Is Halo a disgraced franchise now?

I completely agree with you, the emotional factor in 4 was greater than any of the other entries; what I take issue with is the execution of the narrative. The reason so many people care about the story of Halo, despite it being, as you rightfully highlighted, just another game where an overpowered army dude saves the world, is how skillfully Bungie executed how they delivered that story to us.

Halo 3 was a particularly strong entry, really nailing it on the head with how the Arbiter both starts and ends the game by saying, "Were it so easy?" in vastly different contexts. It's that kind of careful writing that still has me a little teary eyed at the end of 3. Bungie's storytelling was all in the subtleties, where 343 just wanted to beat you over the head with:

343 really threw a hail Mary in how they wanted to kick off this new Halo trilogy, but sadly, as most developers fail to do, they didn't spend the proper amount of time and money to find a writer capable of tackling such an emotional subject; most likely, one of their extremely left-brained programmers.

I dunno, never thought it was all that to begin with.

I enjoyed Halo 1 and had a great time Halo 2. That was enough for me, it just wasn't appealing enough to go back for more.

I'm sure it's a decent enough franchise, but much like Uncharted, I'll never understand why it's been put so high up on a pedestal.

Wait, are you talking about the actual plot of the game? That should not be debatable: the first mission of the first damn game presents approximately 0 background information on what is happening. The entire flow of the game is also horribly non-linear with huge time skips and entirely different areas. The entire thing is a mess.

Well Master Chief Collection can't have been blown with over 2 million sold with a broken launch. One way you could look at it is that 343's casual friendly Halo 4 might have caught some casuals, but looking around the net, it seems Halo fans are also buying the game anyway regardless of how they messed up.

Then you have the pre-order edition of Halo 5, including the what, $300 one, being pre-ordered with no info on what the game actually is or what's really coming in those editions. I don't know what top 10 you're looking at, but to pre-order a game edition not just the game alone, with nothing, seems rather crazy to me. Halo 5 beta seems to have gotten surprisingly good reviews as well.

I suppose if Halo 5 breaks down like MCC for 2 months instead of 10 million it will have 8 million sales I guess, because it seems like Halo is break proof. I mean, I guess if it ends up like Rougue Warrior or something it may cause disaster, but like I said, would YOU pre-order a $300 special edition without knowing specifics of what's in it OR the game?

It should be. It delivered a buggy mess that happened to be in a sea of buggy messes last year.

Yep 343 ruined de series.

everyone i know thought halo4 reinvigorated the franchise.

Yep, the debacle of MCC has doomed the franchise for ever.

While everyone is still piss-off on MCC launch but for me, I honestly got MCC mainly just for the Campaigns and the MP wasn't my intention to play it right away since I play the hell out of them in all Halo games. That said, I'm not too worry about Halo 5 since MS knows to keep an eye on 343 so they won't screw up again. Halo 5 was fun though.

Umm... No. But I bet cows wish that was the case...

I think it took a dive when Bungie left. That is not to say a good game can't be made. But the good will from the original games doesn't carry over. Thus far, the games are of lesser value.

Well, according to Gamespot, the Halo franchise is rated a 6/10. If that's what you consider quality then I respect that, some people (Playstation gamers) are used to greatness though.

there has been a few 10 anticipated 2015 games on sites, Halo 5 is not in most of em anymore

You bring up some good points, Halo has fallen quite low. To go from a 9.7 to a 6 franchise.

@Mkavanaugh77: The MCC is such a mess that it left a stain on the entire franchise. Nobody trusts 343 anymore.

Not at all. Love the MCC. Play it online a lot. Nice throwback game with fantastic multiplayer from all the main Halo titles. The Halo 5 beta was awesome as well. Halo is back.

Not yet.

Let me note this to people who cite critic scores, just because something is still well praised, doesn't mean users will agree. Mortal Kombat in 3D, namely Deadly Alliance and Deception, got reviews in the 8.0 range, didn't stop them from being rebooted as if it was COMPLETELY panned. Same deal with Tomb Raider games starting with Legend and ending with Underworld. And for singular games, SSB Brawl got high regards by critics, but oh boy did the SSB "hardcore" SLAM that game for tripping and not being like Melee. The only way they would play Brawl is through a fan mod that requires a hacked Wii.

Not disgraced... but no where what it used to be. Milked to death. Still good, but not as "special" as it used to be.

lulz prob their first fps

halo 1 decent

halo 2 shit with all those bugs and hit detection

halo 3 only good one imo

never played halo 4, but lol ppl complaining about running in a FPS in 2015, welcome to the 21st century

You seem to be the high-and-mighty type. Everything I know about the first game I learned from the books, because the game simply did not explain anything.

Not really, but it was in the best hands when Bungi had it. Original game devs understand what the concept of a game series is better than any new team, just go ask old Rare, old Team Ninja, old square, old eidos, old blizzard, old bioware and you'll get the same answer.

It's dead. ODST was the last good one.

Gears still has potential though.

Yes, Halo 5 is now the last chance to redeem the series after the past few games.

Oh yeah I should've put it in a spoiler field for the people where Halo MCC is their first Halo.

You are correct that they could've done it better, the story is there, they just needed proper setting, style and tone. But they'll be spot on with Halo 5. It's been this long in development, and Microsoft is going all-in on it

I guess when I look at that brief cutscene intro in Halo 4, that should have been played before the start of Halo 1. Look me in the eye and tell me that wouldn't make it better, and explained things a little better. I also would have liked them to show the makeshift marine camp on the ring, like after Captain Keyes is rescued and before the Cartographer level there could be a brief respite level where John goes there (as he does in the book).

There is nothing wrong with the plot line of the first game, but the way it is told is unnecessarily confusing, and too reliant on dialogue (read: Cortana telling the Chief what to do at every moment).

MCc was a disaster, but it was just a collection. Not to downplay it but it's not the same as a brand new game failing.

Still, Halo will provably never be as popular as it was during Halo 3 era. Enthusiasm for the fps genre as a whole is going down and at this point just what's left to do? What can be done to make it fresh, exciting and new? Putting the number 5 at the end of the Halo name isn't going to do it, that's for sure.

To me it looks like 343 made the right choices with 5 in correcting some of the missteps with Reach and 4 but I'm not seeing anything else et that indicates that the series will return to the center of attention. They need to lead the way and do something exciting and new

@Salt_The_Fries: disastrous? according to xbot Ryan Mccaffrey it is worthy of a 9gn LOL

The campaign should be amazing. I have enjoyed all of the Halo series campaigns. I am too far gone on Halo MP now though. It just feels slow and archaic compared to games like CoD and Titanfall now. Halo MP has no mercy for the casual player. The difference in skill between the best CoD players and the best Halo players is massive. If you think you can run and gun your way through a Halo match, you will quickly find yourself going 5-15 in any given match. Halo is not a game that you can just pick up and play here and there and expect success. Whereas in CoD, you can fake/luck your way into 12-6 even if you are total crap!!

I see Halo 5 as either a revitization of the franchise or the nail in the coffin for Master Chief and 343i! They need to come strong!!

Most definitely. We'll see the full effects come Halo 5 launch.

Halo 4's population drop off and now, a crown jewelled anthology of all the past acclaimed games that brought about its significance, tarnished by shoddy outsourcing and 343i incompetence. Hell it even surpassed Drivebomb in being broken, to present.

I bet if jadedlem has posted in this thread he's mentioned and singled out cows for no real reason. What a lem.

Damn, a lot of cows here trying to downplay the Halo epicness

no, not based on one badly launched game.

Because an HD remake collection had MP problems Halo is disgraced?Cows try too hard.

This guy just put a frown on every Cows face.Truth hurts.

They weren't panned at all, They had tourneys and had legs selling really well. Both of them sold over 3 million (I think DA sold toward 5) So if they were panned that bad they would have ended up Like MK4 and Gold.

If you want to see critic scores not working look at Street fighter from 1995 till 2007.

I will say Armageddon did a little fumble, still sold million though, not much legs. So that V.s DC before the Reboot was a good way to get the Reboot to gain a boost.

Also a lot of core SSB fans just played the game you are talking about a horrid minority good lord.

Anyway Halo MCC still sold over 2 million units so I mean if Halo 5 works at least 50% better out the gate I believe people will give it legs. Longer than Halo 4? We'll see.