As the Halo series has gone on, its image has only gotten worse. Yet, it seems that sales for each game haven’t exactly slowed down. According to one Chris Haluke, former Lead Designer at 343 Industries, both Halo 4 and Halo 5 managed to hit 10 million units sold over their lifetimes. While perhaps not too unlikely, it’s surprising to hear all the same.

These figures were initially reported by Twisted Voxel, citing Mr. Haluke’s LinkedIn page as the source. On one hand, if anyone would know how well those games sold, it would be Mr. Haluke. On the other hand, even though the Xbox One achieved over 50 million units sold over its lifetime, it’s still staggering to think that such sales heights were achieved.

I suppose I could see it for Halo 4, as it was the first Halo game produced by 343 Industries and fans didn’t yet know what was in store for them. It had its pitfalls, most notably in its story, but it was still a very solid Halo game. Its new weapons were fun, its new enemies were fun to fight, and it still had that Halo feel despite CoD imports like perks and special abilities. So yeah, I could see it hitting 10 million over the years, especially if Game Pass downloads are being counted.

Halo 5: Guardians on the other hand? That’s a shock. There was so much wrong with it right from the very beginning, starting with its now infamously misleading marketing. I think I’ve discussed this before, but ALL the marketing for Halo 5 made it look like players were going to get to choose to play as either Master Chief or Locke from the very beginning, and that they would get to see a wild story of betrayal, espionage and intrigue flowing out from the highest levels of the UNSC and its shadowy intelligence arm: ONI.

Yet, what we got was completely different. Instead, Chief goes rogue chasing after a Cortana remnant, a very arrogant Locke is seeking to haul him in for going rogue, and also there’s another Forerunner remnant running around that’s even more evil, oh and Cortana is evil now too. Gameplay was decidedly not Halo, instead resembling something between CoD and Destiny. Sure, it was great for those coming over from those games, but it more or less left most longtime fans in the dust.

Consider also that, rather than trying to pivot in order to relieve the players’ massive disappointment with everything to do with the story, 343 Industries chose instead to all but dump the ongoing story. So not only was fan disappointment not addressed, but it was actually inflamed by a story that was not only completely out of left field for Halo, but deliberately left unfinished.

Of course, this is where many would blame the fans for Halo’s narrative stumbling into (and through) Halo Infinite, but I would argue that blame rests entirely on those who made the narrative decisions from Halo 4’s development and onward. Anyway, I suppose I’ve no cause to doubt that it hit 10 million in sales, but I guess I am disappointed considering just how wholly un-Halo and unsatisfying Halo 5: Guardians was. That’s just me, though, what do you all think?

Image by flickr user: justin.winchester