The rebirth of Halo?

 

Come to me but a handful of years back and ask me what I think about the current state of Halo and I would stare you blank in the face until you just assume that I died and left the room- but since then I've availed myself of the entire Halo saga short of Infinite- simply because Infinite wouldn't load on my computer for some reason- otherwise I've played them all. And to be honest with you, even lacking the multiplayer experience for these games which are half known for their online community, I can taste the downfall of quality. Genuinely. Those first few games hold up incredibly, I still get the itch to go through Combat Evolved to Reach every now and then- but from the very moment that 343 took the reigns- the games started to stink. And remember- I went in thinking that 343's first game was Guardians- I hated 4 before finding out they worked on it! That ain't bias, that's straight game, baby!

The truth is that ever since Bungie left Halo the franchise has been on a downward trajectory that has coincided rather roughly with the collapse of Microsoft as a super power in the video game space. Super sad, all round. Oh, and now Bungie is currently being fed through a wood chipper by their new Sony bosses- with Marathon as their only saving grace providing it is a slam dunk mega hit... which it actually might be because that Studio is a generally trustworthy sort that can slap together a decent title even when they're on the backfoot. (You know, providing that Sony left enough remaining staff after the layoffs.) Which is to say, there ain't no 'call back the parents' to try and breathe life into Halo once more. Heck, a decent chunk of 343 were Bungie staff branching out to dedicate themselves to the Green man. Didn't turn out too well.

Halo Infinite is where the ball was supremely dropped, however. After game after game of disappointment, usually followed by some sort of broken promise around post launch support (Not that anyone was crying about the lethargy inducing Spartan Ops being quietly downsized)- they decided to put all their eggs into a Live Service focused Halo entry... and then forgot the live part. Seriously, Infinite's Support was glacial ontop of being underwhelming, and it resulted in a confused audience that very much wanted to engage with the solid foundation provided- but with precious few avenues through which to do so. They led with gregarious predictions of years worth of support, earning the name infinite- only to peter out within a few months and drag themselves the rest of way to achieve the bare base requirements to make a complete Halo product. Again, big shame.

And in the face of something like that, knowing that Halo is no longer really worthy of being called Xbox's flagship: honestly, I'd want to change my name too. Then leave the country and take up a new profession serving sweet treats in a mall, before my ever-present self-destructive thirst for excitement wrapped in a veneer of false-greed calls me to a series of petty heists that end up getting my back on the radar of those I was trying to escape from all this time... what was I talking about? Oh right, so 343 literally changed their name to 'Halo Studios'. And it makes sense- there hasn't been a single good Halo game with 343 printed on the box art. I think. (Did 343 manage to get their name on Creative Assembly's Halo Wars 2? I can't confirm.)

Still- that's a little cyncial- wouldn't you say? "New name, new me"? As if! Still, it's heralding a slight change in leadership and a capitulation to the gait of the industry in that Infinite's heavy investment custom made engine (which won't run on my bloody computer) has been scrapped in favour of the single most over pivoted-to engine in Gaming right now. That's right, Halo 6 is going to Unreal Engine! Of course it is- have you seen how many rendering triangles that thing can fit onto a single screen? Witchcraft I say! Automatic LOD? Sign me the heck up! And I'm sure Master Chief will look all nice and pretty with the cutesy new ray tracing bouncing majestically of his dome visor as realities slowest Sci-Fi plot lurches forward another few inches before flopping down and hibernating for the decade. That seems to be the 343 MO, afterall. 

But the game looks so pretty now, doesn't it? I mean- from the sweeping vistas they showed off... well, rock formations and... Combat Evolved locations? They look good, I guess... is this a remake? Nah- there was one Flood locale they showed off- this is new stuff... why does it look so retro then? Is it Chief's Armour? I think it's the armour. regardless- the question is whether or not 'making the game look good' is the end goal of this change up- because there are so many more questions when it comes to what would make a good modern Halo game. What kind of interesting sceanrios can you cook up, how can you make the conflict with the Covenant still feel fresh, will this be the first time in the past 10 years the core narrative takes a significant step in a direction without walking it back? Can we please never see the Prometheans again, pretty please- that faction and all their weapons suck.

In all seriousness- It is nice to see there be some sort of recognition from the former 343 that something has got to give, and making some sort of effort to detail out a then and a now indicates awareness and planning that is, sadly, uncommon admits spiralling game developers. That might because they no longer have an auto-sell evergreen franchise on their hands anymore, they might not even have a Microsoft exclusivity deal anymore if things are going the way they seem to be- Halo Studios may no longer be the face of Xbox- which means these games need to stand on their own merit and to achieve that is going to take some effort. And giving off the bulk of the bitch-work to Unreal Engine whilst you focus on the actual designing- that's a sensible place to start.

Response

 Is anyone in there?

What is the single most important aspect to the functional gameplay of any one title? A thousand different games could answer that query in a hundred thousand different, but no less valid, ways; but if we were to generalise, draw a line of distinction for what effects the most games, then I'd have to crown the art of 'response'. That is to say; the relationship between the player initiating a command and the character responding to that command. Now of course, the delicates in this matter are typically a degree of software engineering and hardware management as the baseline level of quality most want to reach in a near instant button-to-action ratio, but what I propose to talk about transcends merely the speed of reaction. What I'm talking about refers to the way that the responding action can sometimes interrupt the expectation of a player and sometimes reinforce it depending on the presentation of the game.

The Souls games are probably the best for establishing that ideal one-to-one ratio between the player pressing and their avatar responding. Whether that is a swing, or a dodge or a jump- the character simply has to be responsive in order for the core conceit of the game to work; for it to be a difficult journey wherein success or failure is purely down to the act of the player and not the fickle whims of an iffy response system. The only deliberate delay between action and animation would be in the use of items and spells, which is a balance measure to punish the use of potential advantageous actions with the cost of valuable seconds. But even then, even when the purpose is fully compressive and intuitive, still we get annoyed at the sight of our sluggish avatar laboriously lifting their Estus Flask, taking a look inside (What is he expecting to find in there?) and then taking 3-4 seconds out of a busy boss fight to chug one down. It's infuriating, but only one roadblock in an otherwise highly responsive series.

Sometimes the delay in action is not down to intentional design decisions but rather the limitations of an engine not exactly designed to be the best at what it's been tasked with. Take the Gamebyro derivative, The Creation Engine used for the Fallout games. Maybe one of the most built-up-on in-house game engines in existence, the creation engine was designed to be malleable and easy to work with in the pursuit of creating massive open world Role Playing Games. But when those role playing games might happen to also involve high octane action such as shooting and explosions- then it might not always be quite up to task. Before Fallout 4 you could expect every step of the action, pulling out a gun, ADS, evasive manoeuvres, (jumping) to take just that few frames too long as the engine attempts to sluggishly catch up to what's going on in the game. Now unless the entire game is falling apart from bugs, (which can occasionally happen) the delay isn't tortuous, but compounding in it's consistency does make the titles ill-suited for being shooters, which is why the series has it's nose turned up on by the general, not typically RPG playing, public.

One of the biggest trends that really drove a wedge between action and response has to the classic, the QTE. The quick time event which would act as a tradeoff between a scripted event and a cutscene, wherein the designers wanted a specific set of events to happen but also make the player feel like they had an active part in causing them, thus take away the player's direct control and give them a single button prompt to 'initiate' the chain of events. When performed correctly these can feel like garnishes to big climatic action moments, seamlessly flowing in the battle such as with the boss fight finishers of 'The Force Unleashed'. When done not quite as eloquently, they can feel prolonged scenes of inactivity cut with pity-prompts that don't even line up with the proposed actions being performed, divorcing the player from the scene entirely, such as with 'The Didact' fight at the end of Halo 4. (What a let down.) 

Response matters most in those games where every split second of on-screen information matters; such as with the FPS genre of games. The best of the best offer near perfect button to action relation so that at no point can dissonance ruin those momentary bursts of exciting action and violence as they so often do. For me the original Destiny was the apex of this, with perfect popping ADS, weighty but not clunky movement and just the right amount of aim assist to not overpower the player whilst not leaving them feeling like blind mice missing every shot. So pinpoint was that perfection that even the direct sequel developed by practically the exact same team, Destiny 2, lost me for those slight tweaks to control that made the gunplay feel different. Not necessary worse, just different. Which just goes to show how precise the question of control and response can become in the highest echelon's of the craft. It's an artform all of itself.

Look sensitivity, dead zones, head bob- all values that can be tweaked to minute precision to create a different feeling experience for the person behind the screen. There's no golden ratio of FPS tweaking, maybe a range of ratios, but no specific number- the rub all lies in how the developer want their game to feel and that can be just as ephemeral as it sounds. Maybe they want a floaty feeling to the movement, to simulate the weightlessness of fighting on another planet for Halo, or the grittiness of being in claustrophobic and dank underground spaces like in Metro. We don't really think about the differences of the control values between the shooter genre, and when it's adjusted correctly the player shouldn't ever notice the difference without consciously looking for it- but developing to this level is the key for what makes some shooters feel professional and others feel cookie-cutter and boorish.

Redfall knows well the issue known as 'bad control' when it comes to how it's shooting functions. Not enough to be amateurish, but just bad enough to ruin that intuitive flow that shooters need to thrive. For one, despite being a game allegedly built to work well on consoles, the game features practically no aim assist, meaning console players are left failing around with imprecise aiming on an ill-fitting control stick. Weapons are lacking that 'satisfaction' of meaty ADS and smooth hit connection. There's nothing offensively wrong with Redfall's shooting, it just isn't good enough; which can be the death nail in a genre this specific when it comes to making the player feel comfortable in play. At least Fallout has it's solid RPG mechanics to fall back on. Redfall has nothing.

The more you play games, no doubt the more refined your tastes become about exactly what controls suit you. A seasoned gamer can tell within a few seconds if a game feels right to control, and when it's handled right you can put a pro F1 driver in a simulation racer and they'll be able to handle themselves with a few little tweaks. But the magic of the matter is that most of the important aspects of controls, especially response time, are invisible to the meddling of players in settings menus. That's just the cherry on top, the sponge of the cake needs to be prepared ideally first. Some genres can get away being more experimental than others, some titles can throw away the established rules of control as we know them, but all respect that sanctity of the controller and it's response as it relates to the user - that most sacred of gaming unions.