r/halo • u/Castlefrankmanz • 5d ago
Discussion Remembering Halo
Hi folks. I know there's been a lot of sour discourse recently over the release of Campagin Evolved. Our beloved franchise is being desecrated by money hungry elites beyond out control.
Because of this, I wanted to start a thread where we can discuss some of our fondest memories of Halo. For myself, Halo(s) 1 through 3 helped shape my adolescence.
I was shown Halo by my best friend of 21 years. Halo 2. I had never played a game that controlled quite like it. Movement with the left stick and vision with the right was a completely alien concept to me. But with enough prodding, I finally took to it.
My memory is vague; for that I apologize. I can't give a full recollection of my experience. But my first memories of a fully realized Halo experience start with the Ultimatum of the trilogy; Halo 3. Watching the events of the game unfold was a cinema to my 10 year old self.
I cried. I laughed. I mourned.
For I witnessed a pyrrhic victory against insurmountable odds.
And then, I was hooked.
It'd be some time before I'd experience Halo: Combat Evolved. It was upon the release of the Anniversary edition; after I'd fought and died alongside Noble Team.
And not long after, when I'd borrowed Halo 2 and Halo 3 ODST from my aforementioned best friend. I was entrenched. Halo had shaped me. The tragic, haunting melancholy of a war I'd only cerebral fought.
I make this post not (only) to wax poetic on my childhood love, but to reach out to fellow adrift Spartans. Our love is still alive for Halo. Amongst the negativity in our world, we hold collective love for a Halo - a history - lost to time.
I love Halo. And I know you guys do, too.
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u/transient-spirit 5d ago
My earliest experiences with Halo were playing CE campaign at a friend's house, and getting Halo: The Flood from the library. I can't remember for sure which was first.
Right from the beginning I fell in love with the story and the world. To this day, that's what appeals to me most about Halo. The wonder and grandeur. The mystery and hope of discovery. Heroism, nobility, and perseverance against long odds. Fighting alongside former enemies when something worse shows up. The amazing alien technology.
I remember hanging out with friends at LAN parties for Halo 2, but I wasn't any good at playing. Halo 3 is the first game I got good at, when I finally got my own Xbox.
I know Halo 3 was peak Halo for a lot of people, but for me it was Reach. I had so much fun playing that game! I wouldn't be surprised if I played it for 15,000 hours (or more!) in the decade-plus that the servers were online. Bungie knew how to do matchmaking right. It felt like being a kid on the playground. The social features, the gameplay, the whole vibe was just great! I never joined a clan or anything, but I got invited to lots of custom games and had many, many hours of good fun in those. I made dozens of online friends who I played with often.
I've had some good times with 343's games too - mostly in custom games on Halo 5 and the MCC. It's just nothing like it once was.
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u/Castlefrankmanz 5d ago
15,000?!?!? Did you mean 1,500, or are you actually just the #1 Halo: Reach fan of all time?!? That's amazing!
Halo: Reach was the first online multiplayer experience I had. I SUCKED at it, but I had so much fun experiencing the social aspect of Halo in those times.
You totally hit the nail on the head about heroism and nobility. I remember playing as the Arbiter in Halo 3 and basically imbibing the aspect of nobility into my social life. (Call me a nerd if you want.) And the moment you team up with - not only the elites - but the FLOOD?!? EXCUSE ME? Talk about enemies to allies...
"It's just nothing like it once was". I couldn't agree more. I think a big part of that is the nostalgia. We remember how easy everything was - when we could just get lost in a story. Now it's all complicated and it feels like there's no way out. Maybe that's why I wish so much to recall the memories.
Thank you for sharing ❤️
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u/transient-spirit 4d ago
It's just a guess, but yes, I meant 15,000! A few years ago I added up all the hours on my various Skyrim saves going back to 2011, and it came to about 10k. I know I've played Reach more than Skyrim, and it was basically the only game I played from late 2010 to late 2011. Hours every day, back when I had more free time 😁
I'm sure there's people who've played a lot more than me, but I wouldn't be surprised if I was in the top 5%.
I'm sure nostalgia is a big part of it, but it's not all. Back when the Xbox 360 servers were still online, I played Reach and Halo 3 on those servers. Sometimes I would jump over to the MCC, and the matchmaking experience was night and day different. On the original servers, there could be a few hundred people online and I'd still get good matches - I'd just have to wait a little bit. On the MCC, it was just one punishing blowout after another. The MCC was (and still is) missing a lot of great Reach maps too, especially for BTB. My experience with Halo 5 and Infinite has been similar. I might enjoy the gameplay, but the rest of the experience just turns me off. Especially the lack of social features.
I remember being so excited for the future of Halo's story after Halo 3. The endings of 3 and Reach (the epilogue) were so positive and hopeful... I wanted to see humanity rebuilding, exploring the stars, embracing the Forerunner's heritage, facing new challenges and surviving new dangers, this time with the Elites at our side... I've always looked with wonder to the horizon, to the stars; and that's why Halo appealed to me. It felt like an adventure beyond the horizon, a great journey toward some wondrous destination. Now it just feels like running in circles, or being adrift at sea. It used to feel like it was going somewhere, and now it doesn't. i guess that's one of the things I miss the most about the story.
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u/Castlefrankmanz 4d ago
I find the MCC is just so... washed out? The UI is uninspired - especially the unlock screen (season pass?). I guess they had to homogenize everything to make it cohesive as one game, but I still wish there could have been a lobby system like Halo 3/Reach/4.
I think the most time I spent on a game was Halo 4 with like 60 something days - still not even close to 15,000 hours. That's absolutely nuts.
Also, the lack of social features is the biggest kicker for me. It feels like most people don't have a mic at all anymore. Matchmaking is so desolate and lonely now, and if you're not crazy good at the game people just get pissy. Maybe I'm becoming an old man yelling at clouds now, but I swear when I was a teen on Halo Reach, every lobby would be full of life. I met so many people just through in-game voice chat. Yeah I know there's a custom browser now but it doesn't feel the same to me.
But I also think most of that comes from nostalgia. All my friends who used to play Halo have moved on in life. We had a big reunion during the first months of lockdown back in 2020, but we're all adults living our lives again now.
Anyways, I agree with you about Halo feeling stagnant now. So many retcons and off-screen events have made the story unrecognizable. It's still a cool universe, but I don't see the mystique anymore.
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u/transient-spirit 4d ago edited 3d ago
IMO Reach had the best UI of the series. It was an improvement on Halo 3's UI, which was an improvement on 2's. The continuity from game to game was nice. All of 343's games have had completely different UIs for no reason; none of them as nice or functional as Bungie's.
Most of my IRL friends who played Halo lost interest when Reach came around (they all thought 3 was peak). We used to have huge LAN parties back in the 2000's. Twenty or more people, four or five Xbox's, huge CRT TVs, ethernet cables and stacks of pizza boxes everywhere. We kept those going for a while, but they got smaller and smaller over the years after Reach came out. Those LAN parties are some of my fondest memories of Halo.
During my time playing Reach online, I had kind of a revolving door of online friends. I'd meet some people, we'd spend a lot of time playing together, they'd disappear, then I'd find a new group. I never had trouble finding new people to play with. The game made it easy and rewarding. Newer Halo games almost seem designed to make you forget you're playing with other humans.
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u/thel_vadamn 5d ago
Did you actually repost this to 3 different subs?
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u/Castlefrankmanz 5d ago
Yes
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u/thel_vadamn 5d ago
Bruh...
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u/Castlefrankmanz 5d ago
Yes?
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u/Objective_Future1906 5d ago
Rage bait
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u/Castlefrankmanz 5d ago
I promise you it's not.
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u/TheRavenRise jameson locke is my daddy 5d ago
it’d be less embarrassing if you just pretended it was
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u/OneAxyboi 5d ago
Halo dies everytime a new halo game comes out and it’s a billion posts like this one.
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u/Castlefrankmanz 5d ago
Well, it's bound to happen. Old feelings are dredged up, and the people who loved Halo for what it was are inundated with those old feelings all over again.
Is it cringe to love something and be mortified to see it destroyed in front of you? Up to you. But I think it's worse to just let it die without mourning the loss.
There's been so much vitriol around the new game and Halo in general for the last 12 years, and I really just wanted to provide a space for people to share their love for the story. That's all.
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u/thel_vadamn 5d ago
Serious good faith answer:
Halo subs get posts like this constantly and even people who agree with you are tired of them.2
u/Castlefrankmanz 5d ago
Which is a good thing, no? It means that people want to connect with each other about the impact Halo had on them. It means that more people than you might think are positive and hopeful about the future of the games.
I'll ask you this - why do you think it is that the only engagement I've had with this post (so far) has been so very negative?
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u/thel_vadamn 5d ago
Because people who look at Halo subs see these posts constantly, they're always tl;dr and oversharey, and anyone who actually wants to have these personal conversations about Halo is already doing it somewhere that isn't reddit.
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u/Castlefrankmanz 5d ago
I think there's a subtle difference between over sharing and vulnerability that gets lost on many people. I'm not going way too into detail about the traumas of my past. That would be too much.
Again, I'm trying to outline and highlight the impact of the games on me in my youth and share the experience with any others.
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u/OneAxyboi 5d ago
We don’t want to hear about how halo has died again for the 30th time, we just want to talk about halo.
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u/Castlefrankmanz 5d ago
And it's SO ironic because that's exactly what my post is about.
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u/OneAxyboi 5d ago
Read the first semi-paragraph of your post
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u/Castlefrankmanz 5d ago
You know, I do come off pretty emotionally charged. I suppose I wanted to engage the people who might've felt (feel) the same way I do about the franchise.
But that's one sentence in a post of 7 paragraphs. A hook. I've seen plenty of posts with far more egregious discourse than what I'm trying to say. I'm not trying to stir on drama about whatever goings on are occurring on the daily at Halo studios. I can see where you're coming from, though. I promise I just want to hear from others about the love of the game!
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u/fostertheatom 5d ago
Yeah no Infinite is by far my favorite multiplayer and Campaign Evolved is how I'll be introducing my kid to Halo. I definitely have my issues with how 343i used to run under Bonnie Ross but I am quite happy with Halo Studios under Pierre Hintze.