So this one is supposed to be like Destiny right? In the sense of a continuing story / multiplayer and maybe not so much with the single player campaign?
Also I think I read this will be immediate launch on PC as well? I think MS needs to rethink decisions like that, if they want Xbox to succeed. But that's another conversation completely.
I'm trying to remember my Halos.... played 1 on OG Xbox but didn't love it. Never played 2. 3 was pretty good on 360, ODST was also good. Halo 4 was solidly meh. I skipped xbox this gen so I've never played 5. What started out as this new, totally different type of FPS is now kinda like pretty much every other FPS now.
All the information gleaned so far points to a traditional Halo experience where the campaign is solo or coop and multiplayer is completely separate. The only difference is the campaign going semi-open world with the main story and quests you can choose to do or not do.
Yes, Microsoft's strategy seems to be to "flood the shelves" with software based on all the studios they're buying up, and part of that strategy is releasing games on every platform at the same time. I don't think they will be measuring the success of the Xbox brand going forward based on consoles.
I'm playing back through the first right now as part of the MCC, and the story is really the only thing special about it. The gameplay dumbed down multiple generations of first person shooters that came after it, and it feels just as shallow now as it did then. The level design in the campaign is also repetitive and just drags on for no apparent reason. I am reminded of
review of Kreed: "See, a lot of these areas are copy and pasted: Whole hallways, rooms... so it gets a little confusing." The mechanic of going through an entire level to find a key/complete an objective only to have to backtrack through the whole thing again is also here.
I never finished the second game, as it suffered from the same issues. Only this time, you had the illusion of complexity by the levels mostly occurring in outside areas. The Arbiter was also very dull. Still, the story was pretty good up to the point I could not stomach the gameplay one more minute. We'll see how my MCC playthrough goes this time around.
Third game I have good memories of. Most of the levels were actually about pushing forward to an objective and things changed up to increase intensity as you progressed. Seems like Bungie learned a lot about pacing after the first 2 games, finally.
I never played through the other games. I started up 4, but I have the memory of rolling my eyes constantly throughout the beginning of the game and just stuck to the multiplayer. I actually found the multiplayer in 4 to be pretty good, contrary to most saying it was bad. A lot of the complaints seemed to be about things I didn't care about since I'm not an aspiring, stuck-up "professional."
Overall, Halo has always been a very mediocre game to me and I never understood the praise showered upon it by so many. Not to mention the aforementioned fact that it ruined nearly every FPS game coming after it, much like World of Warcraft did to MMORPGs.
