Halo’s foundational gameplay loop can’t save this campaign from mediocrity. But for every well-designed battle, there’s one that only makes spatial and strategic sense if you’re playing co-op (which you can’t do locally!) or one that repeats itself several times over (looking at you, Warden Eternal). At its best, Halo 5’s encounter design facilitates kinetic aggression, rewarding the player for making constant, full use of the arena layouts and resources. Though tonally dissonant, the new Spartan powers expand the dynamics of Halo’s moment-to-moment gameplay, complementing new enemy mechanics with melee and movement options that can be thrilling to chain together. In many ways, this is Halo’s least satisfying chapter.īut not by much. The game also repeats Halo 2’s mistake of ending on a resolution-free cliffhanger. Cortana’s tyrannical bent works on paper, given her history with Halsey, rampancy, and the Gravemind, but her resurrection is hasty, and it dilutes the power of her sacrifice in Halo 4. The game’s narrative decisions are perplexing. From the opening cutscene, in which Osiris wipes out Covenant troops with weightless, Marvel-esque bombast, Halo 5 is a stark tonal departure not only from the series at large but especially from Halo 4, which risked a personal, downbeat, and thematically fertile descent into Chief’s fractured psyche. Long gone is the mystery and solitude that defined Halo in 2001-even Chief’s scant appearances surround him with faceless, indistinct teammates. The rest star Fireteam Osiris, a charmless group of Spartans who don’t move the story forward so much as they react to it. It barely even qualifies as a Master Chief story: of the fifteen campaign missions, only three feature the Chief as a playable character. Surprising no one, Halo’s weakest campaign is the much-maligned fifth entry in the Master Chief saga. Just call me the Prophet of Truth, who, as we know, was 100% right about everything. I completed each campaign on the Normal, Heroic, and Legendary difficulties to get a diverse sense of their design strengths and flaws-so this ranking is indisputably correct, whereas all others are hopelessly compromised. This ranking only considers the FPS campaigns, so the multiplayer suites and Halo Wars titles have no sway here. With a TV series underway and campaign expansions in the works, it’s the perfect time to look back on the stories that started it all. Like a ring arcing across the heavens, the Halo series has looped back into itself with Halo Infinite, its critically acclaimed eighth game and slate-clearing soft reboot. The last time Halo was as popular as it is now, Spider-Man 3 was still in theaters-just look how far we’ve circled.
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