Players collected monsters, fought eight gym leaders, defeated a team of villains, and faced the elite four. For a long time, every Pokémon game was structurally the same. It’s a tension that’s especially present in the Pokémon series right now. Take too big of a creative leap and you might upset your most loyal fans, but stick too close to previous games and risk stagnation. It’s a contradiction, and one that puts developers creating big-budget sequels in a tight spot. They want new games to be bigger and better, while simultaneously being the exact thing they already know and love.

Fans can often be precious about series they’ve grown up with for decades. That means avoiding the kind of controversy that gets a game’s reputation dragged through the mud on Reddit before it comes out.īut discourse is almost unavoidable in gaming these days, especially when it comes to long-existing franchises like Halo. With budgets often exceeding $100 million, studios want to make sure they’re pleasing as many players as possible to max out sales. When it comes to AAA video games, failure isn’t an option. That last part is a terrifying notion for industry executives. Sometimes, that means letting developers experiment - and even fail. That’s led me to grapple with a hard truth: Our favorite video games won’t evolve unless we allow them to. Halo Infinite feels like a response to that - it plays it creatively conservative to avoid YouTube downvotes. Features like Halo Reach’s abilities and Halo 4’s loadouts have been a point of historical contention for the fan base over the past decade. Had 343 Industries revealed such a fundamental change, Halo loyalists would have revolted (gaming satire site Hard Drive was already poking fun at the tool when it appeared in a campaign reveal trailer). In my mind, Halo Infinite could have been a groundbreaking entry in a 20-year old series that reinvented shooters had it gone all-in on new ideas like the grappleshot.īut then I began to imagine the inevitable backlash. I have to find it during a match to use it, and I only get a few shots with it when I do.

My only disappointment is that it’s not always equipped. The wrist-mounted grappling hook is the best addition to the shooter, bringing a creative mobility option to the game that can counter vehicles and is sure to produce clip-worthy plays. I can’t stop thinking about Halo Infinite’s grappleshot.

Street fighter 5 pc stick