/vr/ - Retro Games

>>10612928
Marines.

More specifically, characters. Halo is fun and lively even if you don't fire your guns on every level with two sides of characters. I say "characters" rather than "NPCs" because both sides actually do have so much going on in the way of personality and characterisation. They aren't mechanical drones painted like soldiers and aliens. Halo battles are very heavily fleshed out encounters between "characters". I think that the foundation of a Halo successor should focus on being able to get two sides of non player entities to fight each other in an interesting way. The "shooter" element I think is entirely a mistake to focus on. No Halo successor attempt has worked because they all tried to focus on that and were boring.

Which other game can create a situation like the beach attack in Assault on the Control Room? Did you ever just watch that fight play out without intervening? I did that all the time. I think if you can create something that feels like that you've captured the feeling of Halo, on a mechanical level. From there it's a question of your taste and ability to entertain and interest people with how you use that system. Bungie are also very underrated as pop science fiction creators. People pretend to *get* Marathon now, but Halo is such a rich work itself. I would say it has far more power to filter people.

Halo is about its characters. I've always believed this.