![]() ![]() Your base building is still limited to a pre-selected station, with ‘slots’ around the main building to build facilities for resource-gathering, units or research, that open up as you progress through the tech tree. The gameplay itself doesn’t feel as far removed from the first Halo Wars as you think seven years would make it. Once again the campaign focuses solely on the UNSC, and there is no alternate story or campaign for the Banished. It’s the UNSC in small skirmishes against the Banished (who are really just the Covenant) for the entirety. While this is all appreciated, there are very few surprises in the progression of the campaign, and there’s no third faction or outside force around to shake things up. The campaign is very interested in teaching you the individual strengths of each unit, how they fare against other units, and how best to act in certain situations, in what ultimately feels like an extended tutorial for the multiplayer. There are missions focusing not only on standard base-buildings, but adventures with small squads of heroes facing off against specialised Banished forces, control point capture scenarios and tower defense. The campaign itself offers a great deal of variety, even if it feels brief. There’s even some great action beats, from Atriox’s first appearance to a Star Trek Beyond-inspired drone attack. These are all stunningly rendered, beautiful to look at and convincingly acted, especially from the new AI character, Isabel. That’s not to undersell the great work Blur Studios have done on the game’s many CGI cutscenes. Ultimately, while Halo Wars 2‘s set-up is interesting, the payoff is disappointing. And, not to give away the ending, but the game shies away from a meaningful resolution to its events, despite an action climax. There doesn’t even seem to be any benefit to setting the game post Halo 5, as the Prometheans and Forerunners aren’t used, and the plot or lore doesn’t advance significantly, beyond a small tidbit of information at the end. The Ark is a cool location, but it visually isn’t very different to the Halos of previous games. Beyond his first scene, Atriox is hardly heard from again beyond a few lines, his motivations are unclear, and he’s never confronted directly. ![]() The entire game rotates around The Ark and the Spirit of Fire‘s campaign against Atriox, but none of the elements really feel like they’re used to their potential. Atriox is built up to be the ultimate badass, with an introductory scene that shows him effortlessly pulverizing a Spartan, and an interesting backstory as a warrior forged by years of being used as cannon fodder. The facility has been cut off from Earth and is under siege by the Banished, led by the ex-Covenant warlord Atriox. Halo fans will remember the Ark from Halo 3, as a massive habitable foundry where the galaxy-cleansing Halos are constructed. However, this isn’t really the case – Halo Wars 2 is still firmly a side story, and seemingly takes no advantage of the new time period it takes place in.Īwakening after 28 years in cryosleep, the crew of the UNSC ship Spirit of Fire find themselves mysteriously in orbit around the Ark. Now, seven years and change later, Halo Wars 2 has finally arrived from The Creative Assembly, somewhat without ceremony, promising to take another quiet stab at a console RTS (while also bringing the series to Windows 10 for the first time).įans of the Halo lore may have been hyped by the fact that Halo Wars 2 takes place post- Halo 5, meaning that chronologically it should further the overarching narrative currently taking place in the mainline games. It also showed, to a degree, that the Halo universe can expand beyond the confines of the FPS genre, even if its story is still cemented in the same intergalactic struggles. While I feel that experiment wasn’t entirely successful, the game did have a legion of fans who enjoyed its simplified rock-paper-scissors power balance and multiplayer possibilities. Primarily, it was an experiment to bring a fully-fledged Real-Time Strategy game to consoles, a genre which has traditionally made its home with the hotkeys and precise mouse control of PC gaming. Halo Wars was an interesting, if not entirely successful experiment. ![]()
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