16.Snowbound
Beta test analyst: "Sir, Snowbound is being vetoed 100 percent of the time."
The Man: "Sounds good, change nothing for the final release."
17.The ranking system (and more importantly, our Team Slayer rank)
It doesn't matter that the game ended at 49-50 and we led our team with 46 kills. We still got knocked back down to rank 5 because our team lost. We just can’t seem to get on a team that's good enough to get us up to a rank 7.
18.Scarabs
The hulking, badass, jaw-dropping alien kill-monster/robot of Halo 3 is… the same thing Halo 2 had. Except now, if you fire a couple of shots into their knees, they basically lie down and invite you in for tea and scones in the easily accessible (and explodable) power-core room.
19.We're fighting these guys again?
Yeah, we've fought all these guys before. All of them.
20.The Arbiter can't cloak
We get that the idea is to make the game fair and balanced, but cloaking was just freaking sweet - remember the strategic possibilities? Sometimes the most balanced game isn't the most fun.
Above: Chief: Maybe you should cloak and scout ahead. Arbiter: Nah, I don't do that anymore
21.The Gravemind talks to you
After finally reuniting with Cortana, we thought we were safe from hearing any more nonsensical ranting from inside Chief's head every two minutes. Then, almost without missing a beat, this guy started jabbering at us about headstones and corpses.
Sign up to the 12DOVE Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
22.No more symmetrical maps
Sometimes the simplest answer is the best answer. We liked playing Midship in Halo 2, but maps like it are being discriminated against in Halo 3 because of their symmetricality (yes, we made up a word to describe the type of maps we like). Stop the hate - embrace all shapes of maps.
Above: This never happens
Xbox boss Phil Spencer says there are "no red lines" preventing Microsoft games releasing on PlayStation, but it's too early to make decisions about Halo on PS5
Halo Infinite update rewinds time for Halo 2's birthday, throwing the FPS back 20 years with a nostalgic mode that deletes sprint and adds classic maps