With its sights set on new horizons, Bungie has left the future of its critically-acclaimed Halo series to 343 Industries. 343, named after a certain floating character from the Halo series is no stranger to the franchise, but following in Bungie’s footsteps is no small task. The developers themselves know that dedicated fans may be a bit more harsh with their criticisms from this point one, but aren’t intimidated.
343′s Creative Director Frank O’Connor was formerly a member of the Bungie team, so nobody is more familiar with fan expectations than he. The developers haven’t released too many details as to what they are working on, but the Halo: Reach Defiant Map Pack developer diary showed that the team cares about the future of the franchise as much as any player.
It’s a safe bet that 343 will be looking to make a statement with their next Halo title, but with rumors of a Combat Evolved HD remake, and even a Halo Kinect property recently surfacing, it’s anyone’s guess.
What we do know is that the game will certainly not be a carbon-copy of past entries, as O’Connor explained to CVG that for the first time, Bungie will be completely unconnected to development or design:
“Right now Bungie is supporting the community with matchmaking and stats, but at this point that’s it. [Bungie will] continue to do that and support the community but in terms of actual Halo product this marks the first where there is no Bungie, or even tertiary Bungie involvement other than matchmaking.”
Reuniting players with Master Chief would be a welcome change from recent titles that moved away from the armor-clad super-soldier. Whenever you’re dealing with a franchise as popular as Halo, it isn’t difficult to predict how fans will take even the smallest of changes to gameplay, but O’Connor thinks that fans will understand the reasoning behind some of the new team’s tweaks.
Even if there is a positive reaction to some elements of the game, there’s no doubt that 343 will have its share of critics whenever their Halo title hits shelves. O’Connor isn’t ready to dismiss the hate mail and forum-trolling, since even the most immature fan’s outrage carries a real bit of criticism within it:
“There will be things that they’ll say ‘oh this is better than that’ about but we’ll just have to wait and see… I’ll be watching that stuff, you have to take it seriously because your core fans are also the most educated. But you also have to remember that probably 75% of the audience doesn’t know who makes the games – to them it’s like ‘Xbox makes the games’. Those are a bulk of the audience that you also have to pay close, careful and loving attention to.”
It remains to be seen what kind of changes 343 is making to Halo‘s tried-and-true formula, but we’re definitely intrigued to find that the developers aren’t afraid to experiment. We’ve got our own ideas of what we’d like to see in Halo 4, but what changes do you think the new team should make, if any?
As of now, no concrete details on 343 Industries’ next Halo title have been released.
Source: CVG
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As long as it’s more like CE,H2, H3 and NOT Reach, I’m in.
I agree
I actually really enjoy Reach. My only qualm is all of the dang armor locking. If 343 keeps it, then the sticky grenade better stay inside of the armor lock to blow up the person stuck.
Less grenades in Slayer, or more balanced spawns. Reach’s Pinnacle and the Cage are entirely broken.
Regardless, I just hope they push the series forward, and not retread the same ground. I’ll give 343 benefit of the doubt.
i just hope they dont screw it up
I liked reach…a lot. Definitely my favorite game as far as gameplay goes. (Story would have to go to Halo 3) I think it would be cool to see more interactive environments, like jumping over railings, kicking down tables to create cover, stuff like that. I would also like to see some improvements on forge. New features such as mirroring objects, copy and paste, grouping objects so players can move multiple objects simultaneously.
As far as story goes I would like to see Master Chief wake up from his pod, crashed on the planet you see him hovering over in the end of halo 3. UNSC finds a faint distress signal and discovers master chief is alive. A new war has started and he joins mid-way through the conflict. Doesn’t have to be with the covenant again, could be with some new enemy.
H2 was the best Halo game ever made. If they can replicate the success from CE, H2, and H3, then it will be a great game. IMO, the AA’s in Reach are nothing more than cheap gimics. Also the bloom ruined Halo IMO. The bloom was always consistent until Reach was released.
I loved H2 because it had soo many maps. I loved H3 because MLG made it pretty popular and the color palette of the game made it pleasing to the eye.
Reach failed not just only in the bloom, the AA’s, but also on the color palette of the game. You know forge? It’s all gray.
Halo was fun because it was a fun n’ gun game but now, Reach it takes forever to kill someone. Why do you think CoD is so addicting or a quick fix for gamers? It is because they can get so many kills.
Their game, be it a remake or a new story, needs to go back to the core Halo gameplay. AA are not needed. Jetpack ruins the concept of map control and AL allows new kids to avoid dieing from veterans and its not right for a Halo game.Jetpack or whatever other AA can be for customs or certain playlists but in general the walking speed and jump height needs to be that of H2.
Bloom also needs to go away. Its horrendous to gameplay. Even the new classic playlist is killed because of it. Everyone spams and its sooo random and at close range its just plain bad. people say it shouldnt be used close range but every Halo had a versatile weapon that could dominate at all ranges with little-no bloom and look how big the franchise got? then they added bloom annnnd… yea numbers say it all. Reach cant touch the numbers that Halo 3 had 3 years after release.
Does he really think 75% of his audience is dumb enough to not know who makes the game?
i love all of the halos and if its as godd as halo 1,2,3,and reach then i’ll be ok with it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BR PLEASE DMR WAS THE WORST GUN EVER
I see everyone either loving on or bashing CE, H2, H3 and Reach. Am I missing something? Cause ODST was an AWESOME sidestory! By far one of the best soundtracks, certainly better storyline than H3, although nothing beats H2, and the gameplay was incredibly varied, sneak, then fight like hell, and some great campaign maps as well. No one ever mentions it though…?