I mean, Halo coming to the PS5 is "fine." I said it over on bltn.net (this link will stop working in the future), but Microsoft's current plan seems to be weakening the Xbox brand on purpose in the hopes they can be first in line on the bleeding edge future where game consoles cease to exist. It's basically the same gamble that lead to the rise and quick death of Google Stadia.
This is apparently also on top of a company-wide mandate from all of Microsoft that all divisions must turn over a 30% profit margin. As in, they have to be making 30% more money than they are spending on materials. This is sort of poison for the Xbox division, because both Sony and Microsoft are notorious for burning the candle at both ends and just barely making back what they spend. That's where we get two separate price hikes from. The mothership is telling them to turn a profit or else, and Xbox was already dancing on a razor's edge to begin with.
So Halo on the PS5? Eh. Whatever. I don't really like the look of the Halo Remake overall, at least. Xbox has been pretty desperate to "recapture the magic of Halo 1" for a while now -- that's what Halo Infinite was all about, after all. But the remake is making all these little changes that make it feel more like, I dunno, Twin Snakes or something. They're changing so many little things, and I don't think for the better.
It's making me think more about the, like, debate on what about Halo needs to be "modernized." And I don't know how to tackle that. I've never played a Halo past Halo 3. To me, Halo is slow, and floaty, and Master Chief feels almost like you're steering a sledgehammer. Being able to sprint like its Call of Duty just doesn't work for me and feels too reactionary.
Jamming all that stuff back into Halo 1 and monkeying with the game balance to make it, what, easier? I dunno about that. Halo 1 is not some kind of untouchable perfect game or anything, but when it's good, it's really good, and it broke tons of new ground in terms of creating an open "combat sandbox."
I do not really have high hopes for the remake. Ideally, you can just play Halo Anniversary on the Master Chief Collection, but as far as I'm aware, the PS5 probably isn't getting that. They're just getting the remake.
I don't think there's an incentive to make the Remake weird on purpose to drive sales of the Master Chief Collection on other platforms, but, well... it will probably exist whether it was planned to or not.
There was a twitter post talking when IP's just repeat the original without understanding what made the original work. That post easily applies to Halo and how 343 studios handled it. Especially after seeing that interview Hidden Experia did with one of the original Bungie guys talking about rebooting Halo. He made a point that a lot of what made Halo unique came from Jason Jones unique taste and that can't be replicated.
Yet Godzilla managed to escape this fate because they experiment with his movies. This has made Godzilla a very resilient and versatile character. So, you can do crazy stuff with Godzilla, and it works.
(Needed an excuse to post an image... this IS "official" art, right?)
Doom and Halo have some history "together", at least from the outside like people comparing them and all.
So MicroSoft owning Doom lead to people think of potential crossover and other things.
I feel like there's some stuff to think about, just because:
The fans (And some comparisons)
I'm sure everyone knows about older Doom fans insulting Halo fans for "picking the inferior game that ruined the genre".
But with how less popular Halo got over the years and the mainstream return of Doom, it seems things have changed where more likely the "older gamers" are those into Halo and the younger ones are those into modern Doom.
Doom fans also used to compare Master Chief to Doomguy, as if he was a copycat stealing someone else's throne when the 2 didn't have much in common besides "green space marine in revolutionary FPS series".
Let's see some basic differences at the time:
One has grey/white helmet, the other has green helmet.
One shows arms, the other doesn't.
One shows face (Even in the HUD), the other is faceless.
This is why 2016 was a bit special, because it somewhat broke those differences (And i guess the more advanced armor and an AI companion, no?).
But even Doom 2016 brought new unique elements to Doom to make it stand out, even if there's still arguements of how the series is comparable to Halo or other games.
So Eternal brought back the exposed arms and added a shoulder gun and arm blade but still kept the helmet green.
The existence of the Doomslayer can also be traced to outside factors and not just the comic book with "rip and tear" but even stuff like how people compared Doomguy to Chief, Death Battle, maybe some goofy webcomics or copypastas etc.
Doomslayer can be seen as a product of fanservice even if the comparisons to MC lead to a certain irony.
Some people also thought Halo Infinite was taking stuff from Doom Eternal like the grapple hook or even some character designs but it's clear that Halo still had energy swords first.
It's also worth mentioning that both Doomguy and Chief were treated as blank slates except MC was still a clear character who talked in the right moments (Though this again leads to differences between Bungie and 343) while Doomguy was "unfinished" enough to be carried by his fans (Hence "Doomguy").
Another thing is how both series have religious references but differently: Halo has its own lore/setting but has clever references to Christianity in it, whereas Doom came in the "Satanic Panic" era and was a goofy "heavy metal" premise (And how later games handled the setting also depends on how it affects this but still).
And if you recall the original Forerunner lore, even Eternal's lore for the Sentinel may have something to do with the idea of humanity's ascendents or something like that.
Either way, i'm sure some fans would prefer to see both series stand in their own, since Eternal didn't even explore some other parts of classic Doom's aesthetic.
Perhaps this is why i think not only Doomguy's helmet should remain white/grey but also that the Sentinel Crucible should have been an energy chainsaw at best instead of a sword.
Gameplay
Both franchises have their impacts in FPS games and in a way that makes fans see them as opposites.
Doom was the upgrade from Wolfenstein 3D that needed to happen to actually kick off the genre while Halo (And i suppose also Half-Life) led to a new version of the genre that mostly defined modern console gaming.
(Though it can also be seen as games copying popular titles when considering terms like "Doom clone" or "Halo killer")
With the FPS genre, we obviously know about later games and how they had their affects on it over time, while both Doom and Halo changed, whether it's to make them stand out or even fall under certain trends.
Despite Halo being somewhat responsible for FPS games after it, it actually suffered worse with the trends and copied the kind of games it inspired.
You can point out D3 having reloading, upgrade systems in later Doom's and a 2 weapon limit in D2016's multiplayer (Funny enough, this mode was done by the studio Certain Affinity, that worked on Halo and COD before) but the games still managed to stand out among other titles.
Even if people trace modern Doom to Painkiller but even then, the Painkiller or Serious Sam format wasn't as big as the "Halo killer" one.
This is also a result of MicroSoft wanting Halo to be their "Mario" even when Bungie wanted to move on, while 343 tries to be clever and to justify making new Halo games.
Bungie even used to have a line in the studio saying "we make games we want to play" and there's even stories of the original Halo's development where Bungie and MS were at fights over what was going to happen with the game.
While Doom was probably never meant to be a "franchise" (Specially with the existence of a new IP that is Quake and the wad/mod/source port scene) but titles like D64 still existed and D3 for better or worse was something else entirely (And D2016 basically existed as part of a ZeniMax contract and the cancelled D4 development but still turned out great).
"Within the genre" crossover
On one hand, it's neat that fighting game franchises from Capcom, SNK, Namco and some others mix up within their genre.
On another hand, you had situations where Mario and Sonic meet up at the Olympics because despite both being 2 titans in the landscape of platforming, they have a lot of gameplay differences that means it could be hard to mix them up.
Because i though it'd be fitting if Doom and Halo had a crossover in FPS format despite their differences (Even if you had to cherrypick specific elements).
Meanwhile, Quake Champions was the first time BJ, Doomguy and Ranger were in a game together but it also felt like QC wasn't aware of it (I mean, remember that Doomguy was announced through a tweet before they posted an actual video trailer).
And i know people will want something better than the two green soldiers simply showing up in Fortnite (Specially because the idea of these 2 interacting in particular is not intentional and besides, Fortnite's crossovers don't have the same feeling as something like certain fighting game crossovers or Smash).
I also think a crossover needs to portray a series in a way that feels respectable, like not just sticking to the latest entry in a series and getting creative with designs and so on.
Kinda like how Smash is notorious for its "Snake" being both Solid Snake and Big Boss.
Basically, think of something like MetaDoom as how Doom as a series could be portrayed.
Except Doom is a series that can (Or at least should) ignore lore while Halo always had a lore focus (That was eventually mismanaged).
A Doom mod called Halo: Doom Evolved attempts to merge both series and is a popular example.
Of course i'd use MetaDoom and Samsara as references but honestly, they're the best kind of fanservice.
(I think Halo also had its own "franchise mix up" mod being SPV3)
Story/lore
Perhaps a major difference between these 2 franchises is how they treated story/canon.
Doom's own story was always a mess and not taken seriously, with examples besides that one quote by John Carmack such as:
Lack of story and barely enough context.
Abstract levels and assets.
Contradicting information.
"Additional info" that is obscure and hard to look for.
Adaptations that deviate from the main setting such as the 2005 movie or older novels.
Different games might as well have different canons since D3 is clearly its own timeline.
The mere fact that concepts from the fanbase overlap with the series, be it a nickname like "Doomguy" or how anyone remembers an aspect of gameplay due to source ports.
Halo on the other hand always had a lore/universe, since a book even came before Combat Evolved and it's a series by the people that brought you Marathon.
Cutscenes, story segments, voice acting, lore... it was always there.
With this in mind, you'll understand why fans dislike 343's involvement on the series due to what they've done to the story and setting.
The most noticeable example being the Forerunners, since most of Bungie's games and material had clear hints of what they were going for.
But it's not even just retcons, there's always decisions that make no sense as if 343 is struggling to do something while trying to address fan responses.
343 Halo is also noticeably more story-heavy compared to Bungie.
And let's also not forget what they've done to Cortana (Which i believe is a case of someone looking at the concept of "rampancy" in the Marathon series and poorly copying it; Didn't Bungie themselves had ideas of making Cortana turn evil but they were dropped? Thought i heard that).
Modern Doom does focus on the idea of a universe with lore (Even if just for the sake of nerd appeal) but i also imagine that even the new id Software has second thoughts on some decisions.
It's why i think Doom works as a "blank canvas" where a certain game can simply do things differently just because.
But this "blank canvas" mentallity isn't the case with Halo, so how does one save its worldbuilding?
Well if that trainwreck of a TV show can deviate even further from Halo canon, anything should go including a return to glory... hopefully...
Still, it's clear Bungie intended to end Halo with 3 and 343 only kept the series going because it's essentially the Mario of the Xbox brand.
Art style/aesthetics differences
Both series went through visual changes as well.
Doom definitely "changed skin" more noticeably than Halo, but you'll find more Halo fans unhappy with visual changes than Doom fans.
Again, it's due to lore/story reasons since even the looks are key in the world building of Halo.
Bungie wanted to make Halo somewhat grounded while still sci-fi whereas 343 makes their designs way more detailed and "out of there", until Infinite tried to make it up and attempt to go back to a more familiar style.
There's even fanmade redesigns of 343 designs meant to make them more Bungie-like.
Doom's original art style was always messy and lead to fans have their own interpretations, even if i made a post trying to explain some aspects of it.
And most Doom games are different takes in the series, even if 2016/Eternal forms canon ties to the classic games.
You get the feeling that a Doom game after Eternal might as well play and look very differently but can still offer some stuff to enjoy and if you don't like it: The older games still have that modding legacy.
Meanwhile, it turns out that Kenneth Scott who worked on Quake 3 and Doom 3 (And apparently Hacx) also worked on Halo 4.
Then there's comments about which series is copying which one but i'm sure people will prefer that both stand out in their own hopefully.
If Doom and Halo start to have similarities, it might also be a certain revelation that modern games will have certain aesthetical trends and result in lots of comparisons.
Hell, the idea that companies could use AI art could even adhere to the fact that "sci-fi" and "fantasy" are just vague labels to companies and there's no such thing as more distinct styles or designs.
Samsara and mods
Speaking of FPS crossovers, Doom has its fair share of amazing unofficial ones like the "Smash of retro FPS" that is Samsara and even Quake 3's Generations Arena.
And then there's a franchise mix ups like MetaDoom.
Along with mods that add "original" stuff that extends the setting like Complex Doom and all those Realm667 adjacent projects.
But even Halo has stuff like SPV3 and Halo Legacies.
Sometimes, i feel like these projects could be good use of reference of "what the fans want" even if there's the danger of companies stealing from fans or going after fan projects.
Monopolies and the corporate side of things
There is reason to worry about MS owning more studios and companies.
I'm sure we all know about corporations controlling stuff people like and all.
At least Doom's source code is available and there's a lot fans can still do, but this doesn't apply to all Doom games.
MS had a history of originally buying Doom and then there's the history of the 95 Windows Doom port (And this can also tie to Direct X).
It'll also be strange seeing Xbox fanboys put Doom alongside Halo in their console war attitudes even when it contrasts the established subcultures set by older Doom fans (Not like Eternal didn't already have something like this).
Meanwhile, you also have the story of Bungie making games for Mac and Halo originally being a Mac game before MS bought Bungie and that may've lead to the Halo we know today.
Another thing is Doom's reputation of being a game with various ports in different machines (Officially and otherwise) while Halo is usually XBox and sometimes PC (Though there's the story of that cancelled Nintendo DS game i guess).
What else
How could i forget Marathon? Think of it as a middleground between Doom and Halo.
It's technically a "Doom clone" but it's also a predecessor to Halo.
Despite being a lore heavy series, it's also known for its limited presentation and abstraction.
I've already talked about what i think of the new announced Marathon game.
And the music?
Sure Doom has a lot of great music, (From Bobby, Hodges, Mick, Hulshult, Levy, TNT, Tweaker, even the 3DO port) but let's not forget: Halo had this and it rules:
Anyway, this post could've been a lot better but if a Youtuber ever makes a "let's talk about Doom and Halo" video, feel free to use this as reference or "food for thought".
Finished Halo Infinite (that and school are why I haven't been as active of late) and I want to talk about it. SPOILERS below.
Might be my second favorite campaign after Halo 4 and a huge step up from Halo 5. 343 has done a much better job at getting me to care about Chief as a character compared to how Bungie approached Chief, and Infinite is a continuation of that. Throughout the game we are given constant reminders of just how tired, sad, and downright broken Chief has become. Cortana's betrayal has really fucked Chief up emotionally, and now he has to work with her "sister"/clone who looks exactly like her. Was absolutely shocked when I saw him promise the Weapon that he would protect her while at the same time he's loading up the deletion protocols in case she turns against him. Level of cold-bloodedness displayed there from Chief that we don't usually get in the games. The Weapon herself was a great audience stand-in and replacement for Cortana as Chief's AI helper. Enjoyed her chipper attitude and naïve sincerity, contrasted well with Chief's stoicism much as Cortana's snark did. Weapon is explicitly framed in-universe as a do-over for Cortana, letting us have a Jen Taylor-voiced AI companion we like without all of the "galactic tyrant" baggage. I appreciated that they finally followed up on what Halo 4 teased by giving us a "Cortana-model" AI who isn't the same as Cortana despite coming from similar origins. Just praying that tease at the end doesn't mean she's actually going to start calling herself Cortana, that would be unbearably idiotic. Elsewhere I saw a theory that she could be named Joyeuse or "Joy" to continue the theme Bungie established of naming AIs after Charlemagne's swords, and I hope that's true. Ended up liking the Pilot a lot more than I expected, having someone act as the representation for how the "civilian" population reacts to all the batshit insanity of life in the Haloverse was a nice change from the usual focus on military personnel.
Gameplay was an absolute joy, haven't had this much fun playing a FPS since the first Destiny game. For all the hate the campaign got, people really seemed to dig the gameplay and MP side of Halo 5, glad to see 343 kept and improved on the gameplay aspect (I haven't touched multiplayer yet). Grappling around made the game feel like first person Spider-Man at times, certainly made terrain traversal a more enjoyable experience for me personally. Throwing in my ten cents here, as a fan of the Forerunner guns from the previous 343 games I was sad that they were all removed. Miss the ground pound as well, but I guess those were necessary sacrifices to try to appease the Bungie diehards.
Infinite doesn't do as much with the open world as I was hoping for, storywise the open world aspects aren't acknowledged at all. Far as the story goes all the FOBs I reclaimed and the Marine Squads I liberated might as well not exist. Gameplay wise however, conquering Banished outposts with a squad of Marines armed to the teeth was utterly exhilarating. Definitely feel like a badass hero leading your 5 man squad into enemy territory and just cleaning house with it, so I can overlook the Gameplay and Story separation.
Having gushed over how much I enjoyed it, let's get to the part that's likely to be divisive: Infinite essentially torches everything Halo 5 set up on account of how unpopular 5's plot was. Cortana and the Creator/Created War? Gone, happened completely off-screen including Cortana's death. Infinity? Destroyed. Palmer/Locke/Spartan-IVs? I'm assuming some of them must still be alive elsewhere on the ring, but as of right now it's just Chief again. Hell even though the main bad guys are the Banished, our only interaction with Atriox, their founder and main foe of Halo Wars 2, is a cutscene at the start where he kicks the shit out of Chief and the post credit scene at the end. Otherwise he's believed dead the entire game by everyone, and his follower Escharum has taken over instead. Infinite is a weird mix of nostalgia throwbacks to the Bungie era - which admittedly makes sense given this is the first game in years set on an actual Halo ring - and also still trying to push the franchise forward. We get a new Big Bad replacement at the end that's hyped up to be "EVEN WORSE THAN THE FLOOD!" which is a bit of an eye roller.
Cortana is the big hurdle 343 had to clear, and I'm feeling mixed about how she was handled. On one hand she got about as good of an exit as she possibly could get given what she became. Dying a villain, but one who tried to give Chief a chance to set things right with her last act was really the only way to try to "redeem" her without using the copouts of "actually she was mind controlled/hacked/someone else impersonated her". Infinite walked a fine line between tossing out as much of what came before as it could without completely disregarding the past, and Cortana was the one element they really had to address.
Still I can't help feeling upset that the amazing ending she got in Halo 4 was undone, just to give her a much shittier ending in Infinite, where she died after having completely fallen off the deep end. As Cortana herself says "we keep saying goodbye to each other" and every one since 4 has just been dragging a character through the mud who should've been done after 4. In 4 she died a hero whereas in Infinite she died a genocide committing monster who had a last second change of heart. Story is constantly pulled between trying to appease the Halo fans who were upset she was made a villain while at the same time having to deal with the fact that she was a villain. Final goodbye with Cortana in Infinite is well-executed - it's pretty much a meta apology on 343's behalf for how they fucked her character up - but it just doesn't feel as satisfying a goodbye as you'd want from a character we spent years bonding with.
Halo's plot has gone in a loop, fitting I know, but we're essentially right back where we started. Chief and not!Cortana (who may end up literally calling herself Cortana if that tease at the ending means what I think it does and 343 are braindead) are on a Halo Ring fighting the not!Covenant who want to destroy humanity, while another alien race imprisoned on the Ring wants to break free and threatens both groups. Credits hit right as it felt like the story was just starting to ramp up. They still don't even have a way off the Ring by the end!
Despite the entire game making ominous references to "The Endless", we end the game knowing practically nothing about them, same as when we started. Harbinger doesn't exactly strike fear in my heart based on appearance either, so I hope the rest of the Endless (assuming she was one which we aren't sure of either) are more intimidating in terms of design. Plot isn't much to write home about either, it's just Chief and the Weapon trying to piece together what the fuck happened during the 6 months he was out. Billing the game as being about "exploring the mysteries of Zeta Halo" was pretty dishonest. Other than the fate of Cortana, none of the mysteries are answered, we're left with more questions than answers. At the end we still have no real clue what makes Zeta "different" from the other Halos.
Reason I'm not more negative about the game overall is it appears we're getting more DLC soon that will progress the story, and I also understand that the new regime at 343 is basically trying to tie up the old guard's loose ends, so that they can then move on to the stories they want to tell. Much more interested in whatever Staten is cooking up than I am in trying to turn Reed's proverbial straw into gold. Plus the story is really about the emotional relationship between Chief, Cortana, and the Weapon, and that aspect is absolutely nailed and helps carry the campaign. Gotta admit that all those cutscene hologram/flashbacks to various moments from Halo lore, in both the games and the books felt very rewarding as someone who only casually dips into the deeper ends of the Halo universe.
Infinite feels like a better executed attempt at what the Star Wars sequels tried for, mixing the old and new. While I'm still sad about how badly the potentially exciting ideas set up in Halo 4 and Halo 5 were executed and are now abandoned, I'm interested in the new mysteries and plotlines being teased. 343 seems to have at last settled on a direction for the franchise, and seemingly more campaign DLC is coming soon to continue the story. Infinite isn't a perfect game, it's not the ideal sequel to Bungie era Halo or even Halo 5, but it's a damn fun game that brought some new ideas to the franchise while jettisoning what didn't work before. Excited to see what comes next for Chief and company!
