Halo 4 was a learning process, franchise director says
Halo 4 franchise director Frank O'Connor has taken a postmortem-style look back at the game, concluding that 343 Industries first effort in filling the big shoes of departed developer Bungie "wasn't half bad," and helped the studio learn a few things for future iterations of the series.
Halo 4 franchise director Frank O'Connor has taken a postmortem-style look back at the game, concluding that 343 Industries first effort in filling the big shoes of departed developer Bungie "wasn't half bad," and helped the studio learn a few things for future iterations of the series.
"There are a ton of things we wish we'd done better," he said in a note to fans on Halo Waypoint. "Features that didn't make it into the final game. Glitches that emerged. Missteps made. DLC fiascos. Communication breakdowns. But there were things that went astonishingly well--the creation of a genuinely competitive AAA studio chief among them. A collection of talent and souls that can do something genuinely amazing on this and next-generation hardware. The overhaul of an amazing game engine--but one that really needed to be overhauled--and an amassed education on systems, people, code and audience that will stand us in great stead for the future."
What they learned should come in handy, as O'Connor has already revealed that Halo 5, or whatever they may call it, is currently in development.
In addition, the blog post set out plans for the rest of the Season 1 Spartan Ops episodes and game updates. The updates begin anew on January 21, with each offering five new co-op missions, two new specializations, and some matchmaking playlists, including the popular Grifball, and some Forge test maps.
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Shacknews
replyJohn Keefer posted a new article, Halo 4 'wasn't half bad,' game director says.
Halo 4 franchise director Frank O'Connor has taken a postmortem-style look back at the game, concluding that 343 Industries first effort in filling the big shoes of departed developer Bungie "wasn't half bad" and helped the studio emerge as a top-tier player in the game development space.-
Did anyone find Halo 4 disappointing?
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I thought the campaign was too short and the story too hard to follow. Instead of people saying, "Wait- what's a Didact?!?" all of the characters were just all, "We have to stop that Didact!"
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Seconded ... I had a lot of fun playing it, it looked gorgeous on the 360, and had at least one great song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO-LUmfowLw
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I'd have to agree with this, the single player campaign felt short, the missions were bland compared to some of the interesting situations from Reach... and the new enemies were honestly pretty bland and one-note.
After all their touting that they were bringing a lot of new stuff to the table, they really just ended up delivering a beautiful (and great sounding) game that took absolutely NO risks with a franchise that's now technically six games old (I think).
Of all the directions that could have taken things with Halo's story, I think they picked a pretty bland direction. It's kind of the same thing Bryan Singer did with Superman... he made it a love story when all we really wanted was to see him shoot lasers out of his eyes and fight aliens. Halo 4 made Halo a story about the nature of humanity... when really we all would have been fine with a story about Master Chief coming back to beat some new, better designed alien ass. -
I must admit that I am looking forward to the next Halo books. I need to read the Forerunner series by Greg Bear, then the upcoming third book in the Glasslands series.
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I haven't read the series that starts with Glasslands yet, but I can say that the Greg Bear books are good- they read like some old-school Heinlein sci-fi, which is a neat shift for Halo story-telling.
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Loved Heinlein. Starship Troopers was very good.
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Having never played Halo before, I enjoyed it. I haven't played MP though.
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The story was awful, it was basically we must stop this word we've made up, with this other word you've never heard or else word you've never heard will happen. Also it was basically run to this area, push this button, run to next area, push button. MP is fun as always.
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Haven't played it yet but the story has always been bad in the main Halo games
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Halo 4's story uses a few things that were introduced (or at least used) in the novel Halo Cryptum. I guess the story fit perfectly to me because I was already aware of a few of it's elements, so nothing felt made up to me. If I didn't read Cryptum, I would have been confused.
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I've never been amazed by the Halo games. I've found them fun to play through and have finished each one (which is saying more than I can for other games I like; I don't always see the end). That said, Halo 4 felt exactly like Halo Reach with different (awesome, btw) music.
I didn't find it disappointing, but at the same time, I've never felt that Halo is god's gift to shooters that so many others do. -
I did. As an audio guy I have to say they messed with the sounds too much and the music. Also, the Promotheans pissed me right off.
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Quite disappointing, to be honest.
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It was. H4 does not measure up to the older games. H4's story is just not very good, being confusing or outright silly at times. Gameplay wise, the new enemies (i.e. the prometheans) that 343 cooked up were hyped to the extreme but in hindsight they didn't really add much to the game. The flood would have been more fun to fight.
Multiplayer is in trouble. I could write a wall of text on it but the short of it is they copied too many gameplay elements from Call of Duty and lost what made Halo's multiplayer unique. The online community is a fraction of what it once was and continues to shrink. Go to halocharts.com. The daily peak population for H4 is already less than Halo Reach's numbers at the end of Halo Reach.
This public statement from O'Connor tells me that he is aware that 343 is not off to the shining start they thought they'd be. For all the resources and time that 343 had to craft this game, I think they under delivered by quite a bit.
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Holmes was Creative director
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If I haden't read Halo Cryptum before I played the game, I would have been confused. 343 brought some elements into the story that have only been used in the novels and other mediums.
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