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First of all I just want to say that if you disagree with anything I'm about to say, I'm totally fine with that. Please don't get offended by it, but try to take into mind what I'm saying here. I don't think you'll regret it. A lot of people (whom I consider to be scared of chance, personally) claim that Halo multiplayer was ruined with Halo Reach and even further with Halo 4. They say that Halo needs to go back (devolve, basically) to the way it played originally. I've always sat back and watched as so many people have made these ridiculous claims, but today I'm taking it upon myself to explain why these claims are in fact, wrong. Halo's gameplay for the first 3 games was broken, and Halo Reach (and especially Halo 4) took the right steps to fix the many glaring problems with the franchise. For the sake of keeping things fact-based, I'm going to leave out those things from the original trilgoy which were only bad in my opinion, and stick to disussing those things which were in fact, bad. One of the biggest faults with the way Halo originally played was that you couldn't start with the weapon you wanted. The reason this is never a good thing, without fail, is because when you're playing a game, you need to be able to play to your own play-style. I can't even begin to fathom what benefits are gained when players all have to start out with the same abilities. Let's take perks, for example. If there's something I'm not particularly good at, such as throwing and timing grenades accurately, then I should be given an opportunity from the game to compensate for that inability, because I bought the game like everyone else and therefore I've purchased the right to having fun (if you will). So in this example, I would use the perk that lets me carry an extra grenade. This way, I'm more likely to achieve success with my grenade throwing, which is only fair. Like I said, all players payed the same money for the game, so it's only fair that the game ensures that all players are given the same opportunity for success. But when there were no perks, the game was broken in this sense because it meant that lesser skilled players had to suffer for merely lacking in a particular skill. Should people really have to suffer due to only being human and having weaknesses? Of course not. So luckily, Halo Reach and Halo 4 began to fix this fault with loadouts, which is great. Now Halo can finally begin to have legs of its own, and I find it quite saddening that so many people start to hate on the franchise when it finally gets to be an experience that works. Another fault with the way the original Halo games played was that they were too predictable, meaning that the game didn't create enough random elements for the experience. Do I really need to go into why this is blatantly a bad thing? I guess so. Not having randomness means: 1) There is less variety in gameplay. If I know what power weapon is going to be in the hallway on a map, and I know when it's going to be there, where's the fun in that? Fun comes in to play when we don't know what it is we might get or when we might get it. 2) It gives too much power to skilled players. All players should have equal opportunity to achieve success in the game, because as I pointed out earlier, all players payed the same money for the game. This means that it is objectively bad game design to provide players with opportunities which can require large amounts of skill to take advantage of. When you put a power weapon in a certain spot on a map, then the skilled players will more often than not get it because they can target their skills to attain that weapon. Whereas when the power weapons spawn in random places and at random times, it takes most of the control away from the players themselves, and therefore ALL players are given equal opportunity over time. Random ordnance and personal ordnance fixed this particular problem, which is why they were such great additions. The next fault with the original Halo trilogy was that they didn't have sprint. I'm always hearing the most ridiculous reasons for why sprint is bad for Halo, and all I can really hear is "I'm scared of change", "I can't adapt", "I can't help but whine at everything new", and "it's not Bungie so it's bad". A lack of sprint was a fault that needed to be fixed. Period. Why shouldn't I be able to run away from encounters I'm losing? Why should my enemy be able to chase and shoot me at the same speed? These things are claimed to be "good" for Halo by many, believe it or not. The obvious reason that being able to move at full speed and shoot at the same time is a bad thing is because FPS games should revolve around choosing whether to shoot or to sprint. It should never be about doing both at the same time. Having to know when to sprint and when to stop so you can shoot makes it more like real life, and it also adds another skill you have to think about, and that's why it's nothing short of one of the best additions to the franchise that has happened. So as we can see, Halo 4 has in fact done many things to make the franchise actually worthy of being played. But unfortunately, we still have a way to go. Here are some things that absolutely need to happen in order for Halo to really become a great experience: 1) Aim-down-sights MUST be included. What happens when a person aims in real life? That's it! They have to slow their movement down to gain that accuracy. They have to know when to use the advantage of one and when to use the advantage of the other. Halo is doing this wrong, even to this day, and it simply can't go unfixed as we move forward. 2) Going prone needs to be included. Which was the last Halo book you read which stated that Spartans can't go prone? Oh, you didn't? Then think twice before you start talking some nonsense about how it shouldn't be in Halo. We need to progress, people. Change is good. 3) Grenade cooking. I'm sorry, but saying that a Spartan can't go prone is one thing, but to claim that they wouldn't be able to hold a grenade for a few seconds if they wanted to? That's ridiculous. This feature absolutely must be put in Halo if it's going to be taken seriously. No game should ever not have grenade cooking, or any of these features for that matter. I must be honest, I wasn't even interested in Halo multiplayer in the slightest until Halo Reach just started to grab my attention with its improvements. What does that tell you about the franchise? Then when Halo 4 came along, I knew that something really good was finally happening with the game. I really don't care how much it resembles Call of Duty or any other shooter, as long as it starts to become a playable experience, then that's what matters. Let's keep this forward progression going with Halo 5, 343i. Only good can come of it. I beg of you, don't listen to all these people who are stuck in the past.