Does Halo Need a Break?

Today reports have hit saying that Halo is having something of a reboot. It’ll change engines, staff have been laid off and focus is more on multiplayer for now, rather than additional single player content.

That’s according to Bloomberg. And while job layoffs are never a good thing, a deeper look at the future of Halo definitely is.

And I say that as someone that thoroughly enjoyed Halo Infinite for a little while there. It’s not that it isn’t good, and it’s not that there isn’t a constant waterfall of costumes and content designed to bring me back. It’s just that Halo doesn’t fully fit into the world it’s trying to be a part of.

Call of Duty, Overwatch, Rocket League – there’s something about them that feels pick up and play in a way Halo just isn’t. Halo is an evolution of arena shooters that just don’t have the popularity in today’s landscape, for better or for worse. It needs a break to figure itself out.

And yet, the problem isn’t entirely the game. Fans of the franchise are unendlessly negative. Never have I seen more outrage over a sprint mechanic being added. I remember the arguments, I remember the toing and froing, and the point remains. You can’t win with a community that wants nothing to change and nothing to stay the same. Give them a time machine to recapture their favourite matches of Halo 2. That’s what they really want. Nostalgia.

In a matter of months, there’s every reason to think Microsoft will own some of the franchises mentioned above. Call of Duty and Overwatch, joined by things like Doom and Wolfenstein and even, to an extent, Starfield and Redfall, show Microsoft has no shortage of FPS talent. Halo doesn’t need to be part of that.

The Big Halo Reboot

But how do you come back after taking a break? Would the next Halo game be a big deal if it was announced in five or ten years? On the other hand, if you can weather the negativity online and still get playtime and decent reviews, do you need to take a break at all? Halo Infinite got 87 on Metacritic, equal or above the majority of Sony-published titles. And nobody is talking about rebooting Death Stranding or Ratchet and Clank or Spider-Man or… any Sony game. And why would you?

But this is the landscape. Halo is an online game. It’s an FPS. It’s on the other console. Bad publicity for it has been constant. It’s for some reason the flagship product, and big companies love their flagship products beyond the point of it making any sense.

In some ways this is a Microsoft problem before it’s a Halo problem. Online communities just love to big up their negatives in a way other console makers don’t have to contend with.

Hifi Rush is the first step in turning that around, and 2023 is going to be huge for the brand. Take a few years, decide what Halo needs to be next and stick to it. Make it the epic franchise it deserves to be. Reboot if need be – God of War got away with it. And when Xbox is out of its funk, and opinions have changed, see how opinions on a new Halo change too.