh, brilliant.

Yet another franchise that's going to be milked long after the milk has gone sour and the cow has died.

You say it as if it's going to happen, not like it has.