It's Time for Halo to Pull a Fallout: New Vegas

Summary

Halo's success has declined under 343 Industries, and there's a need for a new studio to bring fresh creative ideas to the franchise.
Fallout: New Vegas is a great example of how a spin-off game developed by a different studio can breathe new life into a beloved series.
Microsoft-owned studios like id Software, Arkane Studios, and Tango Gameworks could be a good fit to develop future Halo games and bring different gameplay elements and tonal changes to the series.

Halo, a much-beloved and iconic Xbox franchise, has found itself in choppy waters these past few years, and it might be time to rethink for Microsoft and 343 Industries to rethink their strategy with the IP. It may be worth taking a look at the one-off hit Fallout: New Vegas for inspiration as, despite being developed under different circumstances, it takes an approach that could be applied to the Halo series.

Bungie delivered a revolutionary experience with Halo: Combat Evolved in 2001. The Halo name soon became synonymous with Xbox, as Bungie would go on to release success after success, improving upon the foundations laid by Combat Evolved with Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo: Reach.

Shortly after Reach was released, however, Bungie would leave the franchise behind, and Microsoft passed Halo off to 343 Industries, an in-house studio built specifically to produce Halo games. Sadly, 343 Industries hasn't managed to recapture the success of the earlier games in the series, and there's a general sense that Halo is hanging onto the past, not able to replicate the original games, while simultaneously failing to create something truly original.

The Future of Halo: Taking a Page Out of Fallout: New Vegas' Handbook

Though Fallout was riding high after the success of Fallout 3, Bethesda chose to hand the reins to Obsidian Entertainment for a spin-off title. That spin-off game, released in 2010, was Fallout: New Vegas, a game that has gone on to be widely considered one of the best in the series, with many considering it to be one of the greatest Western RPGs ever made. The success of the game was not simply due to its unique setting or surface-level features, however; a key part of New Vegas' quality is the very fact that a new studio took control and Halo could benefit from a similar approach.

Halo Needs a New Studio Behind the Wheel

Halo Infinite has caught a lot of flak, but the series' problems arguably began right after 343 started working on it. There are many possible reasons behind this, but a commonly accepted narrative is that Bungie had a strong, contained vision for what Halo was "supposed" to be, and 343 attempted to resurrect that vision.

Of course, being a completely different team, 343 struggled to recreate the nuance and design philosophies that made the original Halo games so revered. At the same time, 343 Industries, as a unit, had never shipped a game before Halo 4, so it didn't get a chance to develop a creative voice outside the franchise.

Fans can debate about which specific design or narrative decisions could help Halo the most, but the strong vision that Bungie had for the series is the key component that has been missing. If Microsoft shifted development of the next Halo campaign away from 343, giving it to another, already-established studio, new life could be breathed into the franchise. This would mirror what happened with New Vegas, as Obsidian Entertainment brought new, fresh creative minds to the project, allowing for stories, RPG systems, and gameplay features that would not have existed, at least not in the same way, if it was developed by Bethesda Game Studios.

Microsoft-Owned Developers That Could Be a Good Fit for Halo

id Software
Infinity Ward
Arkane Studios
Tango Gameworks
Treyarch

Microsoft has ownership of several studios, especially following the purchase of Activision Blizzard, that could produce high-quality Halo games. Developers like id Software could bring the hard-hitting combat of the Doom games into the mix, while a studio like Arkane or Tango Gameworks could shake the series up dramatically from a tonal and structural standpoint. Ultimately, a new studio could revise Halo in a way that is sorely needed, and 343 Industries could shift to a new project—perhaps alongside Infinite's live-service maintenance—allowing its developers to flex their creative muscles on something other than Halo.

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