Halo 4 is in trouble. At launch, over 500,000 Xbox live subscribers were logged onto the virtual battlegrounds of Halo 4, making for a successful multiplayer experience. However, exactly three months after launch, Halo 4 has dwindled down the Xbox live most played list with Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Minecraft, and Fifa Soccer 13 leading the way now. Halo 4 usually hovers between the fourth or fifth place on the weekly Xbox Live Charts, which is kind of pathetic considering five years ago, Halo 3 ruled the charts with utter domination. It is also not uncommon to see Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 above Halo 4 on the activity charts.
In Halo 4, 5, and Infinite, Master Chief became a more nuanced, human character.
In spite of the Halo series’ struggles, 343 deserves praise for adding nuance and characterisation to the ever-beating heart of Halo - The Master Chief. Playing through Infinite, it's abundantly clear that the events of the current and previous trilogies have irrevocably changed the iconic hero. He’s no longer the ‘blank slate’ that was previously presented by Bungie. He’s a fatigued, damaged and fallible protagonist, and one who is meandering through currents of grief, while reveling in his newfound agency. Giving the Chief a compelling and meaningful voice was no small feat, and 343 should be proud of that victory.
This article completely misses part of the appeal of the original iteration of character in the original game trilogy. It was the Chief and Cortana vs an entire alien collective. The blank slate Bungie displayed in their games was genius, he was an mysterious hero a wide audience could identify with because he wasn't as clearly defined as most characters.
The books added a lot of lore and backstory but most Halo players just want a fun game with exposition that doesn't get in the way of gameplay, it's why the Cortana level in Halo 3 was derided.
Not every character has to be a damaged soyboy, a soldier has to suck it up and do his duty.
The 343i Master Chief has is based on the books. However, in Halo 4-Infinite, the Master Chief overtime become. gradually becomes more willing to show some emotion.
It’s a law of nature that eventually, every long-running game franchise will have a particular entry that gets dinged for straying too far from what made it so fun in the first place. Your Super Mario Sunshine, your Dragon Age II, Assassin’s Creed III, and so on. Whether or not that opinion changes more favorably over time, the initial specter of negativity will forever hover it. Microsoft’s Halo is no exception, except that negative specter hasn’t hovered over one particular game, but one whole studio.
Halo 4 released 10 years ago today, and its disappointing reception was just an omen of things to come with 343 Industries at the helm.
Halo 4 and infinite have a 87 on metacritic and five a 84🤣. 343i need contents and everything else will play it self out.
Halo 4-6 are like the Star Wars sequel trilogy
They all just seem like a brand new games with small connections to the last one but no solid arc connecting them, you’re just told stuff that happened off screen in between the games and nothing makes sense
It’s like they didn’t plan a new trilogy out
I'm getting a good gaming laptop soon and i'm finally going to play through the Halo franchise again plus Infinite but i never played Halo 4 before .. can anyone tell me how's the campaign in comparison to the games before it and compared to Halo 5 ?
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Halo 4 just feels outdated. I believe people are tire of the same old game play from over ten years ago and this proves it. Halo needs a change but not too much or you will turn off everyone like what's happening with Gears of War Judgement sitting at only 90k pre orders and the game is only a month away from release. It's a sticky situation for Halo. Stay the same and people lose interest like what's happening with Halo 4 right now, change too much and people will have no interest in it like what's happening with Gears of War Judgement right now.
Nothing wrong with Halo 4.
It's a competitive market, there are heaps of great games competing for gamers attention. I'm currently playing Mass Effect 1 - 3 at the moment, but I will be going back to Spartan Ops and big map slayer when I'm done with Shepard.
Halo is still a huge franchise, but there are a lot of great games out there old and new, exclusive and multiplatform.
Get into them!
I didn't like Halo 4 compared to previous Halos. Will wait till next year.
Halo 4 didn't have a good enough variety of play styles. If you didn't use DMR and Boltshot... you weren't playing the best weapon combo. It needs to be overhauled with a balanced class system where different playstyles are welcomed (e.g Battlefield)... that or it needs to go back to its simpler roots of picking a weapon off the ground to appease the old crowd.
The actual arena combat is still very satisfyingly better than the competition but it's less pick up and play than the likes of Cod. The audience has grown lets not forget and most of these don't like the aspect of wearing players down- Cod is about seeing and shooting in a blink