The Evolution of Halo: A Fan's Perspective

As a teenager watching Halo on ESPN was revolutionary to me and I wanted to be a part of that scene, but after getting into college and having responsibilities, I decided to still be decent while also being able to relax sometimes. That feeling started to go away fast with future Halo releases. The competitive scene was very unhappy with Halo 4 at launch, just to say the least. Dramatic changes were demanded of it, and mostly made, with esports pros and consultants brought in to ensure that Halo 5 could be as esporty as possible at launch. It sucked to this day. Halo 5 has one of the most fleshed out incredible sandboxes of any Halo game, but it's mostly flushed down the toilet due to the overfocus on esports competitiveness and some missed opportunities.

Did you know that the name "Warzone" was actually a big casual Halo 5 mode long before Call of Duty used it? I still believe to this day that 343 and Microsoft made the biggest mistake of Halo's history by not putting a free-to-play microtransaction-filled Halo 5 Warzone on Xbox and PC to feed into the franchise. They're trying to make up for it now, but oh boy, they clearly missed out on something. All of the sandbox pieces were there, and Customs and Halo 5 were actually pretty fantastic, but the online matchmaking consistently stayed the biggest sweat fest of any Halo title.

The mechanic changes just couldn't get behind, and Halo Infinite has refined the Halo esports back to its roots and what made it appealing to watch in the first place. When it was Final Boss versus straight ripping over standard definition television. Balance the competitive and accessible side of the game, Halo competitive is everywhere too. Marketing is hyping it up, ESL Australia is picking up the tournament, and face it is getting Halo integration for easier online tournament hosting. I feel a strong MLDoritos and Mountain Dew era coming along, and I couldn't be more excited.

They just finished hosting the first open qualifier HCS tournament, where I saw it hit over 61k concurrent viewers on Twitch. Twitch alone what I believe to be an all-time record for Halo tournaments, and Optic Gaming defeated Cloud9 in an upset. It was an absolute joy to watch what I did get to watch of it, and only shows what the beginnings of Halo's potential viewership and hype can look like.

Plus, they announced that they allow for co-streaming of all Halo tournaments moving forward, which involves the community more. This is a bit of a different release for this channel, Filthy Casual is a show I've adapted from older content and ran well casually on my old secondary channel for a while now, but I wanted to see how it would do over here.

Typically, these kinds of experiments could be costly for YouTubers and their stats, but I'm fortunate to have built an independent video site with my creator friends. The site is called Nebula, and we've partnered with CuriosityStream. Nebula features YouTube's top education creators such as Legaleagle ThomasFrank, and mkbhd. My videos are higher quality, they're ad-free, and often extended from the YouTube versions.

Curiosity Streams saw what we were doing for education and wanted to form an alliance. If you click the link in the description below, you not only get access to Curiosity Stream and their library of thousands of documentaries and educational content but also get access to Nebula and all of our fun edutainment over there as well. Two sites for the price of one is better yet. Curiosity Stream is currently running a holiday promotion where you can get 42 off an annual subscription making it under 12 per year for both sites absolutely wild.

While you're there, check out Nature Through Her Eyes, a mini-series showcasing the beautiful world of nature through the eyes of four female cinematographers. Head on over to CuriosityStream.com eboz for the best deal in streaming and get access to both sites for under 12 per year 42 percent off it's bonkers just do it.

Will Halo Return to Its Former Glory or Will It Light a Spark That Fizzes Out?

By the next AAA release, that remains to be seen. But I definitely believe that Halo is back for now at least. There's so much writing in 343's favor after such a tumultuous development cycle and a year-long delay.

I have to believe that Halo is back it's been a blast streaming it again, and I hope to see each of you giving it a shot too it's free.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe year is 2021. limp bizkit has a new album punk rock is coming back gta 3 is out and everyone's playing halo and watching g4 tv life is good but just how good is halo infinite's multiplayer are we looking at a 2007 like resurgence for the franchise let's talk about this in this episode of filthy casual halo is currently clawing its way back to fame and relevance and doing a great job at it ironically by somewhat locking in on one of the things that i truly believed soured halo in recent releases that contradiction sounds dumb but it's already paying off in dividends by going all in on their esports side and focusing as much as possible on accessibility i believe that halo is going to dominate gaming the next few years with infinite i'm eposvox i've been playing halo since the ce days on my crts competed semi-professionally in halo 3 and halo reach and truly believe that the halo franchise has had a significant impact on my life overall though you wouldn't be blamed for saying it's for the worst we we are talking about video games here i'm extremely passionate about the franchise even if certain commenters seem to think that i'm secretly paid by sony to point out the obvious graphical issues in a trailer but i've kept relatively quiet about it in recent years as discussing halo on twitter is just a dumpster fire ever since halo 4. but halo infinite is bringing me back halo is back free to play multiplayer releasing early during the xbox 20th anniversary stream and absolutely epic first competitive open tournament with record-breaking views for halo esports co-streaming 343 industries is suddenly doing a lot of things right in case you missed it halo infinite's multiplayer is ready to play now ahead of the full december 8th release date it's free to play on xbox and pc integrates with steam if you want and any progression you make now will transfer over when the game fully releases on december 8th since this is technically a beta quite the shocking release but it sounded like they kind of reached a point where they were done and felt confident enough to just kind of let us have at it which is pretty awesome to see especially considering what a sad state the game it was in just a year ago with accessibility being super important to halo success it really doesn't get any more accessible than free-to-play and cross-play enabled heck it's even only about 28 gigabytes to download tube which by today's standards is kind of small for a big multiplayer franchise it was also quite the cocky move to come swinging with when call of duty's latest release is not being received too well and activision burning itself to the ground anyway and battlefield 2042 being in kind of a buggy state right now so how was it i wouldn't say we have the whole multiplayer package but it's a start there's social 4v4s big team battle ranked arena custom games a metric elephant load of unlocks and a depressingly so slow battle pass system which they are working on theater mode forge oh wait nope not not that one i've already put a stupid amount of hours in bought the battle pass tried out all of the modes of course and i am hooked and seeing friends from across my decades of playing halo all logged in again at the same time makes me feel like a happy high schooler on christmas booting up my first xbox 360. but there does feel like a lot's missing especially coming from playing mcc non-stop as they've been turning it into the best halo package you could ask for there's just social big team and ranked play no separate playlists for game types slayer only br stars objective only anything like that there's no fun modes like fiesta or griff wall there's not even fun competitive modes like swat or snipers there's also no customs browser forge is obviously missing and the custom sandbox feels a little limited at the moment combine this with the move over the past few halos to hide your playlist specific rank which was a thing even in social playlists in halo 3 on xbox 360. in lieu of a hidden csr or competitive skill rank system i can't help but feel like it's a little hollow right now now this is where echoing the reminder that this is just a beta is important as they could have a totally different playlist structure in mind come launch but i want to have this feedback heard as loud and clear as possible just in case that isn't the case compared to mcc's brilliant match composer this is dog poop but again it's just a beta but i'm really worried that this is kind of what they're focusing on the reason this matters is because of how good the game satisfies some of the casual arena shooter itches i've had that most games have moved away from when discussions of skill based matchmaking and shooters going too hardcore come up i always always always point to halo 3 and halo reach as shining examples of what i felt were the perfect balance of matchmaking potential halo 3 had entirely separate social and ranked or competitive playlists with their own individual ranks per game mode in that playlist ranked is where you went to sweat and show off your true 50 and social is where you chilled and with some doritos and party chat while listening to dubstep or whatever weird stuff we did back in 2007. sbmm was present in social playlists but it didn't get in the way of fun whereas most modern shooter titles today have sbmm so tightly tuned that even in the most casual modes it feels if you aren't trying your best you're you don't get a chance to even like move or have any real fun halo infinite immediately brings back this feeling of hopping in a voice chat with some buddies drinking some soda and gaming into the wee hours of the night and then regretting that the next day because i'm a grown up with responsibilities and i'm a new dad and i'm a filthy casual now all that without sweating my butt off at least not for competitive reasons i've had quite a few nightly sessions with my buddies lately discord.gigi slash evil's fox if you want to get in on that action by the way and each night i just wear a big smile on my face because of the laid back messing around while playing halo feeling is back and it isn't just something that felt that way because i was in high school back in the day this is incredibly important to halo as accessibility has always been halo's standout feeling from its origins revolutionizing shooter gameplay on the controller for the original xbox you're perfecting the rock paper scissors gameplay balance across a variety of guns the easy to learn difficult to master curve is pretty well tuned here but sometimes that feeling comes to a grinding halt specifically whenever capture the flag or stockpile comes up ctf is a halo staple and allows for the most dynamic and impressive competitive multiplayer shooter viewing experiences you will ever see but it's as sweaty as it gets in terms of competitive play even in the social playlist stockpile is in big team only but is also usually a sweat fest or just a steamroll i thoroughly enjoyed stockpile in halo reach but this in but but infinite's remixed version of this mode it just feels like a chore to play every time whether it's competitive or not especially since the game is so young and most the players don't seem to understand how the mode works or that there's vehicles that can carry multiple power seeds at the same time and so on also power seeds that's the name you come up with here and i don't say this as some loser who's not good at the game and doesn't understand competitive play i'm currently in diamond and i'm aiming i i want to hit onyx before the ranks reset like i'm not bad at this game having separate playlists for slayer-based and objective-based modes is an easy fix or separate by game type entirely the sandbox at play in infinite is incredible but also infuriating when you are used to how halo has done things for so long they've made changes to little things that have always been the case for halo that are driving me wild a charged up plasma pistol shot can drop enemy shields but no longer disables vehicles instead vehicle disabling is now restricted to the new electricity class of weapons objective holding melees no longer kill enemies in one hit requiring the usual two hits unless from behind the latter is especially frustrating as you lose a ton of momentum and movement range while holding set objective and the oddball specifically always highlights your location to enemies the one-shot melee was basically your only defense as a ball carrier with the flag you can at least juggle without much consequence but juggling the oddball has a direct negative impact on your scoring in the match it makes it that much more difficult especially when playing matchmaking where you don't always have the best team coordination i feel the new weapons take a while to truly learn how they work and how they're best suited for use the heat wave for example seems completely useless other than for random lucky corner shots until you use its vertical alt-fire mode and then it drops shields no problem despite a gamut of new weapons and even a new grenade type they all seem to fit into the rock paper scissors balance perfectly weapon swapping is more important than ever as you'll be most efficient at taking down enemies by using plasma or electricity weapons to drop shields and then quickly swapping to your bullet or kinetic weapons to finish them off unfortunately weapon swapping is very obnoxious on pc at the moment presumably because of this new focus 343 industries have changed the key bindings from mcc where the emphasis on weapon swapping falls to the scroll wheel rather than key number one in is available as a keybind too and of course you can rebind this a little bit but the numbers are now used for other functions and managing them does get awkward i haven't heard from a single person who plays on mouse and keyboard who hasn't had constant headaches with the scroll wheel switching weapons twice three times or not at all meaning that if i run out of ammo or want to swap weapon types i'm just as likely to end up with the same weapon i was just shooting with rather than the one that i want to use as my secondary and then i just die this is supposedly not an issue on xbox with controller but even when i played with my fancy new halo elite controller on pc the y button sometimes just wouldn't swap at all for me it's really weird the assault rifle is back as the default weapon for social matchmaking while ranked has vr starts the ar is just so damn powerful at close in mid-range having matches start with it means literally anyone can pick up a controller or mouse and start dropping some fools without needing a ton of accuracy it also makes it more of a power weapon pickup on the competitive maps which is kind of interesting it's so good that in most of the 4v4 maps it almost doesn't make sense to trade it for the battle rifle as the maps are so small that the ar can outshoot the br in most scenarios it's wild stuff again accessibility being the focus here with the multiplayer is really going to be a big deal when it comes to games that more casual players pick up and roll them into this hardcore grind halo used to have this massive player base consisting of the most casual of casuals playing social and custom matches to the most hardcore of basement dwellers spinning every waking hour in the mlg playlist doing ranked play it really seems like 343 is finally trying to get back to that it seems that both the br and the sniper are very much slowed down from previous halo titles and that there has it's felt like there's been a bit of a delay when shooting on mouse and keyboard almost as if to nerf them a bit which if so i am very much against sniping people like there's no tomorrow was my specialty in halo 3 and reach and i'm still pretty damn good at it in mcc but i look like a kid who's never played a shooter before when i'm using the sniper in infinite well most of the time i do have my moments movement is where the skill curve will truly be apparent in the highest level of play in infinite you have sprinting sliding clambering and equipment for deflecting which can be used as a boosted jump as well as grapple hooking the sliding sprinting and jumping can be chained to basically bunnyhop kind of like in warframe but without the the slo-mo bullet time mode movement and positioning are absolutely crucial to halo play and we're going to see some wild moves in tournaments in social play we're already seeing shenanigans like grapple jacking flying vehicles and using vehicles to move objectives around the map where normal foot traffic can't reach the other direction that halo is going to start dominating is kind of in the opposite direction esports i have had a kind of rocky relationship with halo esports i actually competed semi professionally in halo 3 and halo reach for a few years back in high school it was a sweaty hardcore mlg inspired teen watching halo on espn was just revolutionary to me and i wanted to be a part of that scene but after i got into college and had responsibilities and effectively retired i wanted to still be decent but also get to relax sometimes and that's really started go away real fast with future halo releases the competitive scene was very unhappy with halo 4 at launch just to say the least dramatic changes were demanded of it and mostly made and esports pros and consultants were brought in to make sure that halo 5 could be as esporty as it could be at launch and it sucked to this day halo 5 has one of the most fleshed out incredible sandboxes of any halo game and it's mostly flushed down the toilet due to the over focus on esports competitiveness and some missed opportunities did you know the name warzone was actually a big casual halo 5 mode long before call of duty used it i still believe to this day that 343 and microsoft have made the biggest mistake of halo's history by not putting a free-to-play micro transaction filled halo 5 war zone on xbox and pc to feed into the franchise they're trying to make up for it now but oh boy they they they clearly missed out on something all of the sandbox pieces were there and customs and halo 5 were actually pretty fantastic but the online matchmaking consistently stayed the biggest sweat fest of any halo title and the mechanic changes i just couldn't get behind halo infinite has refined the halo esport back to its roots and what made it appealing to watch in the first place back when it was final boss versus straight ripping over standard definition television and balance the competitive and accessible side of the game halo competitive is everywhere too marketing is hyping it up esl australia is picking up the tournament reigns down under and face it is getting halo integration for easier online tournament hosting i feel a strong mlg doritos and mountain dew era coming along and i could not be more excited they just finished hosting the first open qualifier hcs tournament where i saw it hit over 61k concurrent viewers on twitch twitch alone what i believe to be an all-time record for halo tournaments and optic gaming defeated cloud9 in an upset it was an absolute joy to watch what i did get to watch of it and only shows what the beginnings of halo's potential viewership and hype can look like plus they announced that they allow for co-streaming of all halo tournaments moving forward which only involves the community more you might notice that this is a bit of a different release for this channel filthy casual is a show i've adapted from older content and ran well casually on my old secondary channel for a while now but i wanted to see how it would do over here typically these kinds of experiments could be costly for youtubers and their stats this would be a problem if not for the independent video site that i have built with my creator friends the site is called nebula and we've partnered with curiositystream nebula features youtube's top education creators such as legaleagle thomasfrank and mkbhd my videos are higher quality they are ad free and often extended from the youtube versions curiosity streams saw what we were doing for education and wanted to form an alliance if you click the link in the description below you not only get access to curiosity stream and their library of thousands of documentaries and educational content but you get access to nebula and all of our fun edutainment over there as well two sites for the price of one better yet curiosity stream is currently running a holiday promotion where you can get 42 off an annual subscription making it under 12 per year for both sites absolutely wild while you're there check out nature through her eyes a mini series showcasing the beautiful world of nature through the eyes of four female cinematographers head on over to curiositystream.com eboz for the best deal in streaming and get access to both sites for under 12 per year 42 percent off it's bonkers just do it will halo return to its former glory or will it light a spark that fizzles out by the next aaa release coming out that remains to be seen but i definitely believe that halo is back to stay for now at least there's so much writing in 343's favor after such a tumultuous development cycle and a year-long delay i have to believe that halo is back it's been a blast streaming it again and i hope to see each of you giving it a shot too it's free thanks for watching this episode of filthy casual if you want to catch more episodes since most have not been on this channel check the playlist link down below down there you will see links to my discord server and twitch if you'd like to hang out and we'll probably be streaming some other stuff as i can't stop playing pokemon diamond and pearl right now but i'm eposvox remember be kind rewindthe year is 2021. limp bizkit has a new album punk rock is coming back gta 3 is out and everyone's playing halo and watching g4 tv life is good but just how good is halo infinite's multiplayer are we looking at a 2007 like resurgence for the franchise let's talk about this in this episode of filthy casual halo is currently clawing its way back to fame and relevance and doing a great job at it ironically by somewhat locking in on one of the things that i truly believed soured halo in recent releases that contradiction sounds dumb but it's already paying off in dividends by going all in on their esports side and focusing as much as possible on accessibility i believe that halo is going to dominate gaming the next few years with infinite i'm eposvox i've been playing halo since the ce days on my crts competed semi-professionally in halo 3 and halo reach and truly believe that the halo franchise has had a significant impact on my life overall though you wouldn't be blamed for saying it's for the worst we we are talking about video games here i'm extremely passionate about the franchise even if certain commenters seem to think that i'm secretly paid by sony to point out the obvious graphical issues in a trailer but i've kept relatively quiet about it in recent years as discussing halo on twitter is just a dumpster fire ever since halo 4. but halo infinite is bringing me back halo is back free to play multiplayer releasing early during the xbox 20th anniversary stream and absolutely epic first competitive open tournament with record-breaking views for halo esports co-streaming 343 industries is suddenly doing a lot of things right in case you missed it halo infinite's multiplayer is ready to play now ahead of the full december 8th release date it's free to play on xbox and pc integrates with steam if you want and any progression you make now will transfer over when the game fully releases on december 8th since this is technically a beta quite the shocking release but it sounded like they kind of reached a point where they were done and felt confident enough to just kind of let us have at it which is pretty awesome to see especially considering what a sad state the game it was in just a year ago with accessibility being super important to halo success it really doesn't get any more accessible than free-to-play and cross-play enabled heck it's even only about 28 gigabytes to download tube which by today's standards is kind of small for a big multiplayer franchise it was also quite the cocky move to come swinging with when call of duty's latest release is not being received too well and activision burning itself to the ground anyway and battlefield 2042 being in kind of a buggy state right now so how was it i wouldn't say we have the whole multiplayer package but it's a start there's social 4v4s big team battle ranked arena custom games a metric elephant load of unlocks and a depressingly so slow battle pass system which they are working on theater mode forge oh wait nope not not that one i've already put a stupid amount of hours in bought the battle pass tried out all of the modes of course and i am hooked and seeing friends from across my decades of playing halo all logged in again at the same time makes me feel like a happy high schooler on christmas booting up my first xbox 360. but there does feel like a lot's missing especially coming from playing mcc non-stop as they've been turning it into the best halo package you could ask for there's just social big team and ranked play no separate playlists for game types slayer only br stars objective only anything like that there's no fun modes like fiesta or griff wall there's not even fun competitive modes like swat or snipers there's also no customs browser forge is obviously missing and the custom sandbox feels a little limited at the moment combine this with the move over the past few halos to hide your playlist specific rank which was a thing even in social playlists in halo 3 on xbox 360. in lieu of a hidden csr or competitive skill rank system i can't help but feel like it's a little hollow right now now this is where echoing the reminder that this is just a beta is important as they could have a totally different playlist structure in mind come launch but i want to have this feedback heard as loud and clear as possible just in case that isn't the case compared to mcc's brilliant match composer this is dog poop but again it's just a beta but i'm really worried that this is kind of what they're focusing on the reason this matters is because of how good the game satisfies some of the casual arena shooter itches i've had that most games have moved away from when discussions of skill based matchmaking and shooters going too hardcore come up i always always always point to halo 3 and halo reach as shining examples of what i felt were the perfect balance of matchmaking potential halo 3 had entirely separate social and ranked or competitive playlists with their own individual ranks per game mode in that playlist ranked is where you went to sweat and show off your true 50 and social is where you chilled and with some doritos and party chat while listening to dubstep or whatever weird stuff we did back in 2007. sbmm was present in social playlists but it didn't get in the way of fun whereas most modern shooter titles today have sbmm so tightly tuned that even in the most casual modes it feels if you aren't trying your best you're you don't get a chance to even like move or have any real fun halo infinite immediately brings back this feeling of hopping in a voice chat with some buddies drinking some soda and gaming into the wee hours of the night and then regretting that the next day because i'm a grown up with responsibilities and i'm a new dad and i'm a filthy casual now all that without sweating my butt off at least not for competitive reasons i've had quite a few nightly sessions with my buddies lately discord.gigi slash evil's fox if you want to get in on that action by the way and each night i just wear a big smile on my face because of the laid back messing around while playing halo feeling is back and it isn't just something that felt that way because i was in high school back in the day this is incredibly important to halo as accessibility has always been halo's standout feeling from its origins revolutionizing shooter gameplay on the controller for the original xbox you're perfecting the rock paper scissors gameplay balance across a variety of guns the easy to learn difficult to master curve is pretty well tuned here but sometimes that feeling comes to a grinding halt specifically whenever capture the flag or stockpile comes up ctf is a halo staple and allows for the most dynamic and impressive competitive multiplayer shooter viewing experiences you will ever see but it's as sweaty as it gets in terms of competitive play even in the social playlist stockpile is in big team only but is also usually a sweat fest or just a steamroll i thoroughly enjoyed stockpile in halo reach but this in but but infinite's remixed version of this mode it just feels like a chore to play every time whether it's competitive or not especially since the game is so young and most the players don't seem to understand how the mode works or that there's vehicles that can carry multiple power seeds at the same time and so on also power seeds that's the name you come up with here and i don't say this as some loser who's not good at the game and doesn't understand competitive play i'm currently in diamond and i'm aiming i i want to hit onyx before the ranks reset like i'm not bad at this game having separate playlists for slayer-based and objective-based modes is an easy fix or separate by game type entirely the sandbox at play in infinite is incredible but also infuriating when you are used to how halo has done things for so long they've made changes to little things that have always been the case for halo that are driving me wild a charged up plasma pistol shot can drop enemy shields but no longer disables vehicles instead vehicle disabling is now restricted to the new electricity class of weapons objective holding melees no longer kill enemies in one hit requiring the usual two hits unless from behind the latter is especially frustrating as you lose a ton of momentum and movement range while holding set objective and the oddball specifically always highlights your location to enemies the one-shot melee was basically your only defense as a ball carrier with the flag you can at least juggle without much consequence but juggling the oddball has a direct negative impact on your scoring in the match it makes it that much more difficult especially when playing matchmaking where you don't always have the best team coordination i feel the new weapons take a while to truly learn how they work and how they're best suited for use the heat wave for example seems completely useless other than for random lucky corner shots until you use its vertical alt-fire mode and then it drops shields no problem despite a gamut of new weapons and even a new grenade type they all seem to fit into the rock paper scissors balance perfectly weapon swapping is more important than ever as you'll be most efficient at taking down enemies by using plasma or electricity weapons to drop shields and then quickly swapping to your bullet or kinetic weapons to finish them off unfortunately weapon swapping is very obnoxious on pc at the moment presumably because of this new focus 343 industries have changed the key bindings from mcc where the emphasis on weapon swapping falls to the scroll wheel rather than key number one in is available as a keybind too and of course you can rebind this a little bit but the numbers are now used for other functions and managing them does get awkward i haven't heard from a single person who plays on mouse and keyboard who hasn't had constant headaches with the scroll wheel switching weapons twice three times or not at all meaning that if i run out of ammo or want to swap weapon types i'm just as likely to end up with the same weapon i was just shooting with rather than the one that i want to use as my secondary and then i just die this is supposedly not an issue on xbox with controller but even when i played with my fancy new halo elite controller on pc the y button sometimes just wouldn't swap at all for me it's really weird the assault rifle is back as the default weapon for social matchmaking while ranked has vr starts the ar is just so damn powerful at close in mid-range having matches start with it means literally anyone can pick up a controller or mouse and start dropping some fools without needing a ton of accuracy it also makes it more of a power weapon pickup on the competitive maps which is kind of interesting it's so good that in most of the 4v4 maps it almost doesn't make sense to trade it for the battle rifle as the maps are so small that the ar can outshoot the br in most scenarios it's wild stuff again accessibility being the focus here with the multiplayer is really going to be a big deal when it comes to games that more casual players pick up and roll them into this hardcore grind halo used to have this massive player base consisting of the most casual of casuals playing social and custom matches to the most hardcore of basement dwellers spinning every waking hour in the mlg playlist doing ranked play it really seems like 343 is finally trying to get back to that it seems that both the br and the sniper are very much slowed down from previous halo titles and that there has it's felt like there's been a bit of a delay when shooting on mouse and keyboard almost as if to nerf them a bit which if so i am very much against sniping people like there's no tomorrow was my specialty in halo 3 and reach and i'm still pretty damn good at it in mcc but i look like a kid who's never played a shooter before when i'm using the sniper in infinite well most of the time i do have my moments movement is where the skill curve will truly be apparent in the highest level of play in infinite you have sprinting sliding clambering and equipment for deflecting which can be used as a boosted jump as well as grapple hooking the sliding sprinting and jumping can be chained to basically bunnyhop kind of like in warframe but without the the slo-mo bullet time mode movement and positioning are absolutely crucial to halo play and we're going to see some wild moves in tournaments in social play we're already seeing shenanigans like grapple jacking flying vehicles and using vehicles to move objectives around the map where normal foot traffic can't reach the other direction that halo is going to start dominating is kind of in the opposite direction esports i have had a kind of rocky relationship with halo esports i actually competed semi professionally in halo 3 and halo reach for a few years back in high school it was a sweaty hardcore mlg inspired teen watching halo on espn was just revolutionary to me and i wanted to be a part of that scene but after i got into college and had responsibilities and effectively retired i wanted to still be decent but also get to relax sometimes and that's really started go away real fast with future halo releases the competitive scene was very unhappy with halo 4 at launch just to say the least dramatic changes were demanded of it and mostly made and esports pros and consultants were brought in to make sure that halo 5 could be as esporty as it could be at launch and it sucked to this day halo 5 has one of the most fleshed out incredible sandboxes of any halo game and it's mostly flushed down the toilet due to the over focus on esports competitiveness and some missed opportunities did you know the name warzone was actually a big casual halo 5 mode long before call of duty used it i still believe to this day that 343 and microsoft have made the biggest mistake of halo's history by not putting a free-to-play micro transaction filled halo 5 war zone on xbox and pc to feed into the franchise they're trying to make up for it now but oh boy they they they clearly missed out on something all of the sandbox pieces were there and customs and halo 5 were actually pretty fantastic but the online matchmaking consistently stayed the biggest sweat fest of any halo title and the mechanic changes i just couldn't get behind halo infinite has refined the halo esport back to its roots and what made it appealing to watch in the first place back when it was final boss versus straight ripping over standard definition television and balance the competitive and accessible side of the game halo competitive is everywhere too marketing is hyping it up esl australia is picking up the tournament reigns down under and face it is getting halo integration for easier online tournament hosting i feel a strong mlg doritos and mountain dew era coming along and i could not be more excited they just finished hosting the first open qualifier hcs tournament where i saw it hit over 61k concurrent viewers on twitch twitch alone what i believe to be an all-time record for halo tournaments and optic gaming defeated cloud9 in an upset it was an absolute joy to watch what i did get to watch of it and only shows what the beginnings of halo's potential viewership and hype can look like plus they announced that they allow for co-streaming of all halo tournaments moving forward which only involves the community more you might notice that this is a bit of a different release for this channel filthy casual is a show i've adapted from older content and ran well casually on my old secondary channel for a while now but i wanted to see how it would do over here typically these kinds of experiments could be costly for youtubers and their stats this would be a problem if not for the independent video site that i have built with my creator friends the site is called nebula and we've partnered with curiositystream nebula features youtube's top education creators such as legaleagle thomasfrank and mkbhd my videos are higher quality they are ad free and often extended from the youtube versions curiosity streams saw what we were doing for education and wanted to form an alliance if you click the link in the description below you not only get access to curiosity stream and their library of thousands of documentaries and educational content but you get access to nebula and all of our fun edutainment over there as well two sites for the price of one better yet curiosity stream is currently running a holiday promotion where you can get 42 off an annual subscription making it under 12 per year for both sites absolutely wild while you're there check out nature through her eyes a mini series showcasing the beautiful world of nature through the eyes of four female cinematographers head on over to curiositystream.com eboz for the best deal in streaming and get access to both sites for under 12 per year 42 percent off it's bonkers just do it will halo return to its former glory or will it light a spark that fizzles out by the next aaa release coming out that remains to be seen but i definitely believe that halo is back to stay for now at least there's so much writing in 343's favor after such a tumultuous development cycle and a year-long delay i have to believe that halo is back it's been a blast streaming it again and i hope to see each of you giving it a shot too it's free thanks for watching this episode of filthy casual if you want to catch more episodes since most have not been on this channel check the playlist link down below down there you will see links to my discord server and twitch if you'd like to hang out and we'll probably be streaming some other stuff as i can't stop playing pokemon diamond and pearl right now but i'm eposvox remember be kind rewind\n"