Halo 5 Firefight Mode?

Firefight was originally released in Halo 3: ODST and then saw its return in Halo: Reach, it has single and co-operative gameplay in which you must survive wave after wave of bloodthirsty covenant forces which increase in difficulty. You were able to fight in an array of environments and maps from the campaign, on foot or in a vehicle, your choice. And it really was your choice, every time you started a new firefight you had no idea what you were getting into, forcing you to make decisions which could ultimately mean failure for you and your squadmates or battlefield dominance . You could Pick off grunts skillfully from a far or run in and catch those goddamn alien sons of bitches with their space pants down!

It brought halo fans back to what Halo stood for, kicking alien butt over and over. If you thought it was too easy well think again there’s skulls that can really put hairs on your chest! For instance you may lose your motion sensor, the enemies may throw twice as many grenades or you lose half your entire ammo stock. It bought a new dynamic to the game, yes you may be a skilled player but if you lose concentration for a second you can be surrounded by brutes and cut off from your teammates, If you die you are a cost to the team as you do not respawn until the next round and you have physically lost a life for your team. Firefight forced the players to be better, you had to think about where’s the best position, who is the primary target and are my friends needing help. It made you faster at making the right decisions It made you learn when to choose to survive to fight another day or save your skin.

Firefight continued into Reach, and we were given a treat. You could be your own spartan kicking it with out noble team cramping your style or seemingly just having muscle spasms in your gaze (armour lock up). In Reach’s Firefight you had control over what class you wanted your enemy to be, all Brutes? no problem, a wave of enough Hunters just to punish yourself? assuming you are a masochist. You could make yourself invincible, give your sniper an endless clip and just for the hell of it, an endless jet pack so you could float gracefully throughout the battle field to prove that Spartans do have a gentle touch too. What's more is you could choose your own voice, you could be the Master Chief or his trusty AI side kick Cortana, Johnson, Auntie Dot, Stacker or anyone the Noble posse. What was not to love about John laughing psychotically at a pile of decapitated grunts? Absolutely nothing.

However, Firefight was put out of service by 343 Industries and replaced by the underwhelming Spartan Ops in Halo 4. Spartan Ops was supposed to be Firefight orientated but offering objectives and a storyline that added to the Halo universe. Unfortunately it was not received with the highest of praises, and was almost entirely condemned by the the Halo 4 community. While Spartan Ops had many floors - (TOO MANY BUTTONS!) - it did however, make crucial steps in accidentally showing us the possibility for the future of Firefight. Yes I said it…. The future of Firefight.

Objectives/Mini missions.

Spartan Ops tried to bridge the divide from objective based gameplay to mindless wave pummeling. So it begs the question, why not just add that to a new and improved Firefight. Imagine having to fend off seemingly endless hordes while trying to destroy sensitive UNSC files, defending a crashed Pelican until evac or even extracting a trapped ONI Informant stuck behind enemy lines. As im sure you can imagine the possibilities are endless and really will change the dynamics and the feel of the game. You should be able to turn these objectives on and off just like skulls.

Playable Characters/Classes.

In the original release of Firefight you could play as any of the ODST squad from the campaign, including Veronica Dare as well as Sgt. Avery Johnson. But why not take this further? Why not play as a Marine, ODST, Crew members, Scientists (Maybe Halsey), you could even go as far as to play as Captain Keyes and Admiral Hood in their officer uniform, how cool would that be? I mean...Keyes! Kicking butt. I understand how this could not be possible, but it might be plausible to change the skin on the same character model. This surely would be an amazing feature. You can be that Marine that is just an average Joe kind of dude. If like in Reach you allow settings to be changed you could get rid of your shields or you could play as Keyes with spartan shields. At the end of the day it is just a game mode and so doesn’t ruin lore in anyway, this could also be amazing for machinimas.

Customisable AI Squads.

In Reach Firefight on the map ‘Installation 04’ (which was only available with the stand alone Halo: CE Anniversary Edition) they gave you AI. We had our own small ODST Squad, this was one of the finer things in life for people like my friends and I, we love company even if it is just numbers and coding. The AI did die if you just turned away for a second, like a toddler they seemed to be sticking damp forks into a plug socket, which sometimes had a lemmings effect. But when you did keep them alive and you made it through all the waves with the same ODST’s you really feel a sense of accomplishment.

Nowadays It must be possible for us to chose what class of AI we want eg: ODST’s, Marine Corp’s, and not just 2 or 3 on one map, why not a full squad of Marines that physically get dropped in game via Pelican, ODST’s should drop from orbit, after all….they are Orbital, Drop, Shock, Troopers. If you feel like it you should be able to put shielding on your AI allies just like you can for yourself in Reach, that way you can have the feel of a full on battle. Much like Titanfall’s mechanics.

Forge

Forge is an integral part of the Halo games, it adds something that other games do not have which makes Halo special and much loved by fans. So we should be able to create our own Firefight maps or at least customise the ready made maps. This way you could make several other compounds you need to defend, you can add more vehicles to the map like a Hornet. This would make air support a possibility and can make use of bigger maps, possibly a Firefight World, similar to Forge World on Reach to really make prolonged and epic battles that could be used for machinimas easily.

Flood Waves.

I honestly will never know why the Flood was never implemented into Firefight. The Flood, the parasite that will destroy all sentient life in the galaxy. This could be in the form of a random wave (once again, if you chose it). Imagine a seemingly normal Phantom dropship, then it comes apparent the ship was some how hijacked and they pile out. This would be a really fantastic thing to add into a new firefight because suddenly the dynamics of the Firefight shifts. Then you have a decision to make, do you carry on fighting through the fray no matter what the odds? Or do you hide and hope the enemy Forces destroys the parasite - “We shall grind them into dust!”- but there is a dilemma. The flood could wipe out the enemy and thus double their strength.

In Game Cinematics.

If you have played Titanfall you certainly would’ve noticed that you physically fly into battle in Military aircraft. And after the battle has taken place you may have to escape, they could’ve made you run to a checkpoint, but guess what, you only had to run, dive and free run your way navigating through enemy fire, slipping past pilots and hoping to god that titans does not turn round and blast you into a awesome death. If you managed all of this you were rewarded by a free ride in the aircraft. But if you missed the evac… well they do leave men behind.

That excited me so much about Titanfall, they did something that games haven't done successfully before and it is truly needed. You should fly in via Pelican or Drop in an ODST Pod and you're allowed to look around your environment and see your squad freefalling or preparing to exit the Pelican. This makes the whole feel of the game mode far more, absorbing and real. To actually feel like a ODST dropping from orbit and seeing how fragile your body is, would just be damn cool.

So far 343 have said they were not planning to release Firefight with the re-vamped ODST for The Master Chief Collection. However there is speculation that 343 may surprise us for the Master Chief Collection, but there is no evidence to support this, just wishful thinking. 343 have neither confirmed nor denied the possibility of Firefight making a return to the Halo legacy. We will be discussing Spartan Ops, the good, the bad, the buttons, the eggheads and speculation…... maybe more buttons.

Keep a weather eye on the horizon for it.

Thank you so much for reading!

“Problem is, we got alien bastards in the house. Each new wave means more bad guys. Five waves make up a round. Three rounds in a set. Sounds easy, huh? Wrong! See these skulls? When they activate, they turn a casual Covenant make-out session into a full-on test of your manly prowess!”