Halo 2 Anni may not exist. Needs "Fantastic MP"

Rumours about the existence of a Halo 2 Anniversary edition refuse to go away. The game is said to be coming out for Xbox One later this year, and now Microsoft exec Phil Spencer has spoken about what he thinks the most important feature of the game--if it exists--would have to be: multiplayer.

"In this fictitious world where that game existed," said Spencer in an interview with IGN, "it’s an easy answer: it has to be just the multiplayer experience that we all found in that first Halo 2 game."

Halo 2 launched in 2004 and, due to its beloved multiplayer mode, became the poster boy for Microsoft's fledgling Xbox Live service. The multiplayer mode featured map playlists, peer-to-peer matchmaking, and a ranking system, which were all seen as pretty revolutionary at the time.

"If you think about what happened in the franchise," continued Spencer, "and what were the hallmark moments--when did duel wielding come in, when did another playable character that wasn’t Master Chief come in?"

"All the things that you and I know about the evolution of the franchise, if you’re going to say one thing about Halo 2, you’re going to talk about real multiplayer. I think you just have to nail that in just such a fundamentally core way. Frankly [we'd have to do it] probably better than we did with Halo 1 Anniversary."

"I thought the multiplayer in Halo 1 Anniversary was good, but Halo 1 never had multiplayer in the truest sense, so it always was going to be something different."

"If there were something called Halo 2 Anniversary," says Spencer, "I think the multiplayer would have to be fantastic."

Microsoft has told GameSpot that it will publish a new Halo game this year. But will it be Halo 2 Anniversary?

Home Sauce

I hope it exists, but Spencer is right, it needs to nail the multiplayer if it is to live up to the original title.

New titles please............

Never really been crazy about the halo MP but people really enjoy it. So I agree it does have some big shoes to fill

multiplayer muiplayer mutiplayer that's all MS even cares about when it comes to games. Gotta get that XBL subscriptioin money up yo. Honestly the lack of focus on quality single player is what turned me off about Halo 2.

I actually didn't get to play Halo 2's MP until long after, but yeah, people were crazy about it. From what I understand, modern console online multiplayer owes itself to Halo 2, so that's a lot of pressure on any potential remake :p

Why? Phill spencer even comes out and says it doesn't exist. "In this fictitious world where that game existed". Sorry bro.

They should ship Halo 2 Anniversary with Halo 3's multiplayer.

Not big on nostalgia around these parts. MSoft did it with Halo Anniversary I see nothing stopping them from doing it with 2.

This is rich.

Do me a favor, Imagine my big smiling mischievous face for a second. Look at where we are=Profit

So a Microsoft that charged for Live but didnt produce online multiplayer games would be better right???

Logic fail.

Halo without the multiplayer is like what the **** is the point? The campaign? **** that.

Halo 2's mp was legit as hell, such a great map list. Honestly I'd want most of the glitches back as well. BXB, BXR, the cancels, the sky jumps, and all that jazz. Custom games with that shit was so much fun.

Halo 2 HD may not exist like X1 exclusives for 2014.

I wish I had an Xbox and Live so I could have experienced Halo 2 MP online. Still got to have fun with it at a friend's house with custom games atleast (and always lose...). So Phil is saying they wouldn't be content just bringing whatever Halo 2 offered to Xbox One with improved HD graphics, more maps and modes? Or forge (wasn't inroduced until Halo 3 AFAIK)?

Doesn't sound too bad to me, but of course I never experienced the game like others did back in the day and played the helll out of it, so what do I know...

Halo 2 anniversary really doesn't make much sense. The single player component of that game was not well loved, and the multiplayer in Halo 3 is basically an updated version of Halo 2.

Minority opinion: Please just keep the campaign faithful, played that 25x more than the MP.

I absolutely enjoyed halo 2 multiplayer. Played that forever on my Xbox. If they do a remake, there is no reason to change anything about it. Just update the visuals

I ever bought the first Halo remake so my interest is meh on 2. Bring on the Playstation killer, Halo 5!

Halo 2 has the Little Shop of Horrors plant in it. That was the last Halo I purchased.

Feed me, Seymour.

I sense come jelly

Never talk bad about the Gravemind, one of the greatest NPC characters in gaming history!

The character whos' name I bare proudly as my gamertag, Twitch account and use as a handle in many other capacities.

ALL HAIL THE GRAVEMIND

\|/ This is BLASPHEMY!

\|/ This is GDLK!

I'm a bit of an Arbiter/Gravemind fan :P

Copy paste it Microsoft. There's a generation of gamers who missed out on one of the best MPs ever.

Multiplayer was easily the best part of Halo 2. If they release an anniversary edition for that, it NEEDS to recreate Halo 2's MP and not be the nooby Codified crap that caused Halo 4's online community to be a pathetic shell.

After Titanfall, 343 really needs to take Halo MP to the next level and give SPARTAN's even greater mobility (not necessarily parkour mind you). They have it in the fiction, but it was never fully realized in the games.

Absolutely not. Halo was perfectly fine before Bungie/343i tried to make it into something it's not *cough* CoD *cough*. Halo is Halo. CoD is CoD. Titanfall is Titanfall. Variety is the spice of life

And why do you think the Halo MP community disappeared and the CoD MP community is disappearing? The games these people are playing aren't changing enough to keep up with the evolution of game mechanics. As much as Microsoft/Activision wants to believe, people will get bored of the same game if they keep releasing it.

I wasn't suggesting Halo mimic Titanfall, I'm saying Halo needs to rethink how it approaches multiplayer and the verticality if it is to remain relevant. Titanfall has introduced a new, innovative element to shooter MP, despite having the surrounding package be quite underwhelming and content-lite. The SPARTAN's have always been incredibly strong, fast and agile characters in the fiction, and that isn't reflected well in the games (especially with ODST making mere humans as mobile as the SPARTAN's). FFS, they can run as fast as a car, and jump huge distances... but that isn't reflected in the games at all. They just run a little faster than the human characters, and jump (more like float) for a little longer.

Something I never felt while playing the Halo games, SP or MP, was their "weight" when clad in full armor, despite having the much-increased mobility. It's just something to think about. And jeez, people seem to really hate the idea of change.

Agreed, but I still wouldn't say no to a Halo 2 campaign remake. Not the strongest in the series but still brilliant despite the ending.

Well said, and good post 'Mother (said in Arlis Howard, FMJ voice). The Halo Anniversary was something I bought, and enjoyed. I was originally angry about taking away BC in PS3 for the reissue of PS2 games. I then bought the GoW, Ico&SotC collections and enjoyed them. I began to see the value of them getting the clean up into HD, because my 80 gig PS3 could play my PS2 copies but they were a bit blurry on my HDTV.

The Halo anniversary had features I enjoyed including the select button time warp from 2001 Halo CE to 2011, HD and graphic over haul; Kinect scanning (I know LOL Kinect, But I used it and it was interesting). The MP was well already done. This Halo2 would NEED the HALO 2 MP imo, not a new Halo 4 MP, as well as the aforementioned graphics overhaul.

@foxhound_fox: I can't speak for the CoD fanbase because I'm not a fan whatsoever but I can tell you that Halo's multiplayer community is dying because Halo hasn't been Halo since Halo 3. The community at large felt betrayed by the direction Reach took the franchise and Halo 4 drifted even further. I guarantee that if Halo 5 launches with true Arena style multiplayer with an IN GAME 1-50 ranking system (Halo 2/3 style) the halo multiplayer community will be the highest it's been since Halo 3's heyday. Quote me on that if you want.

That was a great feature.

No, Halo 4 was the only thing that truly hit the community. A bunch of crybaby's got upset over 3 and Reach, despite them being legitimately good MP experiences. But, if we take your assertion as correct, then obviously the Halo franchise needs drastic changes to it's multiplayer to even be relevant for the next release.

Well Halo 2 without a worthy multiplayer would kind of suck. The lame ass Arbiter ruined half the campaign with his terrible levels.

Can't think of how many times I've played the games wishing that even a few of the Chiefs abilities could be used in-game, I second this. Mjolnir is really a special piece of armor but in the games it's just a small strength enhancer.

Well, since you've just insulted Thel 'Vadam, the greatest character in gaming history, I'll try to keep this cordially brief...

It seems like very few people actually read the novels.

@MonsieurX: well...I suppose PC beggars would be jelly, yes.

they changed Halo before anyone wanted them to though. There is a reason why so many played Halo 3 for so many years after the new games launched. I'm sick of hearing this kind of talk. Change should only be implemented when it is absolutely necessary. Doing it just for the sake of change or to try and bring in an audience THAT WAS NEVER THERE just kills the IP. It already happened with Gears of War and It's going to happen with Halo if the next one doesn't reverse course.

I get it. Spartans are strong. MC could bitchslap a rocket out of the air before it hit him if I remember correctly (though he did have Cortana's help). But how the hell do you balance it? Just adding in running created a shitstorm and being able to spawn with plasma pistols and earn guns/armor and having them arriving straight to your location just for getting kills (killstreaks) arguably killed it. Do you really alienate EVERYONE who goes to the store and buys Halo because they want THAT experience just because MAYBE it could be different? I'd say a spinoff would be the best course of action, but how to handle that? When everyone hated Judgment it was called a "spinoff" instead of a "prequel". Now if it were something crazy like say Revengeance to MGS, that might just work.

Did he? Or did he want to comment on it without officially revealing that it does. I think that he's even talking about it is a stronger indication that it does exist.

Meh Halo.

That is all.

In all actuality, Halo 2 remake probably exists more that DriveClub. Doohh.

I never said they should change for the sake of it. They should EVOLVE the gameplay to higher levels, add more depth and connect it better with the fiction.

SPARTAN's are strong (an understatement), many times stronger than a basic soldier. They were the reason humans survived the Covenant incursions. Had Haley not made them, humanity would have gone extinct. Master Chief wiped the floor (read: slaughtered) with 4 of the best ODST's in the navy, and just came out of his augmentation procedure. He had no idea of his power, and he wasn't even in armor (and the SPARTAN's didn't get armor until much later).

How do you balance it? Have you played, or even watched videos of Titanfall? It's amazingly well-balanced and incredibly fast-paced. These monstrous mechs with incredible power are sharing the battlefield with regular grunts and other "pilots", and the pilots are capable of taking down (with effort) any mech they so choose.

And really, if every human player is a SPARTAN, why would there even be a question of balance? Everyone has access to the same power.

Halo 2 is my least favorite Halo, but I know quite a few people who love it. So good for them I guess, if it ever does come out.