Complete overhauls of the gameplay engine were envisioned, including new ways of approaching physics and a huge build-out of the game’s universe and scope. With Combat Evolved being so stripped back, Bungie was determined to put everything to the mast and make Halo 2 bigger in every way. As the sequel to such an incredible commercial and cultural success, Halo 2 was given every possible push to grant its continued franchise success. With the popularity of Master Chief, it was no surprise that Microsoft quickly put the green “Demon” to the forefront as their poster child for the Xbox and gaming division at large. Its perfect gunplay, the fun variety of weapons, its vehicle range, the iconography of its characters and settings, its stoic armor-clad protagonist, its bellowing alien villains, its unforgettable soundtrack from Marty O’Donnell-every aspect of Halo worked to perfection to establish its place as one of gaming’s greatest ever, and its influence is felt still in shooters today. Whether they were borrowing from it or aiming to eclipse its legacy, Halo became the measuring stick for future first-person shooters. The terms “Halo clone” and “Halo killer” became an endemic part of the industry conversation around subsequent shooter games. Halo redefined what shooters could be, and its lasting legacy is the many innovations it spawned within the genre. Halo released to great acclaim, with many attributing the success of the Xbox itself as being due in large part to the buzz around the game. Successful game development seems like a miracle at the best of times, but the pressure put upon Bungie and the speed required to piece together every part meant that the grand achievement of Halo was all the more impressive. For example, many levels involve backtracking, reused environments, copied rooms and so on, and yet in the end, it all worked. Halo: Combat Evolved ’s development was a hodgepodge of hastily thrown together parts, changed ideas and scrapped components to fit in under the stringent and ever-shortening launch date, since Halo was promised to be Microsoft’s new killer app for their first console.Īspects of that are clear to see in playing Combat Evolved. Of course, we now know Halo to be one of the most influential titles of the FPS genre, and it is odd to think that without this change, the franchise-and perhaps first person-shooters in general-would look a lot different now. Part of this push to console also meant that Halo underwent a substantial overhaul, since before then the prototype was a mash-up of various ideas, including being an open-world, third-person shooter rather than a first-person shooter game.īy that point in 2000, console first-person shooters were somewhat of a rarity, but it was believed that with the Xbox’s innovative gamepad, a change to first-person may offer up a better level of control and more enjoyable gameplay for Halo. But after Halo: Combat Evolved was initially announced-at an Apple expo, of all things-in 1999, the game was snapped up by Microsoft, who also acquired Bungie, changing the development path and making it a launch title for Microsoft’s first console, the Xbox. Before Halo, Bungie had only worked within Mac and Windows systems, no consoles. In November 2001, Bungie redefined the first-person shooter genre with its bold Halo: Combat Evolved, the title of which points to its main purpose and achievement in the industry. To commemorate 20 years of Halo in 2021, let us celebrate the past two decades of one of gaming’s most iconic and revolutionary franchises and remind ourselves exactly why the faceless, iron-clad John-117 is, in fact, the chief among all gaming heroes. The Great Journey has had its fair share of bumps along the way, but nothing has been able to stop the stoic green juggernaut from steamrolling his way into the echelons of the great gaming halls of fame. But for Halo and the ever-iconic Master Chief, it has been anything but an easy ride since its humble beginnings in 2001. In just a few months’ time, the greatest video game franchise of all time will be celebrating its twentieth birthday.
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