Summary
- Halo is a series in decline, but there’s still a lot of potential waiting to be tapped.
- Fans think there’s been too few spin-offs over the years.
- Halo Studios has revealed it is working on multiple Halo experiences, so perhaps times are changing.
Halo is a series that has seen better days. Once seen as a bonafide system seller for Microsoft’s Xbox, the decline of the series’ popularity mirrors the decline of Xbox as a brand since its Xbox 360 heyday.
Halo’s popularity has been steadily decreasing since 343 Industries (now Halo Studios) assumed control of the series following Bungie’s planned split from Microsoft in 2007. It’s fair to say that 343’s stewardship of the series hasn’t gone spectacularly, despite some high points like the release of the Master Chief Collection.
The Decline Of A Giant
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly where it went wrong, but the series has become less and less interesting over time. While Halo Infinite was touted as a potential return to form, the sluggish pace at which 343 Industries rolled out content for the game is seen as below the standard that people have come to expect from live service games. The game still maintains an average of 2,000 players, but that’s a smaller average than that of the Master Chief Collection, which is essentially a collection of Bungie’s Halo games.
A report earlier in the year suggested several spin-offs were pitched to Microsoft by 343 but all of them were turned down. One of these pitches was a Helldivers 2-style ODST game (pitched before the release of Helldivers 2). When Halo fans heard this, they weren’t too pleased, especially given that Helldivers 2 isn’t available on Xbox.
This disappointment was recently raised in a post on the Halo subreddit by SpectrumSense, who was showing off some of their modded ODST-inspired skins from Helldivers 2. The post is captioned, “In an alternate timeline where 343’s ODST game got greenlit…” The thread’s comments express similar disappointment at the lack of spin-off games we’ve received for Halo over the last two decades.
There’s Halo 3: ODST, essentially an expansion for Halo 3 where the player plays as a Shock Trooper rather than a Spartan. We also have both Halo Wars games, the first from the now-defunct Ensemble Studios and the second from Creative Assembly. However, Halo is a series with huge potential that hasn’t been fully tapped over the years.
“It’s stupid how few side games we’ve gotten. There’s so many cool corners of this universe that are absolutely wasted on the games,” writes theeMrPeanutButter. “Halo Battlefront, Halo XCOM, Halo Darktide, Halo Space Sim, Halo 4X Game, Halo Stellaris… Any of these games could’ve been golden but instead, we have to make only FPS games (and two RTS games) for all of eternity. It’s such a waste of potential,” replies Lost_Pantheon.
At the very least, Halo Studios and Microsoft appear to have seen the problem with their previous approach to the IP. Earlier this year, 343 rebranded to Halo Studios and announced future Halo games would be developed on Unreal Engine 5, rather than the studio’s aging proprietary engine.
The studio is now working on “multiple” Halo experiences at once, meaning the series may see a revival over the course of the coming decade.
Halo
Starting with 2001’s Bungie-created Halo: Combat Evolved, the sci-fi series has become a lynchpin of Microsoft’s Xbox offering. It spans the first-person shooter, RTS, and twin-stick shooter genres, as well as branching out into novels, comics, movies, animation, and even a big-budget live-action television series.