Halo used to be a juggernaut in the gaming industry. Its success is the reason the Xbox even exists today, with Halo serving as the system-selling launch title for the original Xbox. When the 360 came around, Halo 3 continued to sell Microsoft consoles and became the highest grossing game in the series. New Halo titles used to be events for gamers and now, we only get controversial or lackluster entries. Worse still, the series seems to be on life support. There’s no 10th anniversary remaster for 3 this year and 343 Industries has confirmed 6’s reveal “won’t be soon.”
Halo’s previous success put it as a solid rival to even Call of Duty. However, Halo 3 was a peak from which things only went downhill for the franchise. The next entry we got in the series was Halo Wars, an RTS made specifically to be played on Xbox 360. While different from past games, Wars didn’t sell anywhere near as well as them. Ensemble Studios, the game’s developers, were even shut down before Wars released due to controversy with Bungie.
Then came Halo 3: ODST which, while most applauded what content it had, was panned by many critics. The biggest complaint was that it cost $60 but felt more like Halo 3 DLC than a full game. The final game made by Bungie was Halo: Reach. While many applauded it as a quality send-off from Bungie, many others weren’t fans of the gameplay changes. From what I noticed, this was where the first major wave of people left the fandom.
Bungie left to work on Destiny and 343 Industries was created by Microsoft to continue work on the series. Their first big project in the series was a remaster of Combat Evolved and, despite positive reviews, it wasn’t anything new. Halo 4 ended up being 343’s first big expansion of the franchise. It ended up being an incredibly polarizing game due to major changes in aesthetic, gameplay, and music. This game marks the beginning of the 343 era, but that also meant that Bungie purists lost interest in the series.
From here on Microsoft decided to release a bunch of minor games. We got Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike, a duo of top-down shoot ‘em ups that went under the radar of most gamers. When the Xbox One came out, we got our first teaser for future Halo projects. This included hints at a new game, a mini-series, and even a Steven Spielberg-produced TV show. However, next to nothing shown at the E3 2013 conference ending up coming to fruition for the series besides the Ridley Scott-produced mini-series.
Then 2014 came around and we got the remaster of Halo 2 with The Master Chief Collection. Hyped as potentially being the first system-selling game for the Xbox One, it ended up being incredibly disappointing, with a plethora of bugs and shoddy multiplayer servers. Once more, many fans lost faith in the series. Halo 5: Guardians looked to rectify these mistakes the next year, but it ended up being the most polarizing entry in the series. Most agreed its multiplayer was fantastic. However, it shipped with a campaign many found short and uneventful, it added micro-transactions to the series, and it didn’t even have split-screen.
This game ended up being the last straw for many, myself included. I’m personally no longer excited about this franchise’s future. Halo Wars 2 was a breath of fresh air, but it wasn’t fantastic and it seems to be all we’re getting this year from 343. There are still plenty of chances for announcements throughout the year, but if 343 didn’t have anything to show at E3, that’s most likely a false hope. As bleak as things seem for Halo, 343 seems to be taking their time and focusing their resources on 6. Here’s hoping that the series can regain its lost fanbase and become a respected shooter once more.
The never-ending saga surrounding Microsoft’s proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard has a new participant. Today, Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from the state of Washington, said some things about the subject that were hard to understand.
The senator, whose remarks were reported on by ResetEra, spoke at a Senate finance committee hearing on “the president’s 2023 Trade Policy Plan,” which we are sure was quite interesting.
Senator Cantwell said that she had been told that Sony “controls a monopoly of 98% of the high-end game market” despite the fact that “Japan’s government has allowed Sony to engage in blatant anti-competitive conduct through exclusive deals and payments to game publishers, establishing games that are among the most popular in Japan.”
This 98% statistic is highly deceptive because it ignores PC, Nintendo, and mobile games and instead refers to Sony’s adoption rate over Microsoft in Sony’s native country of Japan, a fact that shouldn’t surprise anyone who is even somewhat familiar with the video game business.
What can we do to rectify these problems and create a level playing field, she said of US Trade Representative Katherine Tai after charging Japan’s Federal Trade Commission with improperly failing to look into this purported “exclusionary conduct”?
It is absurd to claim that Sony has a monopoly on the Japanese video game market, as Luke Plunkett of Kotaku correctly points out, “because Sony doesn’t even have a 98% share of the market for the God of War series, a title they own, as Steam is getting 30% of every sale on PC.”
It goes without saying that we can’t expect elected officials to be experts in every field, but this is a visible step at a time when the ongoing attempt to buy the company is at a very important point.
Is it significant that Microsoft, along with Nintendo, maintains its headquarters in Redmond, Washington—Senator Cantwell’s district—or that Microsoft has given Cantwell more than $500,000 over the past two decades? Let us leave that up to you.
Pizza Possum is an arcade action game in which you, a possum, attempt to consume as much trash as you can without being discovered. It is a web-based sequel to the anarchy simulator Untitled Goose Game.It will eventually be available on the PS5.
We couldn’t help but notice that the possum in the title doesn’t look like the cute Australian possum that comes out at night to visit people.On the other hand, it looks like the horrible North American opossums are the ones that will attack trash cans and cause general chaos.Even though we think the second choice was better in terms of theme, we prefer the first one and are happy to explain why.
Your thoughts on Pizza Possum? Does it possess the necessary mass appeal to successfully skitter along the back fenceline while setting the dog off in the process?
Resident Evil 4 is now out, and the excellent remake can be bought right away.Even though you probably plan to play it all this weekend, you can take comfort in the fact that The Mercenaries, Resident Evil’s almost-required challenge mode, will be available as free DLC on April 7.
The mode’s exact details are still unknown, but if it’s anything like previous versions, you can expect some pretty hard tasks to test your skills.
You’re stumped about something? If you are still debating whether to purchase Resident Evil 4 Remake, be sure to look at our exhaustive guide for the answer or our in-depth review. Are you spending this weekend playing Resident Evil 4? Are you anticipating The Mercenaries?
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