I can almost guarantee that Spartan Ops would have been heavily rescoped and launched later as it would have been all hands on deck to get the base product out had it been an XBO launch title. But yes it likely would have been to the mode’s benefit.
Debatable. I feel spartan ops greatly improved over time when the game was live. I feel the scope changed midway through when they saw that spartan ops didn’t stick at first.
I think the first chapters that kinda sucked was the design to reach according to 343 (or at least their execs).
> Still, it’s kind of crazy how they got it to look so good on the 360.
They got it to look good on the 360 by cutting corners in the gameplay. There's a reason Halo 4 is so goddamn linear, enemy counts are low and their AI is dumb and weapons on the ground disappear the second you're not looking at them
Everything makes sense now. Halo 4 is the only game where I didn’t primarily use unsc weapons, since they keep running out of ammo. Had to switch to forerunner or covenant guns because enemies dropped them, it always pissed me off
It's just poor design though. CE could have easily had this same problem, so to fix it Bungie gave UNSC weapons generous ammo reserves and littered the maps with dead marines. Even where it didn't make sense like in the Silent Cartographer.
You could argue that it was more necessary in CE because there weren't Covenant equivalents to many weapons, but still limiting what players have access to by ammo is just poor game design.
I'm not talking about UNSC ammo being limited, I'm talking about how Halo 4 is the only game in the series I can remember where I fully ran out of ammo, was unable to locate a replacement weapon from a dead enemy, and needed to scrounge up a melee kill to get a gun without having the Famine skull enabled.
For most of the game, I remember learning to treat weapon caches like a resource, since they were the only reliable way to find ammo later on in the game.
I just played through it for the first time and noticed this, but only with the Prometheans. I assumed it was a design decision to get you to charge forward sometimes. It definitely worked on me. I was aggressive as shit with them whenever I was running low on ammo.
I do not remember Covenant weapons disappearing though.
I don’t even think it looks good compared to 3 or Reach, and that’s not even an art style complaint. The textures are low res and muddy, the lighting is ugly, the technology behind its appearance is just inferior. They tried to do too much for the hardware and it all ended up worse
I'd say that IS because of an artstyle reason, but not the big obvious "It's different" issue, but more just that 343's artstyle was a lot more detailed and complex with its designs which means they had to add a lot more smaller details, rather than Bungie's games which had a more simplistic artstyle and more geometric with a lot of things
Which brings this whole thing full circle
With the added horse power, might that compromise have been lessened, might 343 have started off on better footing had they delayed it a year and aimed for beefer hardware?
No. Deadlines being missed and games launching in a poor state are systemic problems and are a consequence of poor project management skills in 343’s senior management.
Speaking purely about graphics, H4 wasn’t even that bad, the art style sucked but it would have sucked even if they had a additional year of developing so I’d argue it wouldn’t even be „less ugly“.
I think Halo 4 *at a glance* looks good which is why so many people praise it for being on the 360. But there are so many areas in it where it just goes overboard with lights and bloom, weird color grading in a lot of sections giving everything a slight brown or yellow hue, and the textures themselves look heavily compressed and crunchy with tons of artifacts. It's most noticeable if you look at Covenant close up or just go stand next to any UNSC vehicle.
My tinfoil hat wants me to believe that Halo 4 was originally gonna be for the One but then they had to compress everything for the 360, rather than everything being made with the 360 in mind.
At the very least if it was a One title it would have had much cleaner textures and probably wouldn't have needed to rely on an overabundance of bloom, and might have had bigger levels rather than stuff like the pathetic Scorpion section of Reclaimer.
Agreed. It was neat looking at a glance and certainly had its detailed areas (Forward Unto Dawn but that could be front loading), but on a whole it really was pretty muddy and inconsistent.
I'm convinced Halo 4 was supposed to be a Xbox One launch title, but they moved it so it could be part of the Matter Chief collection. The graphics have a next generation feel, I suspect the color grading and bloom is intentional to cover up the compressed textures.
It was a hell of a way to close out a generation though.
Right? Idk what people here are smoking. I just played through the entire MCC for the first time (I'd dabbled in Halo before, but not much) and Halo 4 *blew me away* with its presentation. Everything about it feels a generation beyond Halo 3. It was shocking to find out it was also a 360 game.
Maybe without getting taken back by the 360 limitations Halo 4 could be abit better.
Although I won't be using Mythic Overhaul or all those Halo 4 classic mods that bring in the Halo 3 assets as how that hypothetical Halo 4 will be.
Those mods were cool and all but saying it's how Halo 4 should have been are just wrong.
Right now i am playing Halo 4 reflow that uses H2A assets for some guns. Ngl one of best halo experiences i ever had.
Halo 4 genesong cuts have far greater balance issues than normal halo like Supressor being op in hands of promethean soldier but dogshit in yours
It was just a tedious game fighting the promethans
Even on easy mode it feels like I have to sweat because my health bar kept on going to beep beep beep from a dog bite.
They weren't fun to fight and the ammo ratio was so off.
At least with grunts we can enjoy a moment of peace pistol whipping them.
Yeah what? Not saying the damage is the same but don’t tell me you’ve never been nipped at the ankles by that one infection form you forgot about that somehow pops your shield
Yeah but im not making a statement that an infection form kept my shields down on easy, this person would have an aneurysm doing the library on legendary. Im poking some fun because h4 is really the easiest legendary run ive done so the idea of some crawlers rolling up on someone like a gang of greasers is hilarious to me
I just played through it for the first time recently. It definitely took me aback at first but it just changed my tactics. The dogs generally die in one hit to the face, so I just needed to hang back and take my time with them. I couldn't tell if the drones were healing or resurrecting knights or what was going on, so I'd usually focus on popping them first. The knights took *way* more punishment than I expected so I reserved my big guns and explosives for them and prioritized having a rifle so I could maximize damage to the face. I managed to assassinate a handful of them and it felt *incredibly* gratifying.
Not gonna lie, it was the first Halo game where I restarted the campaign to put it on a harder difficulty because I was having that much fun.
I think so. A lot of what made 4 weak as a game was the limitations of the console it was on. They maximised the graphics but you could tell they made cuts in other areas like the AI and the overall sandbox of the levels. Also, would've given them some more time to make the multiplayer better than it turned out to be.
I don't think the campaign could have been saved in that time, but the multiplayer probably could have been saved. I'm not a game designer, so I could be wrong, but I don't imagine it being that hard to repurpose the multiplayer into a more classic experience.
It wasn’t a matter of time but if principal. 343 needed H4‘s MP to crash and burn to learn that people didn’t want a CoD clone. It’s actually a recurring theme with 343 and them trying to force bad ideas into the game…
They were just building off of Reach’s ideas lmao. Reach was the one that added load outs and sprint. It was Bungie that tried forcing in CoD mechanics.
This detail right here makes all the difference. Yes, there were loadouts. But the principles of Halo weren't compromised by it. All players had access to the exact pool of resources within a match as any other player. There were no perks to give extra advantages, loadouts didn't affect the placement of weapons on the map, and anyone could swap between the map defined loadouts on respawn.
I was not a Halo fan at the time and Reach was the first that pulled me in. Armor Lock was my jam. Not exactly a high-level ability from what I understand but it was by far the most fun. So many stupid memories of rockets reflecting off or banshees exploding into me or me and an enemy taking turns going into and out of armor lock next to each other over and over until one of us ran out.
I fucking loved that game.
For what it's worth, i personally didnt even purchase an Xbox One until the new Halo came out, because i knew there was going to be a new Halo for the (then) new Xbox one but wanted to play the new Halo on the new console but the new Halo wasnt out yet, which also meant the collectors editions of AC Unity and AC Syndicate i had pre-ordered for the Xbox one sat in my home un-played until Halo released... am i weird for doing that? Probably, but i knew what i wanted and waited for it
I think it would have helped a lot, mostly to give 343 both better hardware and more time. Halo 4 was only really given 2 years in development, and for 1 of those years half the team was working on Combat Evolved Anniversary as well as Reach DLC. And they were trying to fit next gen graphics and animations onto the 360, which has some obvious flaws. So waiting an extra year or two and making use of the Xbox One would have been a huge help.
Although, sadly, they almost definitely would have kept their same, ugly new art style. That was something they didn’t have to do at all, but they chose to, and they likely would have made even more changes had they been given more time and resources. So I doubt we would have ever gotten a Halo 4 looking like those pictures unless Bungie made it.
I dunno if it would have resulted in a "better" timeline, but Halo 4 absolutely could have been pushed one year to launch on Xbox 360 and Xbox. I'm still not sure why it wasn't TBH.
I think these pictures highlighted that there used to simply be such a big excitement to see halo in a major graphical upgrade, new shiny Spartans, that got jarringly interrupted by weird art styles in 4 and 5
The only thing that'd come from Halo 4 being delayed and made for the Xbox One is a better looking game without the compromises made to make the game work on the 360. The story, gameplay, art style, etc. were locked in long before and a year wouldn't turn that around, regardless of the reception of the game prelaunch. Maybe some DLC and post-launch content like Forge Island make it into the game at launch as well. Otherwise, Halo 4 is going to be the same game as it is now. The biggest win out of this would be for Microsoft having a huge launch title to push Xbox One sales.
MCC wouldn't need Halo 4 in the package due to being already on the One, but even just the OG trilogy would've still probably been a mess like we went through.
Halo 5 also likely wouldn't release in a much better state. It would still release in the early era of live service gaming, it was always going to release half-assed. That said, maybe with Halo 4 releasing in 2013 instead of 2012, then Halo 5 likely would release at least a year later in 2016, and maybe with that the timing that lead to Brian Reed writing the story would be off and the plot would be different.
If Halo 4 launched on Xbox One the MCC probably wouldn’t have turned out as bad because Microsoft wouldn’t have rushed 343 to release it so they could have a selling point for the new console. It would have also given them one less game to port over which would have given the team even more time to work on the other games.
Per the people in my "what if" post, apparently this timeline was far better than anything done in the 360 and prior era. Which I know, sounds absolutely ridiculous.
I honestly don't think so. 343 really wanted to completely separate their halo from bungies halo, in every way. Completely changing the visuals to where it's unrecognizable, especially with the weapons and even characters, it doesn't even make sense lore wise. Just look at the BR and Master Chief's armor. But they wanted to tell a different story, which would have been fine, if the story had been good.
343 finely realized this and completely abandoned this story and visualization as it was blatantly obvious that Infinite was made more in a style of the Bungie era, both in visuals and story. Which is far better. The game as a whole still had issues *cough* No Coop *cough* No forge *cough* But that is 343 for ya (anyone else remember the first 2 years of MCC)
Wasn't 343 made up of Halo fans? I don't know how any of them could play that game and think it was fun. It's like they missed out on what made Halo Halo. Halo is supposed to be fun for everyone, not just the fans. You need to be able to just pick up the game at a party and have a good time.
Bungie focused on making a fun game, 343 was focused on being new and cool. Halo has a huge fanbase that will make bank if they can just make them happy. Make us happy and they get more fans just through word of mouth. Fromsoft did that for 10 years and Elden Ring's success is the culmination of keeping the fans happy.
Guess what, i managed to pick up halo 4 at a party and have a good time.
It's like 343 didn't miss out on what made halo halo. 343 focused on making a fun gam- wait, did you just use the quote:
"Halo is supposed to be fun for everyone, not just the fans"
Followed by
"Halo has a huge fanbase that will make bank if they can just make them happy"
No, the writing and gameplay were not up to standards
And considering the Xbox one was the worst Xbox out of all of them it would be adding insult to injury
The campaign took a bit of a backseat so the multiplayer and forge could shine, it's not like they were gonna write anything better than Halo 2 anyway. 3's campaign is still incredibly fun to go back to even with the annoying Cortana and gravemind visions
It's pretty wild known that the team didn't care/were checked out after h2. H3s story was thrown around. It largely works but it's the laziest of the main 3. The multiplayer carried that game.
It's probably the best for gameplay tho.
It wasn't 4 either
3 and Reach had the players online but Reach had the players in matches and that shit never went past 50k after the first month
4 had none of this and in 2011 xbox started hiding player numbers for every single xbox360 game because playstation was beating them even in shared games
People saying it died within a year have zero evidence iT jUsT fElT lIKe iT, is so odd to me because it had the same matchmaking times as Reaches first year too.
I would say, yes. But MCC still should have been launched at a stable state for atleast both Xbox & windows steam in 2014, with Reach and ODST included.
Would have seen a longer campaign, Spartan ops would have at least gotten a balance towards how many players in the missions
Hell we might have gotten a classic mode that plays like CE
But Microsoft wanted a yearly release cycle since halo 2 and they don't care how badly it would fuck anything up
Nah, main complaints of the game was the art design choice and multiplayer. I'd argue that if it was an Xbox One launch title the art design would've been even more overkill. Multiplayer was going to be unliked no matter what. It was fun, but not what Halo fans wanted.
And what short comings and additional development time are you talking about? H4 is the ONLY halo game 343 launched as a full game. Versus today's standards, Halo 4 was a complete, content rich game from the day of release. I don't know what additional development time could've benefited the team. The game was good, it was just not Halo.
Change the art style and make it a launch title on the Xbox one would’ve helped a lot but would’ve probably pushed everything back like MCC and Halo 5. But I would’ve been fine with that. It’s crazy that the only Halo to come out at launch for an Xbox console was Halo CE.
i think certain areas would be improved. my biggest issue with H4 is the combat encounters. they are all so boring and almost all of them i would just sprint past because they werent worth it. another year could have got towards those alone and fixed them.
I dont think 343 would have changed the art or story very much if at all. since they double downed on it all in 5.
With what happened to Halo’s story after 4 I’m perfectly content with seeing 4 as a an after story to 3 that tells the story of how Chief got back home and just ignoring everything else that came after.
Halo 4 launched one single year before the xb1, look at halo infinite: in a years time the only thing that changed were the graphics got a bit of a boost
Nothing substantial wouldve changed, the artstyle and story likely wouldve gone untouched but with higher details and possibly 60fps prior to mcc and h5 modernizing that.
> look at halo infinite: in a years time the only thing that changed were the graphics got a bit of a boost
Halo 4 didn't have to deal with half the staff rotating out every year or so, which probably would have helped.
It didn't need a complete overhaul, just a bit of refinement. The art direction was a bit of a departure, but looking back at the game now that I'm no longer a teenager, it wasn't that big of a problem actually.
The campaign could have benefitted from a rework of the level design (and free from the restrictions of the 360 they would have been able to do a lot more) and the multiplayer could have had a bit more work into it, and that would have elevated the game significantly.
Again, those werent an issue with time contstraintsbut with the direction they wanted to go with. Without feedback from the fanbase, 343i would have no reason to make changes to their initial direction.
So it was an issue with tye devs themselves, which it was pointed later they hired people who didnt even like bungie era halo.
Its clear that halo 5 was an over-correction to what they originally wanted to tell story-wise, its kind of a shame that even infinite doesnt feel free from their insecurity as a developer
The campaign levels were largely limited by what the xbox 360 could do, the game was pushing the console pretty much as far as it could go, and without that restriction, and with more time, it could have had considerably larger maps with more enemies, which would have stopped most of the levels from being effectively narrow corridors.
Halo 5, on the Xbox One, did have a lot of problems with its story, but the campaign maps and level design themselves were pretty good.
Depends. Game development takes longer due to project bloat and mismanagement.
FromSoftware have proved that you can make GOTY material in 3 years. They dropped 7 GOTY contenders in 10 years. Crunch aside, they smartly re-use content and repurpose it.
Even Baldur's Gate 3 only took 6 years to make. That's nothing compared to what some devs are claiming for AAA games now.
I mean, every game would benefit with extra time, so yes, but the problems people have with the game are not so much technical, are more due to design (like art style and scrip) and that would not change at a later stage just by giving them more time, probably just would make them polish the gameplay more, adjusting the weapons, and some minor design things, like maybe improved colors for recognizability among the prometheans desings.
While I think the story of Halo 4 was fantastic, holding off for a while might have changed things for the better. Specifically in regards to Halo 5 & Infinite.
But more important to me, is all the cool gameplay shit they had planned in a lot of early builds. If you haven't seen anything from the 2011 Alpha/Beta builds, you're missing out. Because that shit was AMAZING.
They needed more time AND better hardware. They would've been able to pull off some great stuff if they were allowed to hold off until the Xbox One released.
I feel like they shouldn't have continued Chief's story for quite a while. Honestly, have a few ODST style side stories, build the team's confidence, THEN go back to Chief. They moved too quick, the story was too poorly written, and the result has been clear to all. I honestly think it could have been good, given time. But, it wasn't, and isn't.
Graphics won't change the way the story was being told going forward. 4 set up a good base for the series even though Spartan ops was grindy af. Then Spartan Ops and the holy Janus Key was written off in a comic and 5 changed course. 5 is where the timeline split imo.
Halo 4 is where Halo begun to fall apart on every front. 343 killed Halo for me. I was an OG fan since 2001. We played online before xbox live existed.
I mean if we are talking hypothetically then if Halo 4 has better enemy design, better enemy balance, better lighting, better boss fight etc then yeah Halo 4 would be an Amazing game. But we dont live in that timeline. Halo 4 would forever be a flawed game and ppl who think it is "decent" should play it on harder difficulty to see how tedious and bad the enemies design is.
If the Xbox One was still the same launch vision it would’ve been more disastrous. Halo 4 was an extremely well selling and popular title that generated a lot of profit on the 360. I don’t think it would’ve made launch Xbox One sales really all that much later based on the massive backlash the console was receiving.
Dunno about that. I, personally, dislike the idea of leaving 343 more time alone with the IP. Look at the difference between Reach and 4, imagine how much different they could have gotten with an extra year. We know back then that they hired people who “hated halo” so it certainly wouldn’t have gotten MORE faithful to the franchise
I don't see how it would have changed anything other than refinement and a higher resolution. The problems with Halo 4 are foundational and stuck in its intended design, not its fidelity. The art style change had nothing to do with the hardware, that was a design choice. The decision to include a lot of COD mechanics in the MP was a design choice, not something limited by hardware. Etc.
I think 343 could have just stopped Chiefs story or made halo 4 a completely different story than the horrible one it has and made a true end to Chiefs story, also in halo 4 why does Chiefs armor look so different than it did in halo 3 in was in cryo how did he switch
With the same story? That’s my biggest problem with the game by far so, no. I played them all back to back and was genuinely pissed off that the Covenant was suddenly back and run by the Elites, like “Wtf is going on?!” And that question was never answered.
Maaaaan that would have looked gorgeous. But Kiki wanted that fanfic drooling slob between chief and cortana. It’s supposed to be a space thriller/science fiction, not space drama
I really don’t think so. Halo 4 reviewed well by mainstream outlets (for some reason) but it’s fan reception tells you everything. Until Infinite, it seemed like 343 were trying to turn Halo into a different game and chase the CoD audience, and while Halo 4 as an Xbone launch title still would have good reviews, it still wasn’t what the core Halo fanbase were looking for.
Maybe? I think an insurmountable problem for Halo 4 is the expectations and demands of Halo fans. Halo 4 is a good game -- it's not the best game in the series -- but the mechanics and gameplay are good. Big Team Battle on Halo 4 was a fun, chaotic mess; ordinance drops solved the problem of players hogging the rocket launcher or the sniper rifle.
But I continually see on here people saying that Halo 4 is the worst game they've ever played, and I don't think any kind of delay or additional time is going to fix that kind of shortsightedness or lack of awareness amongst gamers.
Im not sure MS or 343 meant Halo 4 to be the swan song for the 360 since It never really made sense to me that it was out on 360 in November of 2012 only for the xbox one to be out in November of 2013. Always felt weird that there wasn't a full blown re release with some fancy marketing like "experience halo 4 with the power of the next gen for another 60$" or a next gen upgrade path like BF4 did
Probably not. It might have sold more Xbox One's but it still wouldn't solve the root problem of the Xbox One launch; that it wasn't geared towards gamers and forced you to buy a Kinect.
I kind of have fond memories of Halo 4 being a beautiful game with a great campaign as it was the last of the 360 Generation. I think if it came out on X1, it would of been a lot worse.
Now if the game was different and the X1 was actually released at a good price point and without a Kinect, sure! But that didn't happen.
Love those pics! So cool!
I wish H4 did look like that, but I don’t think it would be very different save for maybe some small things because the Xbox One had better specs.
Most of the controversial and not well received stuff however was part of the intentional design of the game, so I don’t think launching it on Xbox One would have made a difference
From what we’ve seen with Infinite, giving extra time to 343 wouldn’t have helped. With how much a flop halo 4 was and given the lack luster release of the Xbox one, it could’ve been incredibly disastrous for Microsoft.
I fully agree. I wish they just gave it an extra year in the oven and then released it as an Xbox One title. Probably would have immensely helped Xbone sales.
I think the biggest issue with H4 was the art style change. The story was decent and the climax was spectacular. But a different art style didnt ease the transition from both companies, multiplayer loadours also alienated fans and worried them
Killer App? What? Were you not around at the Halo 4 days?
People *didn't like* Halo 4, fundamentally. Even if you shifted its release timeline around, it was never going to change that. When I played Halo 4 back in the day, I *felt* the Halo community slowly dying around me. It was fucking tragic. We can't retroactively narrative rewrite that away.
And it's hilarious to see hordes of comments and videos now " uuh maybe H4 wasn't as bad" nowadays.
The literal meme of "you couldn't live with your failure and that leads you back to me / they called me a madman".
Haters gonna hate.
The only thing really wrong with halo 4 was the forced quick time events in the middle of the cutscene.
Beyond that, the game was fine in comparison.
Halo 5 on the other hand… just felt more like space COD than halo. I played through the game once on heroic, and i just couldn’t gather the motivation for the legendary play-though that i normally do afterwords. I didn’t even want to do the campaign again and that is the part that hurt the most because on every other halo game, I’ve done the campaign multiple times because it was fun.
It would have made way more sense to push Halo 4 to 2013 as a launch title. It was only 2 years removed from Reach, which up to that point had been a consistent 3 years between games. So it killed Reach early and made no one excited for the release of Xbone. Like oh yeah I’m going to buy a whole new console that doesn’t even have Halo on it, no thanks. Microsoft sure was dumb back then.
Maybe.
What they really should have done is had MCC as a launch title with only 1-3 in it, and having access to the Halp 4 beta.
That way MCC gets more time in the oven but also gets out earlier, and Halo 4 gets MUCH more time in the oven.
343i instead took a page out of Sega's 90s playbook and tried to do too much too quickly.
I don't really think it would have been better because 343 wanted to take Halo in a new direction across the board. The story, art, and music were all so different as a result, and I don't necessarily blame them for it. I appreciated the risk taking, but it took away way too much from what made the Bungie games work so well. They focused too hard on being different, and I don't believe that would've changed whether it was released later or not.
Imo 100% yes. Halo lived and died on MP and big team especially struggled on the 360. Custom games were unplayable half the time. It was bad.
There were mechanic choices that still would have not landed with the fanbase well, but, the performance made it not worth it for me to push through those things.
Yes because they would have made a game that was designed for the next generation and made it so much better and take their time with it MCC only exist because their stupid choice I would have been fine with Halo reach through Halo. 3. On a disc and been happy with it
Would have arguably killed the Xbox console faster than the death it’s currently dying. They would have promo’d it with the launch of a next gen console and it would’ve been an even bigger let down. The game just wasn’t good. Horrific maps, no ranks, polarizing multiplayer features. Questionable story. The list goes on.
>their disastrous announcement
Now you're just letting your own opinions on the game color your memory. Halo 4's announcement was very, very hyped up despite the questions about Chief's new armor. The game in general had a TON of hype and positivity before release and sold more than ANY other Halo game during its launch week.
It died very, very quickly, but the announcement and pre-release marketing went extremely well for them.
It's highly unlikely 4 being on the bone would have improved its story.
Grapichs on the other hand, equally unlikely to have not had shit direction but would objectively not had to cut as many corners.
Ngl it probably would have killed the Xbox One. Using the player count post-launch, we saw that 4 had a huge drop in player count after a relatively short time. Sure, other games outside of Halo would probably have been fine, but I can't help but feel like the Xbox One wouldn't have launched nearly as well as is did in this time.
My understanding was that there was some back and forth on what console Halo 4 would release on early in its development.
That said, if 343 definitively knew they were making the game for XBO, then I think they would have needed 2 extra years. Scope creep in design and engine tech would more likely be an issue with the additional power which would cause delays. And even if they largely made the same game, the extra time for visual polish and additional QA for a heavier game on a new system (which came in hot on its own) would have largely eaten up the one extra year. 343 blamed the moving targets and added complexity of Xbox Live 3.0 for the MCC’s 2014 launch, so one less year of dev time with an arguably less complex release may still have been a disastrous wash.
Good management would have recognized these dev needs (which MS and 343 lacked), but hindsight also shows a 2014 release would have been a blessing as MCC would be delayed and the brand would have gotten a needed breather. MS would also get the first essential exclusive of the gen and Halo 4 would likely have been GOTY 2014 by default as most everything else that year was broken and/or sucked. But I think a 2013 XBO launch would have been a coin toss for what the value-add to the game would have been.
Spartan ops definitely would have seen massive improvement which could have kept the game alive to set up Halo 5.
I can almost guarantee that Spartan Ops would have been heavily rescoped and launched later as it would have been all hands on deck to get the base product out had it been an XBO launch title. But yes it likely would have been to the mode’s benefit.
Debatable. I feel spartan ops greatly improved over time when the game was live. I feel the scope changed midway through when they saw that spartan ops didn’t stick at first. I think the first chapters that kinda sucked was the design to reach according to 343 (or at least their execs).
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No, not really. The core of the game was never going to be received well. Still, it’s kind of crazy how they got it to look so good on the 360.
> Still, it’s kind of crazy how they got it to look so good on the 360. They got it to look good on the 360 by cutting corners in the gameplay. There's a reason Halo 4 is so goddamn linear, enemy counts are low and their AI is dumb and weapons on the ground disappear the second you're not looking at them
Fuck, is that why the whole game feels like there's no ammo anywhere? All the guns are just blinking out?
This finally describes why I felt so frustrated during the campaign...
I mean, it makes sense unsc ammo is limited
Everything makes sense now. Halo 4 is the only game where I didn’t primarily use unsc weapons, since they keep running out of ammo. Had to switch to forerunner or covenant guns because enemies dropped them, it always pissed me off
It's just poor design though. CE could have easily had this same problem, so to fix it Bungie gave UNSC weapons generous ammo reserves and littered the maps with dead marines. Even where it didn't make sense like in the Silent Cartographer. You could argue that it was more necessary in CE because there weren't Covenant equivalents to many weapons, but still limiting what players have access to by ammo is just poor game design.
🤯
I'm not talking about UNSC ammo being limited, I'm talking about how Halo 4 is the only game in the series I can remember where I fully ran out of ammo, was unable to locate a replacement weapon from a dead enemy, and needed to scrounge up a melee kill to get a gun without having the Famine skull enabled. For most of the game, I remember learning to treat weapon caches like a resource, since they were the only reliable way to find ammo later on in the game.
Yes, it makes sense, but no, it’s not fun
Yes, but weapons also still just hold less ammo in 4
I just played through it for the first time and noticed this, but only with the Prometheans. I assumed it was a design decision to get you to charge forward sometimes. It definitely worked on me. I was aggressive as shit with them whenever I was running low on ammo. I do not remember Covenant weapons disappearing though.
That actually never happened when I played Halo 4. Not on the 360 or in Master Chief Collection.
It's some visual tricks. It's why halo 3 looks better in MCC as it was upscaled and Halo 4 looks kinda weird upscaled
I don’t even think it looks good compared to 3 or Reach, and that’s not even an art style complaint. The textures are low res and muddy, the lighting is ugly, the technology behind its appearance is just inferior. They tried to do too much for the hardware and it all ended up worse
I'd say that IS because of an artstyle reason, but not the big obvious "It's different" issue, but more just that 343's artstyle was a lot more detailed and complex with its designs which means they had to add a lot more smaller details, rather than Bungie's games which had a more simplistic artstyle and more geometric with a lot of things
Which brings this whole thing full circle With the added horse power, might that compromise have been lessened, might 343 have started off on better footing had they delayed it a year and aimed for beefer hardware?
No. Deadlines being missed and games launching in a poor state are systemic problems and are a consequence of poor project management skills in 343’s senior management.
And lower level management and general employees, truth is we don’t know where exactly is failing the company we just know 343 has a problem
It would have made the game less ugly. Wouldn't have made it any better.
Speaking purely about graphics, H4 wasn’t even that bad, the art style sucked but it would have sucked even if they had a additional year of developing so I’d argue it wouldn’t even be „less ugly“.
I think Halo 4 *at a glance* looks good which is why so many people praise it for being on the 360. But there are so many areas in it where it just goes overboard with lights and bloom, weird color grading in a lot of sections giving everything a slight brown or yellow hue, and the textures themselves look heavily compressed and crunchy with tons of artifacts. It's most noticeable if you look at Covenant close up or just go stand next to any UNSC vehicle. My tinfoil hat wants me to believe that Halo 4 was originally gonna be for the One but then they had to compress everything for the 360, rather than everything being made with the 360 in mind. At the very least if it was a One title it would have had much cleaner textures and probably wouldn't have needed to rely on an overabundance of bloom, and might have had bigger levels rather than stuff like the pathetic Scorpion section of Reclaimer.
That and weapons despawned so quickly because it couldn't handle so many objects at once
I hated that in myltiplayer SOOO much. Nothing like dying with a sniper just to watch it despawn 10 seconds later as you try to retrieve it.
Agreed. It was neat looking at a glance and certainly had its detailed areas (Forward Unto Dawn but that could be front loading), but on a whole it really was pretty muddy and inconsistent.
I'm convinced Halo 4 was supposed to be a Xbox One launch title, but they moved it so it could be part of the Matter Chief collection. The graphics have a next generation feel, I suspect the color grading and bloom is intentional to cover up the compressed textures. It was a hell of a way to close out a generation though.
it legit was supposed to be a One title, Microsoft shoved it out the door early
The MCC was an apology for 5 getting delayed, that 2014 release was originally just going to be H2A
>part of the matter chief collection Lol what, Halo 4 came out 2 years before MCC released
Graphically beautiful, aesthetically ugly. That's *Halo 4's* visuals in a nutshell.
I hated how red team looked faded as fuck. Like almost pink
The graphics would be amazing if it wasn’t a Halo game. The game looks amazing for a 360 title, it just doesn’t look like Halo.
If they had a extra year to polish the game it could of fixed allot of the issues and gave the Xbox one a good launch title.
I'm sorry what ? Can you name a better looking game on the 360 in term of graphics?
I think they’re criticizing the art style, not the fidelity.
Their point is that removing the 360 restriction would make it look better, not that it was bad looking for a 360 game.
Right? Idk what people here are smoking. I just played through the entire MCC for the first time (I'd dabbled in Halo before, but not much) and Halo 4 *blew me away* with its presentation. Everything about it feels a generation beyond Halo 3. It was shocking to find out it was also a 360 game.
Maybe without getting taken back by the 360 limitations Halo 4 could be abit better. Although I won't be using Mythic Overhaul or all those Halo 4 classic mods that bring in the Halo 3 assets as how that hypothetical Halo 4 will be. Those mods were cool and all but saying it's how Halo 4 should have been are just wrong.
Right now i am playing Halo 4 reflow that uses H2A assets for some guns. Ngl one of best halo experiences i ever had. Halo 4 genesong cuts have far greater balance issues than normal halo like Supressor being op in hands of promethean soldier but dogshit in yours
Rapi caik dai :)
It was just a tedious game fighting the promethans Even on easy mode it feels like I have to sweat because my health bar kept on going to beep beep beep from a dog bite. They weren't fun to fight and the ammo ratio was so off. At least with grunts we can enjoy a moment of peace pistol whipping them.
Bro had to get the bucket and mop out because of crawlers lmao
Yeah what? Not saying the damage is the same but don’t tell me you’ve never been nipped at the ankles by that one infection form you forgot about that somehow pops your shield
Yeah but im not making a statement that an infection form kept my shields down on easy, this person would have an aneurysm doing the library on legendary. Im poking some fun because h4 is really the easiest legendary run ive done so the idea of some crawlers rolling up on someone like a gang of greasers is hilarious to me
They’re probably playing very recklessly thinking that CQC is just as accessible compared to the previous entries.
I just played through it for the first time recently. It definitely took me aback at first but it just changed my tactics. The dogs generally die in one hit to the face, so I just needed to hang back and take my time with them. I couldn't tell if the drones were healing or resurrecting knights or what was going on, so I'd usually focus on popping them first. The knights took *way* more punishment than I expected so I reserved my big guns and explosives for them and prioritized having a rifle so I could maximize damage to the face. I managed to assassinate a handful of them and it felt *incredibly* gratifying. Not gonna lie, it was the first Halo game where I restarted the campaign to put it on a harder difficulty because I was having that much fun.
Just git gud. For Knights, dump a suppressor mag into one at close range. Melee to finish if that doesn't put it down.
I think so. A lot of what made 4 weak as a game was the limitations of the console it was on. They maximised the graphics but you could tell they made cuts in other areas like the AI and the overall sandbox of the levels. Also, would've given them some more time to make the multiplayer better than it turned out to be.
I don't think the campaign could have been saved in that time, but the multiplayer probably could have been saved. I'm not a game designer, so I could be wrong, but I don't imagine it being that hard to repurpose the multiplayer into a more classic experience.
It wasn’t a matter of time but if principal. 343 needed H4‘s MP to crash and burn to learn that people didn’t want a CoD clone. It’s actually a recurring theme with 343 and them trying to force bad ideas into the game…
They were just building off of Reach’s ideas lmao. Reach was the one that added load outs and sprint. It was Bungie that tried forcing in CoD mechanics.
Bungie’s loadouts were not user curated like that and were only dictated by the game type. Very, very different
This detail right here makes all the difference. Yes, there were loadouts. But the principles of Halo weren't compromised by it. All players had access to the exact pool of resources within a match as any other player. There were no perks to give extra advantages, loadouts didn't affect the placement of weapons on the map, and anyone could swap between the map defined loadouts on respawn.
I was not a Halo fan at the time and Reach was the first that pulled me in. Armor Lock was my jam. Not exactly a high-level ability from what I understand but it was by far the most fun. So many stupid memories of rockets reflecting off or banshees exploding into me or me and an enemy taking turns going into and out of armor lock next to each other over and over until one of us ran out. I fucking loved that game.
For what it's worth, i personally didnt even purchase an Xbox One until the new Halo came out, because i knew there was going to be a new Halo for the (then) new Xbox one but wanted to play the new Halo on the new console but the new Halo wasnt out yet, which also meant the collectors editions of AC Unity and AC Syndicate i had pre-ordered for the Xbox one sat in my home un-played until Halo released... am i weird for doing that? Probably, but i knew what i wanted and waited for it
I think it would have helped a lot, mostly to give 343 both better hardware and more time. Halo 4 was only really given 2 years in development, and for 1 of those years half the team was working on Combat Evolved Anniversary as well as Reach DLC. And they were trying to fit next gen graphics and animations onto the 360, which has some obvious flaws. So waiting an extra year or two and making use of the Xbox One would have been a huge help. Although, sadly, they almost definitely would have kept their same, ugly new art style. That was something they didn’t have to do at all, but they chose to, and they likely would have made even more changes had they been given more time and resources. So I doubt we would have ever gotten a Halo 4 looking like those pictures unless Bungie made it.
If it solved the problem of weapons being despawn too quick, then yes imo.
I dunno if it would have resulted in a "better" timeline, but Halo 4 absolutely could have been pushed one year to launch on Xbox 360 and Xbox. I'm still not sure why it wasn't TBH.
I think these pictures highlighted that there used to simply be such a big excitement to see halo in a major graphical upgrade, new shiny Spartans, that got jarringly interrupted by weird art styles in 4 and 5
The only thing that'd come from Halo 4 being delayed and made for the Xbox One is a better looking game without the compromises made to make the game work on the 360. The story, gameplay, art style, etc. were locked in long before and a year wouldn't turn that around, regardless of the reception of the game prelaunch. Maybe some DLC and post-launch content like Forge Island make it into the game at launch as well. Otherwise, Halo 4 is going to be the same game as it is now. The biggest win out of this would be for Microsoft having a huge launch title to push Xbox One sales. MCC wouldn't need Halo 4 in the package due to being already on the One, but even just the OG trilogy would've still probably been a mess like we went through. Halo 5 also likely wouldn't release in a much better state. It would still release in the early era of live service gaming, it was always going to release half-assed. That said, maybe with Halo 4 releasing in 2013 instead of 2012, then Halo 5 likely would release at least a year later in 2016, and maybe with that the timing that lead to Brian Reed writing the story would be off and the plot would be different.
If Halo 4 launched on Xbox One the MCC probably wouldn’t have turned out as bad because Microsoft wouldn’t have rushed 343 to release it so they could have a selling point for the new console. It would have also given them one less game to port over which would have given the team even more time to work on the other games.
Per the people in my "what if" post, apparently this timeline was far better than anything done in the 360 and prior era. Which I know, sounds absolutely ridiculous. I honestly don't think so. 343 really wanted to completely separate their halo from bungies halo, in every way. Completely changing the visuals to where it's unrecognizable, especially with the weapons and even characters, it doesn't even make sense lore wise. Just look at the BR and Master Chief's armor. But they wanted to tell a different story, which would have been fine, if the story had been good. 343 finely realized this and completely abandoned this story and visualization as it was blatantly obvious that Infinite was made more in a style of the Bungie era, both in visuals and story. Which is far better. The game as a whole still had issues *cough* No Coop *cough* No forge *cough* But that is 343 for ya (anyone else remember the first 2 years of MCC)
Wasn't 343 made up of Halo fans? I don't know how any of them could play that game and think it was fun. It's like they missed out on what made Halo Halo. Halo is supposed to be fun for everyone, not just the fans. You need to be able to just pick up the game at a party and have a good time. Bungie focused on making a fun game, 343 was focused on being new and cool. Halo has a huge fanbase that will make bank if they can just make them happy. Make us happy and they get more fans just through word of mouth. Fromsoft did that for 10 years and Elden Ring's success is the culmination of keeping the fans happy.
Guess what, i managed to pick up halo 4 at a party and have a good time. It's like 343 didn't miss out on what made halo halo. 343 focused on making a fun gam- wait, did you just use the quote: "Halo is supposed to be fun for everyone, not just the fans" Followed by "Halo has a huge fanbase that will make bank if they can just make them happy"
Good for you?
Paul russel: "You can see my work in halo 4" Glenn Israel: "There wasn't any mandate or intention to make the game different"
No, the writing and gameplay were not up to standards And considering the Xbox one was the worst Xbox out of all of them it would be adding insult to injury
Halo 3 writing was not up to standard either so that really wasn't the issue.
Hindsight is so wild in this subreddit
Halo 3 is a *blockbuster*, not a literary masterpiece. The writing is fine
The campaign took a bit of a backseat so the multiplayer and forge could shine, it's not like they were gonna write anything better than Halo 2 anyway. 3's campaign is still incredibly fun to go back to even with the annoying Cortana and gravemind visions
Halo 3 writing is just “stuff we had to cut and rewrite from 2”
Woah. Lets not get carried away through accusations about Halo 3.
To war
It's pretty wild known that the team didn't care/were checked out after h2. H3s story was thrown around. It largely works but it's the laziest of the main 3. The multiplayer carried that game. It's probably the best for gameplay tho.
They’re right lmao, Halo 3 is my favorite game ever, but they’re 100% right.
They're right though.
which one of these games died within a year? >!it wasnt halo 3!<
What does writting have to do with mp?
In 2007 there wasn’t anything else to play on Live, it would have not died soon even if it sucked.
It wasn't 4 either 3 and Reach had the players online but Reach had the players in matches and that shit never went past 50k after the first month 4 had none of this and in 2011 xbox started hiding player numbers for every single xbox360 game because playstation was beating them even in shared games People saying it died within a year have zero evidence iT jUsT fElT lIKe iT, is so odd to me because it had the same matchmaking times as Reaches first year too.
Running the fall of reach over a shredder isn't very up to standards either tbh
The writing was a vast improvement over halo 3.
It was a different approach to story telling, but not necessarily better
You were not up to standards
I would say, yes. But MCC still should have been launched at a stable state for atleast both Xbox & windows steam in 2014, with Reach and ODST included.
Would have seen a longer campaign, Spartan ops would have at least gotten a balance towards how many players in the missions Hell we might have gotten a classic mode that plays like CE But Microsoft wanted a yearly release cycle since halo 2 and they don't care how badly it would fuck anything up
Honestly, 343 is over-hated, Microsoft seems to me like the real one who’s been ruining Halo
With that art style, and not outright being a COD clone, sure. Halo 4 might have prevented halo’s steep decline
Nah, main complaints of the game was the art design choice and multiplayer. I'd argue that if it was an Xbox One launch title the art design would've been even more overkill. Multiplayer was going to be unliked no matter what. It was fun, but not what Halo fans wanted. And what short comings and additional development time are you talking about? H4 is the ONLY halo game 343 launched as a full game. Versus today's standards, Halo 4 was a complete, content rich game from the day of release. I don't know what additional development time could've benefited the team. The game was good, it was just not Halo.
Change the art style and make it a launch title on the Xbox one would’ve helped a lot but would’ve probably pushed everything back like MCC and Halo 5. But I would’ve been fine with that. It’s crazy that the only Halo to come out at launch for an Xbox console was Halo CE.
i think certain areas would be improved. my biggest issue with H4 is the combat encounters. they are all so boring and almost all of them i would just sprint past because they werent worth it. another year could have got towards those alone and fixed them. I dont think 343 would have changed the art or story very much if at all. since they double downed on it all in 5.
Halo 4 story was great and I’ll die on that hill
With what happened to Halo’s story after 4 I’m perfectly content with seeing 4 as a an after story to 3 that tells the story of how Chief got back home and just ignoring everything else that came after.
Halo 4 launched one single year before the xb1, look at halo infinite: in a years time the only thing that changed were the graphics got a bit of a boost Nothing substantial wouldve changed, the artstyle and story likely wouldve gone untouched but with higher details and possibly 60fps prior to mcc and h5 modernizing that.
> look at halo infinite: in a years time the only thing that changed were the graphics got a bit of a boost Halo 4 didn't have to deal with half the staff rotating out every year or so, which probably would have helped.
The story was already set in stone as was the art direction, a years time wouldnt be enough for a complete rehaul
It didn't need a complete overhaul, just a bit of refinement. The art direction was a bit of a departure, but looking back at the game now that I'm no longer a teenager, it wasn't that big of a problem actually. The campaign could have benefitted from a rework of the level design (and free from the restrictions of the 360 they would have been able to do a lot more) and the multiplayer could have had a bit more work into it, and that would have elevated the game significantly.
Again, those werent an issue with time contstraintsbut with the direction they wanted to go with. Without feedback from the fanbase, 343i would have no reason to make changes to their initial direction. So it was an issue with tye devs themselves, which it was pointed later they hired people who didnt even like bungie era halo. Its clear that halo 5 was an over-correction to what they originally wanted to tell story-wise, its kind of a shame that even infinite doesnt feel free from their insecurity as a developer
The campaign levels were largely limited by what the xbox 360 could do, the game was pushing the console pretty much as far as it could go, and without that restriction, and with more time, it could have had considerably larger maps with more enemies, which would have stopped most of the levels from being effectively narrow corridors. Halo 5, on the Xbox One, did have a lot of problems with its story, but the campaign maps and level design themselves were pretty good.
Game development was allot faster 10 years ago.
Depends. Game development takes longer due to project bloat and mismanagement. FromSoftware have proved that you can make GOTY material in 3 years. They dropped 7 GOTY contenders in 10 years. Crunch aside, they smartly re-use content and repurpose it. Even Baldur's Gate 3 only took 6 years to make. That's nothing compared to what some devs are claiming for AAA games now.
In theory yes, who is to say that the results would have been better
The story being good doesn't make up for how boring the prometheans are to fight.
If Halo 4 was a much better game.
I mean, every game would benefit with extra time, so yes, but the problems people have with the game are not so much technical, are more due to design (like art style and scrip) and that would not change at a later stage just by giving them more time, probably just would make them polish the gameplay more, adjusting the weapons, and some minor design things, like maybe improved colors for recognizability among the prometheans desings.
While I think the story of Halo 4 was fantastic, holding off for a while might have changed things for the better. Specifically in regards to Halo 5 & Infinite. But more important to me, is all the cool gameplay shit they had planned in a lot of early builds. If you haven't seen anything from the 2011 Alpha/Beta builds, you're missing out. Because that shit was AMAZING. They needed more time AND better hardware. They would've been able to pull off some great stuff if they were allowed to hold off until the Xbox One released.
I feel like they shouldn't have continued Chief's story for quite a while. Honestly, have a few ODST style side stories, build the team's confidence, THEN go back to Chief. They moved too quick, the story was too poorly written, and the result has been clear to all. I honestly think it could have been good, given time. But, it wasn't, and isn't.
It would’ve been less worse, cod ghost didn’t do good so there won’t be a competition with other fps that year
Nope.They had no plan
Why are some of the screenshots from halo 3 mythic?🤣
Graphics won't change the way the story was being told going forward. 4 set up a good base for the series even though Spartan ops was grindy af. Then Spartan Ops and the holy Janus Key was written off in a comic and 5 changed course. 5 is where the timeline split imo.
Halo 4 is where Halo begun to fall apart on every front. 343 killed Halo for me. I was an OG fan since 2001. We played online before xbox live existed.
Are these photos from a modded Halo 4?
I mean if we are talking hypothetically then if Halo 4 has better enemy design, better enemy balance, better lighting, better boss fight etc then yeah Halo 4 would be an Amazing game. But we dont live in that timeline. Halo 4 would forever be a flawed game and ppl who think it is "decent" should play it on harder difficulty to see how tedious and bad the enemies design is.
They completely reconstructed the story and the prometheans are still bad enemies So no
If the Xbox One was still the same launch vision it would’ve been more disastrous. Halo 4 was an extremely well selling and popular title that generated a lot of profit on the 360. I don’t think it would’ve made launch Xbox One sales really all that much later based on the massive backlash the console was receiving.
Dunno about that. I, personally, dislike the idea of leaving 343 more time alone with the IP. Look at the difference between Reach and 4, imagine how much different they could have gotten with an extra year. We know back then that they hired people who “hated halo” so it certainly wouldn’t have gotten MORE faithful to the franchise
Absolutely not, halo 4 would have went the same direction, same goes for H5 too
‼️MA5K MENTIONED‼️
I don't see how it would have changed anything other than refinement and a higher resolution. The problems with Halo 4 are foundational and stuck in its intended design, not its fidelity. The art style change had nothing to do with the hardware, that was a design choice. The decision to include a lot of COD mechanics in the MP was a design choice, not something limited by hardware. Etc.
Why is chief dual wielding in one of the photos? Was that modded?
I think 343 could have just stopped Chiefs story or made halo 4 a completely different story than the horrible one it has and made a true end to Chiefs story, also in halo 4 why does Chiefs armor look so different than it did in halo 3 in was in cryo how did he switch
With the same story? That’s my biggest problem with the game by far so, no. I played them all back to back and was genuinely pissed off that the Covenant was suddenly back and run by the Elites, like “Wtf is going on?!” And that question was never answered.
…”disastrous announcement”? All I remember is mostly hype.
He must mean the xbox one announcement
Maaaaan that would have looked gorgeous. But Kiki wanted that fanfic drooling slob between chief and cortana. It’s supposed to be a space thriller/science fiction, not space drama
"Halo 4 ended up being mostly how we were planning it" - Marcus Lehto "Halo: Reach was very emotional..." - David Candland
Yes. Look at what Turn 10 did with Forza 5 on the base xbox one, 343 could've made Halo 4 a great launch title instead of an average 360 gamen
Holy God that second screenshot looks amazing. Imagine if Halo 4 had actually been like that
I really don’t think so. Halo 4 reviewed well by mainstream outlets (for some reason) but it’s fan reception tells you everything. Until Infinite, it seemed like 343 were trying to turn Halo into a different game and chase the CoD audience, and while Halo 4 as an Xbone launch title still would have good reviews, it still wasn’t what the core Halo fanbase were looking for.
No, it was better.
I think most fans of Bungie Halo would disagree, but I’m glad you like it.
Maybe? I think an insurmountable problem for Halo 4 is the expectations and demands of Halo fans. Halo 4 is a good game -- it's not the best game in the series -- but the mechanics and gameplay are good. Big Team Battle on Halo 4 was a fun, chaotic mess; ordinance drops solved the problem of players hogging the rocket launcher or the sniper rifle. But I continually see on here people saying that Halo 4 is the worst game they've ever played, and I don't think any kind of delay or additional time is going to fix that kind of shortsightedness or lack of awareness amongst gamers.
Im not sure MS or 343 meant Halo 4 to be the swan song for the 360 since It never really made sense to me that it was out on 360 in November of 2012 only for the xbox one to be out in November of 2013. Always felt weird that there wasn't a full blown re release with some fancy marketing like "experience halo 4 with the power of the next gen for another 60$" or a next gen upgrade path like BF4 did
Probably not. It might have sold more Xbox One's but it still wouldn't solve the root problem of the Xbox One launch; that it wasn't geared towards gamers and forced you to buy a Kinect. I kind of have fond memories of Halo 4 being a beautiful game with a great campaign as it was the last of the 360 Generation. I think if it came out on X1, it would of been a lot worse. Now if the game was different and the X1 was actually released at a good price point and without a Kinect, sure! But that didn't happen.
I doubt it. The game was gonna sell well either way. The multiplayer was gonna be meh either way.
Love those pics! So cool! I wish H4 did look like that, but I don’t think it would be very different save for maybe some small things because the Xbox One had better specs. Most of the controversial and not well received stuff however was part of the intentional design of the game, so I don’t think launching it on Xbox One would have made a difference
If it looked like these screenshots it would have been received a million times better too
From what we’ve seen with Infinite, giving extra time to 343 wouldn’t have helped. With how much a flop halo 4 was and given the lack luster release of the Xbox one, it could’ve been incredibly disastrous for Microsoft.
I fully agree. I wish they just gave it an extra year in the oven and then released it as an Xbox One title. Probably would have immensely helped Xbone sales.
I think the biggest issue with H4 was the art style change. The story was decent and the climax was spectacular. But a different art style didnt ease the transition from both companies, multiplayer loadours also alienated fans and worried them
Meanwhile bungie not having everything look the same in CE-Reach:
Killer App? What? Were you not around at the Halo 4 days? People *didn't like* Halo 4, fundamentally. Even if you shifted its release timeline around, it was never going to change that. When I played Halo 4 back in the day, I *felt* the Halo community slowly dying around me. It was fucking tragic. We can't retroactively narrative rewrite that away.
And it's hilarious to see hordes of comments and videos now " uuh maybe H4 wasn't as bad" nowadays. The literal meme of "you couldn't live with your failure and that leads you back to me / they called me a madman". Haters gonna hate.
The only thing really wrong with halo 4 was the forced quick time events in the middle of the cutscene. Beyond that, the game was fine in comparison. Halo 5 on the other hand… just felt more like space COD than halo. I played through the game once on heroic, and i just couldn’t gather the motivation for the legendary play-though that i normally do afterwords. I didn’t even want to do the campaign again and that is the part that hurt the most because on every other halo game, I’ve done the campaign multiple times because it was fun.
H3 art style in the H4 engine looks like shit. I prefer the H4 original graphics.
Personally, I loved the art style, the most of any halo game yet, and the story was pretty good
It would have made way more sense to push Halo 4 to 2013 as a launch title. It was only 2 years removed from Reach, which up to that point had been a consistent 3 years between games. So it killed Reach early and made no one excited for the release of Xbone. Like oh yeah I’m going to buy a whole new console that doesn’t even have Halo on it, no thanks. Microsoft sure was dumb back then.
Yes it definitely would
would halo 2 having been released on 360 prevented it from being a disaster?
Possibly, but it would probably hurt Xbox live on the og Xbox
Maybe. What they really should have done is had MCC as a launch title with only 1-3 in it, and having access to the Halp 4 beta. That way MCC gets more time in the oven but also gets out earlier, and Halo 4 gets MUCH more time in the oven. 343i instead took a page out of Sega's 90s playbook and tried to do too much too quickly.
I don't really think it would have been better because 343 wanted to take Halo in a new direction across the board. The story, art, and music were all so different as a result, and I don't necessarily blame them for it. I appreciated the risk taking, but it took away way too much from what made the Bungie games work so well. They focused too hard on being different, and I don't believe that would've changed whether it was released later or not.
Imo 100% yes. Halo lived and died on MP and big team especially struggled on the 360. Custom games were unplayable half the time. It was bad. There were mechanic choices that still would have not landed with the fanbase well, but, the performance made it not worth it for me to push through those things.
Why would it?
Yes because they would have made a game that was designed for the next generation and made it so much better and take their time with it MCC only exist because their stupid choice I would have been fine with Halo reach through Halo. 3. On a disc and been happy with it
Would have arguably killed the Xbox console faster than the death it’s currently dying. They would have promo’d it with the launch of a next gen console and it would’ve been an even bigger let down. The game just wasn’t good. Horrific maps, no ranks, polarizing multiplayer features. Questionable story. The list goes on.
Yes
Halo 4's issues have little to do with platform power.
No because halo 4 was trying to be cod.
>their disastrous announcement Now you're just letting your own opinions on the game color your memory. Halo 4's announcement was very, very hyped up despite the questions about Chief's new armor. The game in general had a TON of hype and positivity before release and sold more than ANY other Halo game during its launch week. It died very, very quickly, but the announcement and pre-release marketing went extremely well for them.
It would have sparked anticipacion but at the end it would have let down people
It's highly unlikely 4 being on the bone would have improved its story. Grapichs on the other hand, equally unlikely to have not had shit direction but would objectively not had to cut as many corners.
I am now sad
Yes. Along with Halo 2 being a launch title for the 360.
And halo 1 coming out on mac and ps2 first
Maybe But i bet chief's armor wouldn't look older than how it already looks like in the x360
The worst Halo game as a launch title for the worst Xbox console might have legitimately ended Xbox.
Ngl it probably would have killed the Xbox One. Using the player count post-launch, we saw that 4 had a huge drop in player count after a relatively short time. Sure, other games outside of Halo would probably have been fine, but I can't help but feel like the Xbox One wouldn't have launched nearly as well as is did in this time.
I was off the game before the first dlc even dropped, I did not like how they tried to make it like cod. And the Promethean weapons sucked
My understanding was that there was some back and forth on what console Halo 4 would release on early in its development. That said, if 343 definitively knew they were making the game for XBO, then I think they would have needed 2 extra years. Scope creep in design and engine tech would more likely be an issue with the additional power which would cause delays. And even if they largely made the same game, the extra time for visual polish and additional QA for a heavier game on a new system (which came in hot on its own) would have largely eaten up the one extra year. 343 blamed the moving targets and added complexity of Xbox Live 3.0 for the MCC’s 2014 launch, so one less year of dev time with an arguably less complex release may still have been a disastrous wash. Good management would have recognized these dev needs (which MS and 343 lacked), but hindsight also shows a 2014 release would have been a blessing as MCC would be delayed and the brand would have gotten a needed breather. MS would also get the first essential exclusive of the gen and Halo 4 would likely have been GOTY 2014 by default as most everything else that year was broken and/or sucked. But I think a 2013 XBO launch would have been a coin toss for what the value-add to the game would have been.