Games Inbox: Worrying that Halo is a dead franchise

The Monday letters page looks at the most completed video games of modern times, as one reader misses the Xbox’s custom soundtrack option.

To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Halo Finite
Thinking about the upcoming June showcase for Xbox I wonder if it will have anything new on Halo? Major developers seem to be leaving 343 Industries every week and the whole place sounds like it’s in turmoil, now it’s clear that Halo Infinite has been a failure. But will Microsoft try to keep it going? Pretend it was popular? Announce a sequel or other new game? I really couldn’t guess.

I’m sure they’ll plough on with another Gears Of War, even though most people seem to have got sick of that too, but Halo Infinite was such a calamity, that managed to get worse over time, not better, that it’s hard for me to see it as anything but a dead franchise.

Not only can I not guess what they’ll do but I’m not sure what I’d even suggest. A rest and a new developer seems the obvious solution but it sounds like they’re going to continue with 343, even if it’s only in name only and they get in a bunch of new staff.

It’s tempting to say that one of the Activision developers should work on it, but making Halo too much like Call Of Duty was the main complaint before Halo Infinite, so I really don’t know what they can do. Maybe it’s just Halo’s time.
MrGoku

Generational appeal
If teens are spending less time playing games than adults is the assumption that they’ll start playing more the older they get? That seems like something I wouldn’t have imagined but okay. So what is the gateway game between Fortnite and something like The Last Of Us?

I honestly don’t know, but I guess maybe something like Assassin’s Creed or even Grand Theft Auto, which has a lot of storytelling in it but isn’t super serious. Maybe that’s part of GTA’s success? It’s kind of between worlds and appeals to both sides, not just in terms of single-player and multiplayer but old and young.

I’m curious to know what franchises soon to be older games are going to keep going well past their sell by date, but this definitely explains why some seem to keep going no matter what, as a new generation discovers them for the first time.
Watson

Too late
Very good Reader’s Feature at the weekend, about the future impact of AI on video games, both positive and negative. Although the thing that struck me is the expectedly callous comments that were only concerned about the impact on games and not all these poor people being put out of a job.

This is what makes me think politicians will do nothing because it’ll be the usual problem of no one doing anything until it affects them personally, and then it being too late once it does.

Yes, super aware non-player characters in role-playing games would be great but I think I’d prefer that a human wrote the dialogue and didn’t just scrape a bunch of gibberish together from the internet, basing it on the work of real people who are now out of a job.
Johnson

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Nintendo magic
Well, I really try to never pre-order but that final trailer for Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom did enough to assure me that the game is a true evolution from Breath Of The Wild. I then saw that Currys are offering 25% off, meaning you can get the game for £45, which is a fantastic deal.

I’ve also finally gotten around to starting Metroid Prime Remastered, something I think I’d been putting off because of my adoration for the GameCube original. I had such positive memories of playing it back then I suppose I was afraid I wouldn’t love it as much as remember. I couldn’t have been more wrong!

It’s everything I remember and more – the atmosphere is incredible. I know there were rumours of Prime 2 and 3 being made available, though not being remastered? I really hope Nintendo do make some effort with them though, because Prime looks fantastic, and I get the impression that it’s sold rather well?
Matt

GC: The rumour was that they were more basic remasters – the amount of work put into Metroid Prime 1 really did go above and beyond.

Oscar material
Mario, Luigi, and a Donkey Kong, too
A thousand troops of Koopas couldn’t keep me from you
Princess Peach, at the end of the line
I’ll make you mine, oh

Peaches, Peaches, Peaches, Peaches, Peaches
Peaches, Peaches, Peaches, Peaches, Peaches
I love you, oh
-Bowser
big boy bent
(talk about an ear worm)

Smash Bros. endgame
Somehow adding to the potential multiverse somewhere done the line, I’d like to see a Star Fox movie.

In terms of art design I love to see this world realised with a style akin to what we had on the SNES box.

Whether it used actual puppets and employed stop motion effects or used ultrarealistic CGI, that’s something I’d like to see.

I did hear once that something like that was an idea for Star Fox but got called off due to it being a costly and time consuming project.

Hopes aside, if they did make more movies based on their IP it would probably have to cater to the masses and you could probably look at Smash Bros. for an idea of how the characters need to be able to blend with each other.

Maybe at the end of the movie we could see Star Fox receive a signal from another ship, a well-known intergalactic bounty hunter, pathing the way for a Metroid movie.
Bad Edit

Lost options
This might be just me but does anyone else miss the custom soundtrack option originally introduced on the original Xbox?

Burnout 2 was never better than when screaming through a city against oncoming traffic to Cliff Richard singing Move It. Random, I know.
D Dubya

Worth finishing
Portal, Portal 2, Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite, Bioshock, GTA 5, The Witcher 3, Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, God Of War, and Half-Life 2.

In that order.

What list do you think that represents? You’d be forgiven for thinking it’s someone’s list of their best games of all time, and it would be a solid list of it were.

But, according to the site HowLongToBeat these are the games that get finished the most. So unsurprisingly there’s a link to quality and the desire for the player to make it to the end. Obviously, popularity comes into it too, as these are based on raw numbers rather than a percentage of people who finished them as a ratio that owned them.

Makes you think why people finish some games and why they give up on others. Maybe a Hot Topic?

I know I’ve given up on plenty of games, usually not because they’re bad games, sometimes I simply feel I’ve got enough from that game and want to dedicate my time to something else.

Case in point was I started to play Horace earlier in the year. Great game, very nostalgic and undeniably British, also quite dark, would definitely recommend. However, after a while the amount of enjoyment I got from it started to wane. I checked online and I was only about halfway through, so I thought I’ve enjoyed it up until this point, excellent value for what I paid, but I wanted to try something else.

But other games either the quality of the moment-to-moment gameplay or the need to see where the story went carried me through to the end.
TheTruthSoul (PSN ID)

GC: It’s an interesting thought, we’ll give it a go.

Inbox also-rans
I like that theory about Midna in Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom. The Twili music was so blatant I really can’t think of another reason for it to be there and it’d be cool to see here again. But will it be in here human-ish form or as the imp? I never quite understood if the imp was strictly a curse or if she looked like that sometimes anyway.
Gifford

There’s been a lot of negativity around Final Fantasy 16 but I agree that the last trailer and footage from the State of the Play was actually really good, I’m now interested. It was certainly a better showing than for Suicide Squad!
Dobbs

This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Roland, who asks if you could reboot any series what would it be?

What franchise are you currently unhappy with and what would you do to fix it? It could be a soft reboot, which keeps the the same continuity but focuses on new characters and gameplay or a hard reboot that doesn’t necessarily keep anything from the previous games.

What are your main issues with the franchise at the moment and why is an ordinary sequel unlikely to fix them? Do you think the reboot could’ve been avoided if changes were made earlier or do all series need them from time to time?

E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

The small print
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MORE : Weekend Hot Topic: What animated video game movie should be next?

MORE : Games Inbox: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom trailer reaction, Final Fantasy 16 showcase, and Disgaea RPG

MORE : Games Inbox: Does 60fps really matter, Dead Island 2 hype, and Final Fantasy 16 apathy

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