Halo campaigns are best played cooperatively

I grew up with Halo and, to this day, I believe the co-op captures a lot of the best in the franchise. Never mind that Master Chief is a unique type of survivor, with cut scenes that highlight the fact. Cooperative mode is still the ideal way to experience games.

When I say ideal, I don’t mean the satisfaction of a solo campaign with difficulty timed to legendary. Cooperative mode is great for having the purest and most bombastic fun, making weird and chaotic plays, and having the smoothest experience of chewing on mission after mission. It’s also a great way to welcome newcomers who may not be familiar with the game but want to give it a try.

When I think of Halo, I think of LAN parties with friends from school and the sweaty summers I spent in the Michigan suburbs with my cousin, beating missions on the Xbox and beating up my best friend’s older brother and his friends in Blood Gulch and then Lock. Whenever I talk to other Halo fans, this nostalgia seems like a shared sentiment.

I recently replayed all the Halo games in co-op to see if they were as good as I remembered them (although my cousin, my original co-op partner, is now too busy with medical school for video games). The games have been remastered in Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and even though the remaster on PC doesn’t support split-screen play, I still had a ton of fun playing it with my partner on separate computers. Here’s why I still think co-op is the best way to play.

Make chaotic plays

Perhaps the best and most obvious reason to play co-op is the leeway it offers you to play completely without having to do a lot of strategy. This is because Halo allows you to respawn after death, as long as your campaign partner is not actively in combat. Are you the type of person who delights in running into carnage, to hell with ammunition? Would you rather stay in the corners and act as a cleaning crew? These options, and more, are available to you. With a friend, the world of Halo is your oyster.

The numerous save points in Halo are generous enough that dying in a single player race is not damning; the last checkpoint tends to be fairly recent. But the cooperative system allows you to jump back immediately without suffering any loading screen, once your partner eliminates all the enemies in the room. You can also play the silly slow way, where your partner backs up to a safe place so you can respawn (instead of clearing the room).

I took advantage of the quick respawn to try out frantic strategies, like trying out possible campaign map shortcuts that I can then report back to my squadmate. I also jumped off ledges that seemed to promise pretty views, though they also absolutely result in death. Also, I’ve managed to do more highly underrated melee weapon hits, which is an incredibly satisfying way to take down enemies, albeit risky, as Covenant enemies tend to be much stronger than you. Why waste the potential for enjoyment when comeback is so simple?

Make strategic plays

Alternatively, the cooperative offers the opportunity to be extremely strategic about how you will approach a scenario. One of Halo’s strengths is the sheer volume of campaign missions and the various tactical options it has in each one, as well as how much the difficulty level modifies the amount of strategy that is really worth the effort. You can also do things that seem “strategic” to you but, for the most part, make you look like you’re in an action movie. It’s fun being back to back in a room full of enemies, knowing that each of you has a clear line of sight and an area to be responsible for.

Vehicles are much better

Image: 343 Industries / Microsoft Studios

Play solo and your options are more limited for the most famous three-person vehicle in the game, the M12 Chaingun Warthog. You will probably drive the Warthog or drive the turret.

But the humble Warthog and the various versions of the classic off-road vehicle is a key part of the series. Sure, the steering is screeching (and the physics is ridiculous) in Evolved combat, and the one who ends up driving gets one for the team. And yes, other vehicles have this “shoot or drive” dynamic; the Falcon helicopter is particularly fun. But for the Warthog, specifically, having just one friend makes it that much better. Having two friends means that one of you has to basically agree to be a passenger with a normal gun (no Warthog fun for you).

I must admit that my favorite Halo vehicles are the Covenant spacecraft that are individually manned. I am a huge fan of Ghosts, who are very maneuverable and pleasantly small, so I drive them to buildings where they are not supposed to go. Banshees are perfect too, because I love flying and doing cartwheels. For these, I say that the more the merrier.

Save your friends … or kill your friends

Nothing, and I mean nothing, feels better than having your friend’s back seeing an enemy running towards them, while they don’t realize it, an easy target, and eliminating the enemy. This is especially true for Covenant aliens, such as Stalkers, when they are annoying and invisible, detectable only as a haunting glow. The final scene of Halo Reach make this a flash point, as you fight to survive against endless waves of enemies. The game only ends when you have finally been eliminated.

Alternatively, if you’re an idiot, you can make your mission to deploy friendly fire and then steal your partner’s ammo and grenades, not that I did this. Why are you looking at me like that? I’m innocent!

Invite new friends

It’s hard to create a cooperative experience that feels doable for newcomers or for a couple with vastly different skill levels. If you’re looking for something really suitable for that big skill or investment mismatch, Halo isn’t the best place to look. (Nintendo is more of a reigning champion of that type of co-op, with a solid player two assists in the Super Mario Galaxy games and Super mario odysseyand features like building a house in someone else’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons Island).

But if there’s a friend in your life who’s new to first-person shooter games and genuinely interested in learning, playing a Halo campaign in co-op, particularly on an easy difficulty setting, is a great way to immerse yourself in the game. feet in the water. A newer player can go out and try things, and a skilled player can take care of giving them a chance to respawn and move on.