STATEMENT FROM JOSH HOLMES REGARDING HALO 5 DESIGN DECISIONS

I’m going to try my best to explain some of the thinking behind the inclusion of sprint and other abilities so that you can better understand where we are coming from. Not trying or expecting to convince anyone, just hoping to shed some light. I should also mention that while I am going to try and summarize a bunch of shared thoughts and experiential goals from our team, it’s impossible for me to represent each individual team member’s perspective. We spend countless hours discussing and debating everything that goes into the game as a natural part of development and it’s tough to do justice to that ongoing discourse here.

Now, to take a quick step back and talk more generally about goals for H5G and Spartan Abilities…

One of the fundamental goals that we start with for the game is “immersion,” which I’ll just use as shorthand for creating and maintaining an active sense of belief on the part of the player in everything that they are experiencing. This unpacks to a lot more complexity than I am going to dive into, but at the most basic level we are trying to simulate the act of a bipedal hero moving through an environment from first person perspective. We want to convince the player that this illusion is true. We start with questions like: what would it feel like to move? To shoot? Upon that foundation we consider the actions and capabilities that should be available to a Spartan on the battlefield. What are the unique capabilities available to a Spartan? How should those feel? This is based on established lore and our individual perceptions. To achieve an immersive experience, we first ground our portrayal of actions in what it feels like to be a human being in our world (that’s the common lens that we all use as reference) and then we adapt those actions to reflect what it would be like to be a kick-ass Spartan wrapped in Mjolnir assault armor.

The desire to maximize immersion goes beyond just the portrayal of actions themselves and extends to the possibility space that should exist for players within the moment-to-moment of combat. What options or choices would I as a Spartan expect to have within combat? Gunplay is obviously paramount, and we focus a crazy amount of time on nailing the feel of firing the weapons in our game to make sure that they have weight and impact. In addition to rock-solid gunplay, with H5G we are striving to provide a focused suite of mobility-based actions that reinforce the experience of fighting as a Spartan. We specifically chose to focus on mobility because it was the part of the Spartan experience that we felt was the most under-developed and had the most promise to deliver a fresh and exciting new play experience for Halo. It’s something that we started talking about midway through Halo 4 and it became a foundational part of the design intention for Halo 5.

We want each of the new abilities to expand the possibility space for competitive combat in meaningful ways. They should provide players with new tools to create on the battlefield and present interesting choices on both sides of an encounter. At the same time we don’t want these tools to result in imbalance or chaos. When Halo is working well there is structure and flow to the combat, with a unique back-and-forth, move / counter-move experience that provides depth and opportunities to enhance the skill gap between players. That’s what we’ve been focusing on for Halo 5 MP.

Some of the Spartan Abilities are core mobility options like Clamber, Sprint and Thruster that allow for more fluid and natural movement through the environment. They should augment combat in interesting ways, when used effectively. Other abilities are offensive in nature and more oriented toward “crowd-pleaser” moves (like Charge or Ground Pound) that provide a big punctuation point in a match. At a competitive level you are not going to see many GPs attempted in close games because the risk is too high. But when someone does go for it and manages to land it, they deliver a big wow moment that pays off both for them and the viewers of the match.

Going back to sprint… why have it in Halo?

• As a Spartan, it makes sense that you can push yourself in a situation where survival is imperative. It’s an action that feels natural in the context of a firefight. It’s the extra gear that a Spartan draws upon if they focus purely on mobility and speed.
• It creates opportunities and meaningful choices on offense and defense. On offense you can commit to an aggressive push or flank at a slight cost to weapon readiness. On defense, you can try for a rapid retreat but it carries the trade-off of stalling your shield recharge. Should you be able to escape from a situation where you are over-matched or have lost the upper hand? Yes, in a skillful manner (using mobility and spatial awareness to your advantage) and so long as your opponent has opportunity to counter using their own skills. The key for us has been to balance the potential escapability of sprint with mechanics like shield recharge and sprint ramp-up, while maintaining a sprint mechanic that feels good. This is something that we will continue to focus on post-beta as this careful balance is so important.
• Sprint is also an action that the vast majority of Halo players expect to be able to utilize in both an offensive and defensive context. I know that this community does not feel that way (or likely believes that statement to be accurate), but the larger Halo community is very diverse and we are building a game for an audience with many different perspectives represented amongst them. Within that larger audience, most people expect to be able to sprint. Particularly as this is the third Halo game to feature the mechanic.
• Another important consideration for us is to keep the core play experience as consistent as possible between Campaign, Arena, and the larger MP experiences that we are building. We feel that sprint, done right, works well in Arena. I know that’s a point of significant contention amongst this community. Sprint also works tremendously well in the context of those other experiences that I mentioned. When a player crosses over from Campaign to Arena, or from Arena to big team MP, we want the mechanics to translate across consistently. It’s jarring to become accustomed to a core mechanic only to have it disappear, or vice versa. That’s something that we want to avoid.

Anyway, sorry for rambling a bit. I started writing and this got long. Hopefully there are some nuggets of sense in there. TLDR; sprint is an action that feels natural in the context of combat, it makes sense as an action that all Spartans are capable of, it creates opportunities on offense and defense when handled well, it is being carefully balanced, it’s something that most Halo players expect, and it’s something that we want to keep consistent with other modes where it plays an even more prominent role.

I will let you all be the judges as you play the beta but I believe that we are doing a much better job of designing the maps around the core mechanics with Halo 5. A big reason for that is the fact that we nailed down the core focus for gameplay early. When we start releasing some of the behind-the-scenes footage from the development of Halo 5 next week, you will see that we’ve been playing with this core set of abilities for the better part of two years. This has allowed us enough time to refine and iterate on map design with the abilities in mind. The other big change has been the addition of our internal pro team. They have been invaluable in helping us to identify issues with mechanics and map design that become obvious at the highest level of skilled play, and we’ve had the time and focus to react to that feedback.

Finally I want you to know that we do listen to you guys. As mentioned, I lurk here often to read through the forums. So do a lot of people at 343, particularly our MP and Sandbox teams. Keep in mind that there are many different inputs that we consider when we make decisions about core aspects of the game. Literally none of those are corporate hacks up the chain. Not all decisions will be ones that you agree with. Nevertheless, I appreciate the passion that we all share as Halo fans, even when we may disagree. I will be in here reading your feedback throughout the beta and I hope that you guys will share your thoughts when you play. Who knows, I may even keep posting… depending on how this goes. ;-)

/Josh