Finally, Skeletor is in Halo 3.
Halo 3’s art style is very much my favorite, especially with multiplayer armour designs. You can instill your space marine’s personality with simple shapes and themes. They are painted in bright, bold colours with strong silhouettes.
I say this only after spotting that the next season of The Master Chief Collection will let you fight as an armoured Skeletor, as revealed in a Halo Waypoint blog post last night.
Horia Dociu, Halo’s art director, explains that the game has traded in old martial terms such as Spartan and Mjolnir. It is not difficult to transform Halo into For Honor. This is especially true considering that the base game had an outfit inspired by samurai with flaming helmets, and a useless katana.
“Halo is about mythical warriors in the future. What better way to strengthen the fantasy than to imbue armours with legendary visuals that echo for centuries in our history of legendary fighters?”
Yet, it does not feel right. I might be a proven stickler for nostalgia, but Dociu does concisely sum up Halo 3’s existing aesthetic by way of Master Chief’s tank-like design (“green metal armor, a big gun, and even a dang windshield”). This look extends to all Bungie-designed Halo 3 cosmetics and is sure to be jarring when someone arrives on High Ground looking like they just completed an World of Warcraft raid level.
Season 8 will soon launch with some bizarre new armour sets. This week, 343 is flighting a brand new map for Halo 3 (a remake of Halo 2’s Turf), some infectious new changes to ODST Firefight, and a slew of pleasant, smaller changes that include bringing Halo 1 and 3 to the custom game browser and more accessibility options.
These are the changes I would like to see in a nostalgic collection such as the MCC. These new armour designs may be well-crafted, but they aren’t Halo. At least, not for me.
