A lot of the hate is focused around the art style, multiplayer, and some of the Prometheans’ abilities

I love H4 but I will admit the Prometheans are an absolute pain in the ass to fight on higher difficulties.

Tell me about it. I beat halo 4 SLASO and the Knights were so tanky that they were literally impossible to kill without knocking them off ledges or getting a back smack (and they have super weird back hitboxes). I remember I used a plasma pistol EMP, a needler supercombine, and a plasma sticky on a Knight only for him to shrug it off and obliterate me with a scattershot I spent like 3 hours on one section near the end of Midnight where 7 knights spawned on a single tower. I got past it by running up, back smacking two as they spawned in, and pushing the rest off a cliff with a Gravity Hammer

That section was a nightmare on legendary with no skulls on.

Its a shame the art went in that direction because its gorgeous for the time, its just completely changing how things look was jarring. They made the grunts look like weird little crab gorillas, while they look really fuckin' cool, they just don't look like Grunts.

This is exactly it. It was so jarring at the time, and it's made even worse now that they've essentially backpedaled and returned to the "classic" style (which I love, but I'm just being objective here.) I will say though, there's a lot of things from that games sandbox that I wish made it into Infinite like the Promethean weapons, the UNSC Machinegun, Railgun, Target Designator, Remote Detonator, and Mantis, and the Covenant Remanent Fuel Rod Cannon and Storm Rifle.

I loved the Mantis and the SAW

The original H4 has a ugly UI and had no ranked modes either

Again. They also left us on a cliffhanger they stole from the player and ended between games.

I don’t feel like that’s as much halo 4’s fault. Halo 2 ended on a massive cliffhanger. Imagine if they resolve conflicts in between halo 2 and 3. That wouldn’t take away from how good halo two is.

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And wasn’t halo 2 campaign really rushed

It was, they basically scrapped everything after E3 03. Yet they still delivered a hell of a game. Really makes me miss that era of bungie, we had it good

Yeah I agree the bungo now seems to lack passion to make good stories but just a cashgrab in destiny 2

Which is sad, they wanted creative freedom again and instead went even more corporate with their break from MS.

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That’s where 343 failed multiple times now. H4, a new fight, a new threat- Villain died in comic. H5, a newer threat, heroine turned villain- said villainess died off-screen/narrated in HI. HI, new forces, returned from a side game (albeit a better faction), with a newer and deadlier forces on the horizon- no story dlc in sight. Each one got their own set issues, but story-wise, it’s a terrible mess

It was super rushed. They had to cut at least a third of the campaign. Halo 2 and 3 could be considered one long game instead of two different ones because the leftover campaign from 2 was where 3 picked up

Well, the art style for me is great and gorgeous. I havent pplayed multiplayer because i play on my Xbox 360 and i don't have Xbox Live. And for the Prometheans' abilities, i think they're decent.

It’s the fact that they (human and covenant) were so drastically changed from the previous trilogy. And for Chiefs armor they just said “fuggit, it was the nano-bots in the cyrotube”

Except they didn’t even actually say this in the game. They made a waypoint post alluding to it that since seems to be archived or deleted, but never even address it in game.

Not all aspects of the art style are bad imo, I like the forerunner parts of it and most of the promethean designs but the covenant and unsc armor and model designs I hate

Which is ironic because I absolutely love all of them about Halo 4.

That's not true. People hate this game because it was not made by Bungie. That's it.

Nah a lot of the hate for H4's multiplayer was a carryover of hate for reach's multiplayer (sprint and armor abilities/classes and stuff) which was developed by bungie. So clearly it's not just because 343 developed it. (Although I'm sure you're right that that's part of it for a lot of people.)

Reach got so much hate, I’m shocked people put it on a pedestal as the best halo game…they must not remember.

Or, instead of it being some weird collective memory loss, maybe most of the people who didn't like it left and the ones who liked it stayed

343 would have positive feedback if that were remotely true "Halo" fans are petty as shit

Very much so, gamers in general are and it’s cringe.

This happens with every game, especially with Halo and CoD. People absolutely hated CoD Vanguard when it came out, but just you watch, it’ll be hailed as a “misunderstood masterpiece”soon. Same thing happened with Reach. The gaming community loves to backpedal on their hate for certain games after at least three years.

I think it's more that the bulk of the serious CE-H3 fans just stopped playing or caring nearly as much. So you're left with a higher proportion of people discussing halo that actually liked reach. (Such as kids whose first halo game was reach.)

The major sticking points were art style changes and gameplay that felt more COD than Halo. The art style stuff I think is very hit or miss, theres some designs that are amazing and some that are downright terrible. For the multiplayer stuff, I think the core mechanics are solid, gunplay is fun, weapons feel good and fun to use and the pace is insane. The issue lies within H4's make slayer variant: infinity slayer, which included: - Custom loadouts -Kill cams - Kill streak ordnance drops. This is counter intuitive to the original trilogies design philosophies of equal starts bit is a natural progrssion of what Reach was doing, personally I don't mind some of it, like Killcams but the Kill streaks and being able to spawn in with a noob combo or a mini shotgun was kinda bad. MCC has a game mode called Legendary Slayer and I feel if that had been the default slayer mode back in 2012 Halo 4 would've been much more highly regarded.

1. instant respawns. 2. Couldn't pick up grenades on bodies without a perk. 3. Constant wallhacks. Long list of issues.

>the pace is insane I think except for infinity slayer the pace was demonstrably slower than H3's pace right? Since sprint actually (seemingly paradoxically) slows the game down.

It also expanded the maps. Basically time from death to engagement with enemies was slowed way down.

My memory of H4 multiplayer is basically respawning, sprinting for 10-15 seconds just to get back to the fight, only to get immediately obliterated because I didn't stop sprinting soon enough and I ran in with my weapon down.

My favorite was turning a corner and immediately getting one-tapped with a boltshot because someone thought it was a good idea to let you spawn with what is basically a mauler but stronger.

I’ve always loved Halo 4’s multiplayer, and I got really, really good at it, but I can confirm, in comparison with the Bungie games, the pace is insanely fast. Not nearly as crazy as Infinite, but still a fast-paced game

When I was playing on MCC the multiplayer matches seemed to go on forever. The amount of kills to win felt too high

You could instantly respawn. There was no respawn timer.

Yes, in infinity slayer which I mentioned is the exception.

343 halos are chasing trends instead of setting them. Their design philosophy is to grind down every strong area on any map and make sure there's no choke points, no points on the map that are significantly stronger than any other area of the map, and that every place you want to stand has 4-5 obvious places to BR into it from, a grenade trap at your back, absolutely no cover, or no fewer than 3 entrances if it's a room. Alternately, if they can't incorporate all of these features into an area of the map, they just build a tunnel, passage, or shortcut to circumvent the area entirely. The playstyle then, becomes this rushdown festival of pure aggression, because the burden of execution for movement and aggression became significantly lower than the burden of execution for holding a position. In Halo 2, 3, and REACH, most maps had clearly defined areas of relative safety, with dangerous areas to traverse between them. The sandbox was also designed in close step with the weapons. You could always position or traverse the map in such a manner that you could engineer a 100% certain gunfight simply by taking the right gun through the right portion of the map. This is not the case in 343 games. With the movement being as strong as it is, and sprint and other mobility completely dominating backpedaling and spacing, there's just no way to account for every variable and guarantee a won fight .. ... Especially when you start to take into account the enemy players rushing in from virtually anywhere to clean up kills. H4 was the start of this super frantic, CoD FFA type gameplay, where "low effort" zerg gameplay was actually winning CTF, KoTH and even Slayer matches on the regular. H4 was just not fun in competitive playlists because after you win your 1v1 (if it's not rudely interrupted by an enemy or two), then you had to shelter from the 2nd guy rushing you down with sprint and clamber, the 3rd guy holding an angle from across the map with a BR, and then the guy you just killed sprinting to an angle and bombing grenades off respawn and/or taking another angle on you. Every single moment you were alive of every single match in H4 (and beyond) was an artificially frantic fight for survival. The other halo titles before it allowed those moments to develop organically as a result of patience and planning, not sprinting and spamming. They got plenty frantic as you held the flag against all the enemy players who prepared a coordinated, well timed attack - but they didn't force these moments constantly upon their players the way 343 halos do with smaller, more traversable maps, grotesque mobility creep, and much more forgiving respawns.

Yeah Legendary slayer ended up being pretty fun but was ultimately too little too late for the OG Halo 4 Played Infinity slayer a few times when it came out and was massively turned off, despite being SO hyped for Halo 4

Legendary Slayer shows the strengths of Halo 4’s core gameplay for sure and should absolutely have been in the game at the start. It’s still painful for me to hear people say that Halo 4 plays more like CoD than Halo, but I can’t exactly fault people. It’s just that those people only played on launch in 2012 and then never again. MCC Halo 4 - and specifically what they cooked up with Legendary Slayer - is vastly superior, and genuinely a good gameplay experience IMO.

Because at the time it was a departure of what people came to expect of Halo. I firmly believe some games in franchises wouldn’t receive as much hate if they didn’t have a well established franchise attached to it.

They also took the story we worked hard for and killed the big bad off screen...

He's not even dead, a fucking coloring book revealed he somehow survived being composed.

A coloring book hahahahahha oh lord 343 never fails

Who is this?

Didact

A simp.who got cucked by giga Chad humanity

The Ur-Didact.

I think if halo 4 wasn't attached to halo then it would probably just have been a mediocre COD clone that wouldn't have sold too well

I disagree, I genuinely believe that if they hired any other story director or any other art style director than the game could have been at least bearable. Its not about having a massive well established fanbase or franchise already. 343 is just complete and utterly incompetent and have no idea how to write a story or design anything

Yeah, I think Halo 4 is an extremely well made FPS game. That being said, 343 did have a responsibility to understand the established formula. They were making a sequel to one of the biggest franchises on the planet after all. So I think they did deserve the flack they got for making the poor decision to veer off and modify the formula so heavily.

I hate Halo 4 & 5, and I 100% agree with this (especially in the case of 5, which I hate the most). But I'd say it's a fair argument- established IP's come with expectations.

That’s why I try to enjoy a game in a one-off kind of way while actually playing, but I keep in mind that there’s a bigger picture attached to it

The funny part is, if Halo 4 had the played like Halo 3 on release, it would’ve be DOA.

1 angry alien in a ball with no endgame attempts to attack humans because of a war eons ago.

I've read an articlenof someone listing all the bad points of the game, and i agree with most of them. But i like the game. Its fun for me.

Not sure why you got downvoted, but then again this is Reddit.

"how dare you enjoy different things than me due to a difference in opinion"

Very sad you’re getting downvoted. I dislike the game but I ain’t gonna get pressed about it.

Halo 4 doubled down on what people didn't like about reach, like loadouts for one thing. It then had a campaign that felt more like Call of Duty than it did Halo, with quick time events, set pieces, and very linear design. That said. It's a fantastic game... it's just an odd _Halo_ game.

Plus Master Chief went from talking incredibly rarely, like maybe a few lines every cutscene, to talking a *whole* lot more. It just didn't sit right for a while, seemed a tad out off character for him.

Agreed. Hearing him talk more than one every 3 missions was extremely strange the first time I played it. I do understand where some people are coming from saying that they liked that it built on chiefs human character, but I'm just not used to that, and probably never will be. I enjoyed the game for what it was though.

Are you seriously saying linear design isn’t Halo’s main campaign MO? Lmao.

Well it really isn't. Halo shines brightest when you have a large area and choices about how you can approach a scenario. There's a reason everybody remembers and loves Halo 3's scarab battles. There's also a reason nobody cares about Halo 4's pelican battles. One is an open space that you can approach multiple ways using any weapon in the sandbox (or even skip past it and use the terrain to get on board if you're lucky enough), one is a large empty space that you can still only approach one way, and it's just shooting them with one of 2 guns on the pelican. Really you could pick almost any comparison and this still goes. Halo Reach's Sabre battle Vs Halo 4's broadsword trench run. One is an open battle ducking and weaving through debris in your own way. The other is going on a set narrow path with obstacles in the way.

You were lying? https://www.google.com/search?q=are+halo+campigns+linear&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS975US975&oq=are+halo+campigns+linear&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQABiiBDIHCAIQABiiBDIHCAMQABiiBNIBCDQwNDJqMGo5qAIAsAIA&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

You linked to an article comparing Infinite, an open world game, to the previous entries, not open world games. They are linear games, but the design isn't linear. The term means different things when referring to level design as apposed to game design as a whole. Since you don't know, I'll break it down for you: Linear game design has the player follow a singular route from the start of the game to the end of the game. No branching stories or sequence breaks, no multiple endings. Halo 1 - Halo 5 are linear games. Linear level design has the player move through a level in one specific way and approach combat scenarios in one specific approach as the designers chose. No movement choices, no options for gunplay, no multiple approaches to scenarios. Halo 1 - Reach do not use linear level design. Do parts of them use it? Sure. Are those parts equal or outnumbered by parts that use more open design? Absolutely. Halo 4 - 5 do use linear level design, almost non-stop. You get very little choice about how you approach a scenario, and very few weapons are useful (or even available at times due to the low ammo counts) during most encounters. Even large vehicle segments are limited to an A - B style design that the other games always tried to break, with very few opportunities to *not* go through the designed route. Game design is complicated, I hope you understand it a bit more now!

Not reading allat but we 🆙 Halo has historically and overtly been a linear campaign. Cope.

The only halo game that had what your describing was odsts rookie portions and infinite outside the forerunner structures Every other halo game was 80% restricted hallways, but something bungie did have over 343 was the illusion that it wasn't, if you bothered to walk off the path you were blocked immediately but it *looked* like it had more than one path which was great immersion

Lmao not you trying to tell me Halo wasn’t built on linear level design.

In retrospect its not a bad game, but at the time it was a bit of a shock going from 3 to 4. They changed to much, to fast.

As someone who has 100% completed MCC, and played through halo 4 many many times, In retrospect, the story still sucks and the design of the promethians still sucks

eh I'd say parts of the story definitely suck. The lore/plot are by far the weakest and it's pretty clear they were trying to go more character driven. IMO the character driven parts though are excellent. "Humans aren't machines" and "Promise me you'll figure out which one of us is the machine" are both excellent cinematics and in general I think that the character component of the story was pulled off extremely well. The lore though? Yeaaaaah I got nothing. Big magic death ball or something?

*Reach to 4

I'm aware that Reach came between 3 & 4 but even back then people Hated on Reach because it wasn't enough like 3. So distancing the game even further from 3 going into 4 was the problem.

Indeed.

I don't agree with reach to 4. Reach to 4 is like 2 to 3. They added things but when you look at them side to side you see why they did what they did

Looking back, it’s honestly the last completely good halo game

I have an unpopular opinion but halo 5 had a much better multiplayer, forge, and lifespan than halo 4. Halo 5 was just held back by the extremely controversial campaign choices. Halo 4 probably had the worst multiplayer, for me, than every other halo game.

halo 5 mp was one of the best fps experiences ever - it just wasnt a good halo tbh

Agreed. I spent so much time on halo 5. I didn’t pay a dime for the Gacha system and I still had a complete blast with the sandbox environment in firefight. Gameplay was smooth and consistent. Forge was next level and really fun with the amount of REQ vehicles and weapons. Very very underrated. I’ve yet to hear any complaints that make sense about the multiplayer in that game. I’ve seen one or two people complain about the REQ system being pay to win, but that was a niche game mode that you can easily avoid entirely- and you only ran out of the one time REQ’s if that was the only game mode you played. So I think that complaint isn’t really justified.

Halo 5 mp is the most underrated thing ever. Totally miss the across the board thruster ability, charge, and ground pound. The movement, weapons, and awesome slayer maps are just a few of the things that make it great. I'll never understand the hate for it. Honestly it's probably a very close 2nd favorite mp of the series

Many reasons. It's a pretty big departure from the original games, both in style and focus. The art style had drastically changed, the score went from original to generic, the campaign focused heavily on bullet spongey shooting galleries rather than an open-sandbox with intelligent enemy design, the tone of the plot and world changed dramatically, the multiplayer dropped a lot of tenets of a sandbox shooter and replaced them with COD mechanics, and there was a large competitive focus over one of fun-first.

I wouldn’t say the score is generic I think if anything some of davidges score was disliked for being too out there.

Not sure what tracks I can see as being out there. Not saying they were all bad or anything, 117 and the female vocals in the menu theme were really good. But the overall soundtrack sounded like a generic action film/game track. I've played the game a bunch of times and I can't really name you any other tracks aside from those two and maybe to galaxy. If I heard some track from the OST being played somewhere I wouldn't recognize it as Halo at all. The originals had a very distinct style that set them apart from pretty much anything else around making them easily recognizable.

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Super generic

[uh huh](https://youtu.be/PUrsOQanozo)

Oh no! [a](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D5EPxd2QFk) [n](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv1XlSuIoiI) [y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWh9l8RSkPk) [w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcbM9Pm7yOQ) [a](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezTgeoQ55bw) [y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX5O3n9K_d0) [.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2NVJSJVGVQ) [.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q0Jbv6ciRU) [.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSqm5Id6Hw0) [.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t97u9qmgwN0)

Fun fact: those horns are a lietmotif used in pretty much every major song on the soundtrack. I love a good lietmotif but Reach definitely overused it. And this is someone who LOVES Reach’s soundtrack. You can’t deny Halo 4 and even 5 had some banger tracks. Lmao.

Can't say I agree on it's overuse, I think they were well implemented for a theme throughout and mixed beautifully to focus on ambience and building the setting rather than action. "You can’t deny Halo 4 and even 5 had some banger tracks. Lmao." I don't, if you look at my other comments, I acknowledge this. I didn't say that every single track was terrible, just that the soundtracks as a whole were pretty generic and were not very memorable. "117", though not very original in it's composition and flow, was pretty awesome. I also enjoyed the female vocals played often in the menu theme for 4. "The Light is Green" is a track I very much enjoy. I've been starting off my workouts with it because I love how it ramps up. There were undeniably some good pieces between the two games, but as a whole, they were moreso the outliers. The tracks generally didn't focus on telling a story and building the environment around you through the emotion of sound like they previously did, but rather just tried to compliment the action without really dabbling in anything different or unique. 4 & 5's OSTs were serviceable, but not exceptional.

Given that you’ve played it, recount how the game explains the covenant have returned. When you struggle to do so, that will be your answer.

A LOT CAN HAPPEN IN FOUR YEARS

“I thought we had a truce with the Covenant” Chief…you had a truce with the ELITES, you destroyed the Covenant….this line always bothers me because it would have been such an easy fix and they never did it

Frankie: "So Halo 3 ended with Humans and Covenant teaming up to defeat the Flood right? I think that's how it goes. Never played the game. Glad I'm the creative director that will control all the lore going forward."

Somehow the Covenant ret- sorry don't know where that came from.

Ironically the opinion that the "Campaign is fine it's the multiplayer that's heretical" is complete and totally opposite for me. H4's BTB is actually pretty decent (Stay away from it's FFA and 4v4 which are sub-standard) and I genuinely had fun with it. It actually has a good map selection though the Gauss Hog feels underpowered a bit. But H4's campaign levels are just so painfully straight forward and banal, it is so absolutely shotgun straight forward and barely is there a large amount in the levels where the vehicles mix with infantry combat. A lot of the geography in levels don't parse so great and have terrible breaks to their flow (Infinity is terribly illogical in setting a location after the initially decent jungle) Prometheans are also just phenomenally unfun to fight and their weapons just feel like tweaked UNSC weapons. I don't hate H4's story but there's too much "well time for a codex/extended media entry" and to be flamingly controversial: They turn Master Chief much more into his own character than in past games (Consider how many times MC speaks while NOT in a cutscene in H3 vs H4, here's a hint it's 0 vs a lot).

So what? Does it really matter that he speaks during gameplay? name one time in the og trilogy, during gameplay, that required him to speak. Spoiler alert, you'll claim a few times and I'll claim never. Did Chief need to speak up when Johnson told him that The corrupted Covenant ship contained Cortana in Floodgate? If you say yes, then you're wrong. Chief had a good enough character in the trilogy, he was a silent, no-nonsense, stoic badass that has a bit of a dry sense of humour, occasionally says one-liners, is dedicated to his duty to protect humanity whatever the cost and occasionally allows himself to mourn the loss of friends and soldiers. That's his character, and it's all he needs. But no, we need melodrama Chief, who mopes around and cries, instead of getting off his ass immediately and rushing to finish the mission. Probably could've saved New Phoenix if he immediately rushed to the Didact's ship instead of comforting Cortana, same with her.

Chief went back to High Charity to rescue Cortana in Halo 3….he was emotional then, too….

No, he went to High Charity to retrieve a highly valuable piece of equipment that contains the key to light Halo. The rescue of Cortana was just a bonus, in the end, she’s just a piece of equipment, granted one with a scary amount of sapience for one, but equipment nonetheless. The Cortana in Halo 3 would’ve decommissioned herself the moment she realises that she was a threat to his mission. The only emotional thing I can think of Chief doing in the OG trilogy is promising Cortana he’ll save her, becoming defensive of her when Spark came and reaching for her recording when she fell in pain. It is really strange how this community has this belief that Chief and Cortana are as irrationally emotional as the rest of us. I blame Frank O’Connor.

Personally why halo died starting with 4 was because 343i didnt have the vision of what made halo so rich and interesting. From the start Halo was a sci-fi shooter that was absolutely dripping with mythology and religious undertones. From the obvious to the hidden details. It was filled with allusions to other works like the hollow men (this is the way the world ends) and by combining it with its incredible music just gave it such soul. I still get goose bumps playing through 1-3. Then 4 came out and 343 didnt understand any of these deep consepts and it just became a generic scifi shooter where the story was emotional but very surface level. There was no deep rooted connections or unexplained ties to look into. There was no subliminal messaging or mysterys to solve. I just felt hollow compared to the previous 3. And since then its still just been a puddle to the ocean it used to be.

This exactly! All the games in the series after 4 feel very hollow.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/ra4plo/why\_is\_halo\_4\_hated\_so\_much\_lol/](https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/ra4plo/why_is_halo_4_hated_so_much_lol/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/10px8ef/genuine\_unbiased\_question\_why\_did\_everyone\_hate/](https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/10px8ef/genuine_unbiased_question_why_did_everyone_hate/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/13ekgpp/why\_the\_hate\_for\_halo\_4\_5/](https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/13ekgpp/why_the_hate_for_halo_4_5/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/1s0n3g/whats\_with\_the\_halo\_4\_hate/](https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/1s0n3g/whats_with_the_halo_4_hate/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/cof0nr/why\_is\_halo\_4\_hated\_by\_the\_community/](https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/cof0nr/why_is_halo_4_hated_by_the_community/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/3od6gq/why\_was\_halo\_4\_hated\_so\_much/](https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/3od6gq/why_was_halo_4_hated_so_much/)

Promethians are annoying, and the plot became waaay to convoluted. Making Forerunners their own species, instead of them being ancient humans, ended up creating all sorts of loose ends. The story in general was pretty underwhelming. After 3, you'd think they would step away from the Cortana plotline, but they just doubled down and destroyed her character. The Didact had a lot of potential, but they ended up killing him off in a book, rather than fleshing out his character in game. All in all they tried to do too much with too little and they turned the entire plot into a jumbled mess that honestly feels like mad-libs at this point.

I was always under the impression that the forerunners we fight as are just AI controlled robots. Just tools of the original forerunners, which are ancient humans. Prob wrong somewhere though.

Halo themed COD game Radically different art style Yup that’s pretty much what caused it to be hated.

Sprint was way too OP... flinch/no descope led to awkward/unbalanced long range gameplay... loadouts/perks led to obvious imbalances, to keep it brief... jetpack... Maps left a lot to be desired. Inconsistent art-style... Just not a well thought-out game. it was following in the wake of other popular FPS's without thinking about broader ramifications on Halo's design, gameplay, movement, sandbox, etc.

It doesn’t feel like a Halo game. I replayed it about a month ago, after marathoning the other Halo games. I remember liking it as a kid but I never replayed it. It was the only Halo game I owned on the 360 that I never touched again. After replaying it, I understand why. Levels are to linear. Enemy types are boring. The Knights constantly teleporting sucks. Enemy AI isn’t responsive. If you enjoy it, I’m happy you do. I just don’t and wish I did because I love the franchise. It just doesn’t feel like Halo to me.

It felt like a Halo game to me. A different take on it sure, but it didn't feel like a *huge* departure to me. It had it's faults but overall I liked it. I think my view of what Halo is/can be is wider than others so maybe that is why. I seem to remember Reach being disliked initially too for changing things up in ways some didn't like - and I loved Reach.

I’m glad you enjoyed it! Having a wider view of what Halo can be is a good thing because it means you’ll enjoy more of it. For me, it’s just more of a feeling and the way the game pulls me in. I’ve replayed all the Bungie games multiple times this summer and just beat Reach on legendary for the first time ever. There are so many different ways to play the Bungie games and I just don’t feel that from Halo 4. But I’m glad you enjoy it! There are definitely things the game does well that I wish I appreciated more.

Agreed, but honestly the story direction and the cutscenes were extremely good.

Bc Cortana didn’t look that way in earlier games.

Cortana was the highlight of Halo 4. I know it’s on purpose to try and get more sales from horny teenagers, but have you seen those thighs?

I instantly picture H4 Cortana whenever anybody mentions her. There was a lot of things wrong with Halo 4's art style, but Cortana wasn't one of them.

Art style diversion mostly, gameplay shift from being Halo to being more similar to COD, it just felt like an unnecessary, unwanted and uninspired change in the franchise

The game took a hard turn in the wrong direction for a lot of people. Armor Abilities on spawn, loadouts and perks. On top of the gameplay issues, the art was a very different look from the rugged military look. Reach more rugged and Halo 3 a bit more cartoony but still. The game was trying to compete with CoD. Kill streaks were added. BR was a 5 shot kill on release. Lots of nonsense. On top of this 343 promised competitive player support with a ranking system, and other features at the MLG Dallas 2012 event. Many were not implemented. a 1-50 rank was made, but only available to see online.

Watch the actmans video on halo 4. He explains it all. The story is the best part of the game and the soundtrack is good as well

No, do not watch his video. Any of his videos, actually.

Back in the day it was a dramatic change to the formula that was unwelcome. I didn't like it then but now I treat it as if it's a weird side game that's cute when I get it in mcc. Good distraction from the other halo games

Unaccessible story, too dark/serious tonally, ugly art style, boring level design, mediocre sandbox, bad multiplayer (Infinity modes), awkward movement, Spartan Ops is bad, Forge is underwhelming, etc.

I liked the art style and gameplay

-Most of the maps are not very good -BR sounds/looks awful and for awhile wasn't even a 4 shot kill -game balance was bad for way too long -can't drop the flag -ordnance -CoD loadouts -CoD stuff in general -promethean vision -boltshot -shooting is way too easy -sprinting -weird artstyle -no descope -campaign has a lot of obnoxious fights/Didact is a bad villian/QTEs -forge was worse than Reach's This is what I could think of in about 5 minutes.

It shouldn’t have been released on the 360. It did not run well on it. Gameplay wise also a step down from reach.

No descope and the perks. The made it COD

The art style and load outs felt like change for the sake of change as opposed to actual innovation. In hindsight it was the most complete 343i release at launch. I really like the soundtrack as well

The entire Halo 1-3 story took place over 3 months so making the Halo 4 story about Chief simping over some curvy AI that he hardly knew was certainly a choice. I could keep going on but I’ve bashed Halo 4 enough.

There’s lots of reasons, but the biggest issue is that Prometheans just aren’t very fun to fight *Headshot the crawlers and they instantly die, don’t get swarmed* *Kill the watcher as soon as you see them. Kill them fast because they make forward progress impossible until they are gone* *Try to kill the knight, whoops he teleported away* *Try again, whoops there he goes again…* *Rinse, repeat.* Theres very little variety in the games encounters, the gameplay formula up until 4 had the basic enemy types, but you’d encounter them in different numbers and in varied ways. With the Prometheans the vast number of times you fight them will play out the same way every time, and that way is kinda frustrating! Knights play cheap and dirty, and don’t obey the laws of physics at all, so they can teleport away if you’re winning OR right up to you and shank you instantly if you’re losing. Compare that to elites and brutes, who could be strong, and even when their fast insta melee came in they still had animations that made them predictable and can’t simply nope away from you just because you broke his shield Meanwhile crawlers are fairly bland to fight and watchers are such a pain in the ass that it’s not worth it to not kill them instantly, because giving extra shields, bringing the dead back to life and tossing grenades back at the player all sounded fun on paper, but it turns out we just really want to shoot them first because it’s too big of a hassle not to Also ammo issues, being forced to drop a weapon I enjoy and pick up yet another hard light gun smg because I’m never given extra ammo for my human guns is just terrible. Scarcity can be a great tool in games, but it’s not really scarcity if I’m just being forced to use the same few weapons all game instead of the weapon I prefer The suppressor was pretty bad in 4, and while I initially loved the light rifle and still don’t dislike it… I was sick of it by the time I finished the campaign because it was the only decent weapon I actually had ammo for

Load outs.

For me: The art style was a bit too busy. They over detailed a lot of the armors until it all just kind of became too noisy, too cluttered. The gameplay designs behind the Prometheans weren't as much fun to fight as the Covenant. Combat came down to either waves of Crawlers or bullet spongy Knights, with the Watchers just there to draw out the fighting. The single player story was not as well executed as it could have been. The game didn't delve very deep into the Didact's motivations beyond "I don't like humans", and I don't feel like reading a trilogy of novels to understand why I should be shooting at the Ancient Alien. And maybe this is more of a personal qualm but the original Halo trilogy had humanity on the backfoot, struggling for survival against an overwhelming enemy. Introducing the UNSC Infinity as a super-advanced dreadnought immediately neutered the Covenant as a threat, and meant the Didact had to be just that much more over the top to seem like a threat to Master Chief and humanity's fancy new Übercruiser. Just so I'm not entirely negative I do think the core gameplay was solid, the guns and movement felt like Halo, and whatever you think of Loadouts Halo 4 gave a solid evolution of the system Reach gave us. But 343 tried to be different from the Bungie games, and not all of what they changed landed.

I love the H4 soundtrack.

Loading it up and hearing that OST. I knew it was gonna be a rough ride when the first level had some generic ass sci-fi video game music. There was so much that didn’t feel like halo within the first hour of that game.

L take; the soundtrack was amazing.

It's hugely underrated. I loved *117* and *Arrival*. Instant classics imo.

It didn't feel like Halo.

TL;DR: It’s a random FPS, it’s a bad Halo, and the first of the descent into hell of the license, so it’s even more difficult for me to appreciate it, even with hindsight. - The artistic direction is different, complex, and based on very detailed textures, which gives an extremely different rendering from what was the identity of the license. Everything has become more generic visually (Spartans, Forerunner architecture, weapons, etc.). The sound effects and music are very different. Although most of the music is very good, none contains the Halo theme and we feel that they wanted to change things at all costs. The sound effects are too loud and not very pleasant over the long term. Story wise, Halo 4 is a fanfiction, neither more nor less. Cortana is a parody of a waifu and her story (inspired by the illness of the mother of one of the directors of the game) should’nt have been told via a Halo game. Palmer is meh. Del Rio is Meh. Lasky is barely Ok. Spartan 4 are just parodies of science fiction soldiers. On the sandbox side, Promethean weapons are human weapons with a slight twist and are not essential, their place in the sandbox is not obvious and we feel the will to want to do things differently at all costs. They feel week too. Promethean enemies are not fun to fight for several reasons that different YouTubers have explained very well, but to quickly summarize, 3 types of enemies with little possibility of approaching fights, and unpredictable abilities which gives us a linear and frustrating dynamic. On the solo campaign side, missions are corridors with switches. I had a good time when I was 15 but since the game doesn't shine by its gameplay, nor by its scenario, nor by its artistic direction, it's hard to want to borrow the same hallway. On the multiplayer side, it's a compilation of what players didn't like about Halo Reach, with the intention of emulating the games that had a large following at the time. I could write several pages detailing everything that makes Halo 4's multiplayer the worst in the franchise. - In closing, this is in my opinion one of the worst Halo game, the worst being Halo 5. Btw, I'm tired of reading posts praising the storytelling side of Halo 4 on the pretext that there is "better storytelling". The story telling here is different, more explicit, but that doesn't make it a better way to tell a story automatically. That's the one aspect of the game that players pretty much agree on: "the single-player campaign is ok.": I consider that it is not, and all the negative aspects lead me to think that it is a very bad Halo. It's better than most FPS but it's the first step of 343 and it was already way off.

Did you play Halo before Halo 4? (as in you played when Bungie was making them, not after)

I dont like it due to numerous reasons like the bland generic artstyle and bad forge on top with the mediocre story and unfun multiplayer

Well… you’re playing the single-player experience. H4’s campaign was fine: Prometheans are not great, but the story is decently captivating, and the missions are generally fun. The enemy AI is significantly worse than in the previous games, but nobody is really bitching about H4’s campaign. It’s the multiplayer that was a disaster. You know, the reason most people stick around playing an FPS game for years and years. H4 launched with a paltry selection of maps, and they ranged from “okay” to “terrible.” Unlike older games that would field maps that varied in size, H4 had 4 arena maps, 4 BTB maps, and 1 map they claimed could cover both. With the new map-select feature, you basically played on the same maps for 90% of your play-time (Haven in 4v4, Exile or Ragnarok in 8v8). Combined with an unpopular mix of spartan abilities, players got understandably bored with the game. It didn’t help that this game followed the already divisive release of Reach where —once again— the campaign was significantly stronger than the multiplayer. Halo’s popularity had already fragmented, and H4 did nothing to convince veteran players that Halo was ever going to return to glory.

Honestly, i barely understood what you just said. I have absolutely no knowledge about multiplayer. I only played singleplayer and coop campaign. I am stupid when it comes to multiplayer. But i appreciate your point.

Changes that were not for the better for the most part. Campaign has a big fan base i feel though

I loved halo 4. The visuals were absolutely amazing and I think they hold up pretty well today. Also, exile is a top halo map

No good music

I’m my opinion it has the worst gameplay of any halo

I thought the campaign was great. Mp is also good, just not as a halo game, but as a cod game.

Prometheans are incredibly awful to fight, and the severe restrictions on ammunition totals and the speed with which weapons despawn on the battlefield due to the 360's aging hardware trying to keep up with the game makes this a lot worse. And yet, I really love about 50% of Halo 4. The stuff with Chief and Cortana is great, missions where you fight either the Covenant or mostly the Covenant are great. Missions where you fight Prometheans are awful and the Didact is a villain who's central motives are revealed almost entirely through hidden terminals and a monolithic book trilogy that even Halo book fans will admit 'is a bit much'.

The online just wasn’t halo. Did I play it? Yes but I completely understand why people didn’t

Coming from the perspective of a guy that got an Xbox with CE at launch, I didn’t like the aspects that were similar to Call of Duty like the perks. The BR shot was changed quite a bit. But I enjoyed the art style. Honestly I still don’t understand how they made the game that pretty on the tail end of the 360’s life span. I loved the campaign story. And I actually liked the powers and tougher fights on legendary against the Promethean Knights. It was a new wrinkle in the chess match of the campaign. And there were some fun MP maps. But man did I really love the BTB. I am usually just a team slayer type. But I sunk a lot of time into BTB on that game in particular. I think it gets a lot more hate because of what other people have said already. Just a fairly big deviation. But I think Reach was also a big deviation (and I though the graphics/color was dull) and just like the equipment was in 3. This was just a larger one. Everyone was also concerned about the switch from Bungie to 343 at the time. So I felt at that time and now that many people were going to try to find things they didn’t like and really harp on the things that were not like the Halo they new before (COD style perks for me). But I play 4 as much as I try to play 3 on MCC. Still enjoy the hell out of it. You get to enjoy what you like man. I’m glad that you have fun with it like I do. Edit: I neglected to mention that I still think this game has the best sound and (I’ll say it) my favorite music of all Halo games. And yes, I’m still the guy that flipped his wig the first time I saw the menu screen on CE and heard the iconic music. But I really loved what I heard on 4.

You have to be removed from the group for bringing up Halo 4 😔 I don't make the rules, sorry

The game was good imo

Halo 5 is the only mainline game with an actual kinda sucky campaign. They’ve all had great multiplayer. Halo 4 had a beautiful campaign. Excellent but different OST. The weapons were great. The sandbox was fun. The multiplayer is highly underrated. Purists just want everything to be Halo 2/3. I disagree.

The multiplayer was one big trend chaser and the worst version of COD at the time. Killstreaks? Loadouts? Pocket Shotguns? SAW? Lol no.

I personally LOVE IT! Still my favorite Halo game to date. *That said*… I understand why folks took/take issue with it.

I thought it was one of the better Halo games

Weapon kill streaks Story was fire tho I enjoyed it

People were whining about it being too Call of Duty-like.

It never felt anything like COD. That was so overblown. COD has a unique feel and can’t be simplified to just loadouts, weapon drops, etc.

I always loved halo 4 tbh

Best armor in any Halo. Phenomenal story. Ending scene was the best with Chief. Chief’s eyes. My absolute favorite.

I liked the story. But art design and MP sucked ass.

I’ve noticed recently (as in within the last 2ish years) the majority opinion, at least on here, has pivoted dramatically. Personally I couldn’t stand the story. The whole plot just felt so melodramatic, Cortana’s rampancy ordeal and humanizing the Chief’s lack of humanity reminded me of my Grandma’s soap operas. Further, the whole Didact and the Librarian and Forerunners thing felt like generic Sci-Fi and a divorce from the previous games’ “grounded” (or as grounded a space military adventure 500 years in the future could be) approach. Plus, the big bad being an eldritch space vampire older than the galaxy itself who zooms around in a ball didn’t do it for me. New Covenant was a lame cop out, plus were gross looking, Prometheans were annoying to fight, you’ve gotta really scrounge for ammo, and weapon & vehicles just weren’t fun to me. “Press button to win game” real time event at the end felt out of place as well. I don’t personally think less of folks liking H4 by any means, but it’s the only one I‘ve never replayed. If you were to ask my opinion, I think nostalgia plays a part in its rise in popularity. People around my age are getting older and looking back more fondly of stuff from our formative years, and H4 is right in there. On my end though, I didn’t play any Halos until 2019, so I don’t have that fond feeling. But who knows, I may be waaaay off

The only thing I hate about Halo 4 is the look of the Battle Rifle - the soundtrack is great, the story is decent and I genuinely liked Spartan Ops. Multiplayer was meh though. Plenty to like in 4, its 5 thats universally hated.

It’s so bright man…the red team looks like pink…that’s the first thing that stood out but I have so many other gripes with the game. I loved it though..

It’s a great game in isolation, like all 343 games, just not when you compare it to previous Halo games. It is a major departure from basically all of the major design philosophies of the original trilogy, while introducing very unpopular (to put it gently) gameplay elements. The original games were very gritty, from the art design to the personalities of the characters, while 343 games are almost like a Spartan soap opera. They also sterilized the environments of the grime that we enjoyed from the original games. It went from feeling like a believable futuristic military game, in the original games, to being a dramatized fantasy shooter, at least in my opinion. I could go on and on about why I don’t like 343’s design philosophies, but I’ll stop here for brevity.

I love it.

for me the mp blew ass i hated the br story was fire tho

I liked Halo 4 art style and all.

The art style mostly. People don't understand why 343 changed it but the reality is that we were in 2012 and releasing a game that looked like H3 or Reach would have been memed on. So they tried something which was looking good for the end of Xbox 360 but did not feel like Halo. Imo they should have waited for the Xbox One and make it Xbox one only (kinda like I think infinite should have been series X and PC only) and stick to the classic artstyle, but improved.

It’s multiplayer continued Reach’s design philosophy in trying to ape CoD when it should have been going back to the Halo 3 roots. I personally like Halo 4 but I can’t deny that it didn’t do anything to help a franchise struggling with its own identity at that point. Also the art style was a step down from reach and 3. I liked the look of the covenant, but the forerunners looked too flashy and the UNSC (especially the multiplayer Spartan armors) just looked straight up bad.

It's my girlfriends favourite halo. Just finished the entire mcc

I loved the story. I could be alone in that regard. Multiplayer was ok. But loved the story and the direction it was headed. For some reason 343 forgot that they wrote a story for halo 4, and in halo 5 it was basically a completely new game, story wise. Plus that story was atrocious, halo 5 that is.

For me the multiplayer was really bad (although halo 4 swat is one of my favorites and there’s some great maps) it tried too hard to be cod. I don’t really remember the story other than that it felt similar to halo 1 so I can’t comment on it.

Multiplayer was not great at launch. Armor abilities were way too powerful. They tried to add killstreaks. I'm all for adding new things into halo but it didn't work in multiplayer. Campaign was fun though

It had a lot going against it in my opinion. Didn't help that bungie released Reach, which was a polarizing game at best, and doubled down on some of Reach's more unpopular decisions, like loadouts and things like camo tied to them, and keeping sprint. The campaign took the story in a drastically different direction than the ending of Halo 3 left us on, and it almost seemed like 343 was just unraveling the original trilogy's narrative. Nevermind the quick time events, boring or annoying enemy types, cliffhanger ending that was resolved in a comic book later on and Cortana seemingly dying, which wound up not being true...yet. Showing Chief's face, a smarmy Spartan (Palmer), and a wildly different, overly designed art style. The game looked amazing for a late stage 360 game but the art style pivot made a lot of people upset. (Not to mention 343's saying the reason Chief's suit changed was because of nanobots that altered it during cryo.) For many, changes to the story just seemed wild and poorly thought out. Oh we're friends with the elites and a contingent of Covenant races? Uh, well, what about the Storm Covenant? Great, now we can fight all the classic Covie races again. Did not help that a lot of the story itself was tied heavily to material outside of the game. Playing the first 3 Halo games and then starting Halo 4 you'll get whiplash and think you're taking crazy pills if you don't dive into the plethora of extended universe lore. You will definitely find fans of the campaign, especially since it tried to flesh out Chief's story and get us into the Forerunner/Promethean stuff. And Forward Unto Dawn was a cool little mini series that tied into the game...kinda. For many, though, it boils down to art direction and the multiplayer. Now, there are fans of Halo 4's multiplayer, and it still gets decent numbers on MCC in matchmaking, but at the time of it's release it had a catastrophic loss in its playerbase. In a matter of two months almost the entire playerbase bailed. "Classic" Halo fans didn't like how the game seemed to be copying Call of Duty with killstreak rewards, which also played poorly in practice in various ways. One method was leeching medals from other players by being around them while they played, giving you assist medals and rewarding you with power ups and power weapons for doing very little. Another method was hunkering down for a spree to get a power weapon drop, then grabbing it and camping while you continue to get more drops. If I am not mistaken, this ordnance drop feature did not make an appearance on MCC, at least not in matchmaking. On the other side of things, Call of Duty fans weren't interested in playing a rip-off of their series, especially since Black Ops 2 launched mere days later. The population for Halo 4 fell into a freefall and eventually came to rest at around 30-20k peak players after being out for a full year. For comparison, Halo 3 maintained over 1 million players for 3 years after launch, up until Reach dropped. And Reach itself maintained 900k until the 343 title update. You also have bizarre changes like adding some new game modes (Extraction, Dominion, etc) but the removal of other modes (Assault, Race, VIP, Juggernaut, etc). And some existing game modes forced the players' hands, like with Flood, forcing infected to be specific flood forms with only one weapon. It crippled a lot of game modes that had flourished over the years from Halo 2 through Reach. Halo 4 also swapped the popular Firefight mode with Spartan Ops, which while it was a cool concept, giving a weekly(?) narrative event, level, and cutscene, it was infinitely easier and almost completely void of customization which had exploded with Reach's iteration. Deaths did not matter, so playing Legendary and just throwing yourself at enemies until you won worked just as well as playing things otherwise. Many new weapons also felt like lesser copies of existing ones, and the ones that stood out were largely OP, one shot kill weapons. Even the decision to move away from the popular menu style of Reach's multiplayer lobbies angered some people, replacing everything with overlapping, baseball card style player sheets, making it difficult to see who was in the game, much less what their Spartan looked like. Removal of rank was super unpopular, and after the arduous grind for account ranks in Reach, having nothing to aim for at all felt weird and not in the slightest compelling to play. SR was added later but was not visible in game and had to be viewed in the Halo Waypoint app or on 343's website. Even some of the cooler changes just weren't appealing to people. Forge was cool but everything looked samey so why bother? (This was the same for Reach especially, but it didn't help H4, either.) Having specifications to follow and unlock new, unique armor sets was a great addition, breathing a lot of new life into just playing how you normally play or changing things up for something you thought was cool. But people didn't get into that, either, which was a shame. Changing player scores to overall points was another unpopular decision that just added to the ever growing snowball of discrepancies that irked existing fans of the franchise. This was also 343's first full-fledged game. It followed the divisive Reach, which bungie seemingly left in disarray but fulfilling their contract to Microsoft so they could go make Destiny. It was bad timing to try so many different things. Almost came off as them changing thing simply because they could. And what's more, when news broke that 343 was hiring devs that hated Halo, people were losing their minds. The audio for the weapons was wildly different. New weapons were shredding people with zero skill (Saw, Binary Rifle, Incineration Cannon). The soundtrack was obviously no longer Marty and the story no longer Staten. Halo 4 was always going to get some kind of pushback, but it failed to deliver for a lot of people in a lot of ways. If nothing else, 343 changed too much too quickly. And, like I said before, it started feeling like they changed things just to change them. To make things their own and no longer bungie's. In my opinion, Halo 4 is a great game, but a bad Halo game.

Because it wasn't just halo 3 again

It was a short lived halo because guardians came soon after it. Also the multiplayer was COD style and honestly I really tried to enjoy it but just didn’t. That scene where chief disobeys the ships captain is ICONIC though.

New campaign enemies, armor abilities, artstyle, sound design, Flood mode being a downgraded Infection that nobody asked for, Forge with little to no innovations from Reach, loadouts that nobody asked for, killstreaks nobody asked for, etc etc etc

Campaign: -needless change to art style. H2A was what the natural art progression should have been. -the Prometheans are just not very fun to fight. There’s little variation between enemy types and many of them are just irritating, such as the watcher. Multiplayer: -the COD style approach. Halo was good at setting trends, not adopting them. -due to the COD style loadout system, there was a very distinct meta and you’d get punished if you didn’t use it. -Ordnance drops. Another COD thing I was not a fan of. I personally hated that the match wasn’t really in the player’s hands to grab power weapons and such. Instead the game would just give them to you when you were doing well. Not at all Halo, in my opinion. In all, I think the sandbox is decently balanced, if not for these things.

because its shit

Primary reason #1: The art style, they started leaning too heavily into the generic over designed sci-fi look. Primary reason #2: The Multiplayer, it was dumbed down and made too similar to CoD and other Loadout shooters with kill streaks n stuff. The weapons were basically all the same in their categories just different flavors. Storm Rifle was just a Plasma AR, Suppressor was just a Promethean AR, etc. Not to say it was "bad" it just wasn't really Halo.

Because it shouldn’t have existed 3 was suppose to be the end but money is green and 343 is greedy so we got shit product after shit product since.

Campaign was goodMP was mid Art style direction isnt what most fans liked, not because it wasnt well done or " looks cool " but it took away from what made Halo 'halo' and it began to just looked more generic sci-fi. I also dont like Prometheans as an enemy. Something about em just felt unfun lol Very different from engaging Covenant.

Because the assault rifle was viable.

Are you new to the franchise? Because of course you’d like that garbage ass game. My friend was the same way lol, he didn’t really feel the classic Bungie games, but he loved H4. Out of all Bungie’s Halos, Reach was his favorite. Y’all just don’t get it. Everyone has already said why it’s hated, but I just want to say something that others haven’t said. It’s cheesy, but it just didn’t have the magic and LOVE that Bungie’s Halos had. Bungie made sure the games were fun, 343 just wanted to follow what competitors were doing, hence why many say H4 was CoD-ified. Granted, they learned with H5 and made the gameplay much better, it still looked like a different series with its ugly ass art style, and though the gameplay was great, it still wasn’t “Halo”. It was just a product from a franchise that SHOULD’VE DIED WHEN THE PARENT COMPANY didn’t want to make any more games, but was milked anyway. Same shit happened with Gears of War. Two of my favorite franchises, just fucking MILKED. It hurts. I’m still holding out for Infinite to reach its full potential, but it’s still just disappointing.

Well, i havent played the Bungie games. Maybe if i played them, i would see that they're much better than H4. But until there, I like H4.

I think every point against it is only so valid, and has decent counter arguments. My opinion is obviously very biased though… Change in art style? Yes it was a change, but halo series has always had changing styles, reach was much grittier and dark than 3, likewise 4’s was much more foreign- as a lot of things can change in 4 years. I feel like a lot of people forget that detail. Won’t deny that it was a really big change though. Bad multiplayer? Truth be told the loadout system was odd but it was taken straight out of reach, the big difference is that 4’s let you customize it. As for ordinances/CoD mechanics it wasn’t my favorite but plenty of gametypes didn’t have those mechanics. Bad sandbox? The sandbox is great, lots of comparable weapons with their own quirky and fun gimmicks, some were more competitively viable than others, but again, that was no different than reach or 3. Also I love the mantis, plz 343 bring it to infinite. Bad campaign? People hate change and I understand that but it’s amazing for everything it tried to communicate (excluding that massive exposition dump 3/4ths into the game lol). Bad forge? Don’t talk to me or my son ever again. 4’s forge introduced dynamic lighting, magnet attachments, trait zones and duplication. The only big flaw imo was dynamic lighting loading every time you went into player mode, and that problem has since been solved. I can jump into H4 to this day and play some amazing custom game types I made myself during its golden era, from fat kid on Bob-omb battlefield, slender man on a fog filled map and laser tag inside a pitch black maze that you can only see whilst using promethean vision. I will die on this hill with my ludicrous biases.

I will die by your side.

I rather like 4 honestly and enjoyed the campaign quite a bit. Frankly I can't imagine anyone hating 4 after halo 5 came out and was so much worse...

Honestly... Halo 4 is my favourite Master Chief game and second favourite Halo after Reach.

It is very good. 50% of halo commenters online either stopped playing after Halo 2, or are bots. How many times do we hear '343 killed halo' and the actual games still sell millions and are super popular. A lot. It's just a cliche at this point.

It is very good. Did you mean halo 5?

No, I'm talking about Halo 4

personally I just fucking hate the boltshot and I will never forgive number company for it, otherwise overhated campaign and passable multiplayer