I’ve been playing a lot ofXDefiantonPS5lately, despite not really liking XDefiant all that much. Okay, that’s not true, I don’t generally spend 30 hours on games that I don’t at least like onsomelevel. But XDefiant is not typically thekindof multiplayer shooter I gravitate towards.
I don’t likehow short the time-to-kill is. I don’t like that the maps are big, and offer no way to cross them apart from sprinting. And I don’t really like the aesthetic, either, which draws from Ubisoft’s military shooters likeThe DivisionandRainbow Six, while ignoring the publisher’s more cartoony games likeRaymanand its historical games likeAssassin’s Creed.Ubisoftmakes a wide variety of games (thatdomostly tend to fit a particular open-world mold), but XDefiant is only really interested in the ones that have gritty worlds and realistic guns.
My frustrations with this game (that I have admittedly spent a lot of time playing) have me wishing that the PS5 had aHalogame. I know it can’t literally have a Halo game as long as the Xbox survives as a console, but somethinglikeHalo. As a lifelong single-player gamer who has only taken occasional excursions into multiplayer territory, Halo Infinite was the first competitive shooter that ever really clicked for me. I had played other Halo campaigns before Infinite came out, but I’d never owned an Xbox before 2020, so I missed the series' multiplayer heyday.
Back in the day, Free Radical’sHazewas described as a ‘Halo Killer’ by the gaming press. Unfortunately for the ill-fatedPS3exclusive, it was pretty terrible.
For me, Halo Infinite was a revelation. Its sprawling maps had scale you rarely see in multiplayer outside ofbattle royalegames, but with vehicles that made it manageable and fun to explore. Vehicular mayhem is part of the fun of Fortnite, but in a battle royale game you only get one life, so messing around with a plane or boat or golf cart can mean a speedy one-way trip back to the lobby. Halo’s more traditional approach to multiplayer meant that you could go after a Warthog or a Banshee without worrying that too much tomfoolery would end your game. Those vehicles encourage a playful attitude that some multiplayer shooters stamp out. If you can’t shoot good, you can still hit a rando with your car.
Halo’s Longer TTK Makes Space For Emergent Stories
Halo’s other godsend for noobs is its long time-to-kill. In XDefiant orCall of Duty, I tend to get tilted more quickly because the kills come quick. If you’re shaking the rust off, you’re going to have a few matches where you get merced a bunch of times in a row. It’s not like you’re invincible in Halo, but the longer TTK means that you have more time, per life, to get your bearings. It also leads to more interesting stories, because you aren’t necessarily going to die the moment you start taking fire. Instead, bullets at your back are an invitation to think fast and find a way out. That could mean taking cover, running up to a Warthog and backing over your attacker, or using your knowledge of the map’s twists and turns to escape. That longer TTK is the key to memorable play sessions.
After the massive success of Halo: Combat Evolved on the original Xbox, everyone was trying to find the “Halo Killer.” Though Halo isn’t the industry-dominating force today that it was 20 years ago, that isn’t because anyone succeeded at finding something better. There still isn’t really anything like it, and as multiplayer games become more and more all-consuming projects for the developers making them, it seems unlikely we’ll get a game that feels like Halo anytime soon. That’s a shame. The PS5 could use some games, and Halo is as good as multiplayer shooters get.
