Discussion Famiboard's Community Dream Game Thread - Cast your Dreams!

[jirou]

Hello everyone!

A lot of discussion about video games, including much of this forum, revolves around the future. Direct speculation, hardware speculation, looking forward to a game propelled by its trailers, you name it. In this thread I would like to invite you to share the games you dream of. Be that a sequel, a remake, an entirely new idea, a licensed game or a spin-off of your favourite franchise. Anything goes as this is supposed to be a reflection of what each of us would love to play one day. And don't be afraid to pitch an original idea if it is similar to already existing games! As we all know, small changes to a concepts can lead to major differences in the final piece.

The one thing I ask of you is to put in some effort in your descriptions. Even a simple remaster can be a valid dream, but to be frank it's hardly an interesting point of view to read if you just drop "Mario 64 Remastered" and leave. Tell us why you'd love it, why you'd want this game to be any particular way and maybe even share specifics on small details you think of when you picture this game. Put some personality into it so when this game eventually gets revealed we can all think of, and celebrate with you! If this takes off I will try to make a list and update that in this OP. That way we can catalogue our members' dreams and see how many have been fulfilled in the future.

To start us off, here's one of mine:

I want a game that combines exploration with language learning. Not a game that attempts to teach you a full language, as I think that could lead to it being an unfun game and an even less effective way to study than Duolingo. Instead it would be a game with many different languages you can choose at the beginning in addition to choosing your native language. You would be either a traveler or an immigrant and try to learn the language of the place you're at - this would have to be either a fictional place or there would have to be many different areas depending on which language you choose. In the beginning you would maybe have access to a few words - the classic Hello, Thank You, Goodbye - and then using an in-game notebook you learn the language all NPCs speak around you. Some NPCs might even know your native language. It would be a huge undertaking to write all of this but the general idea would be to emulate the feeling of learning a new language in a new place. Driven mostly by the players natural curiousity you would explore the area, visit hubs like Cafés or go to festivals, maybe even visit local museums and try to understand it. In other words, imagine playing a game in a language you are learning but the player character mirrors your intent of learning. I realize this idea is still very green, but I wanted to choose something that is not a remake or a sequel for the OP.

So, what's yours? Remember, objectivity is strictly prohibited - these are yours and yours alone!

[Please note that I would like to update this post to make it a little prettier. If people post here and it doesn't get mostly ignored I will put the effort in for that. Sorry for it being barebones so far]

 

[StretchNStripes]

I love the language learning idea! I definitely think it would be fun, especially going back to older areas you've visited once you have learned additional words and using them to solve puzzles or help people.

I'll add my idea below (spoilers: it's hardly original):

As a fan of the Chibi-Robo! games, and because the series has always kind of been in a rocky place, I have often thought about my ideal "next" game in that series. Like, if they were going to do another one, what would I want it to be? Obviously, the first game is the most beloved and I think for good reason, but I wanted to find ways to work in aspects I like from some of the games that followed. The setting I imagine is Chibi-Robo is helping out at an antique store, being run by an older gentleman (similar to the curator from Photo Finder). Naturally, the goal is originally to increase foot traffic to the store, and you can manage various sections, such as cleaning up outside the storefront, cleaning and tidying in the store itself, and helping the manager with his apartment that is above the store. However, there are also toys in the antique shop that come alive at night (as is series tradition) and Chibi-Robo can help them with their various issues. Chibi-Robo can also go out on missions and "scavenge" for antiques to add to the store. Using the money from selling antiques, you can customize your store and the space outside it. Similar to the first game, at some point an evil antique toy tries to put a stop to things, and you have a boss fight to cap off the "main" story (similar to the first three games).

It ain't exactly reinventing the wheel, but I think it does a nice blend of mixing the structure of the first game with the customization options that got added in the DS games and stuff like managing the park from Park Patrol.

 

[jirou]

I love the language learning idea! I definitely think it would be fun, especially going back to older areas you've visited once you have learned additional words and using them to solve puzzles or help people.

I'll add my idea below (spoilers: it's hardly original):

As a fan of the Chibi-Robo! games, and because the series has always kind of been in a rocky place, I have often thought about my ideal "next" game in that series. Like, if they were going to do another one, what would I want it to be? Obviously, the first game is the most beloved and I think for good reason, but I wanted to find ways to work in aspects I like from some of the games that followed. The setting I imagine is Chibi-Robo is helping out at an antique store, being run by an older gentleman (similar to the curator from Photo Finder). Naturally, the goal is originally to increase foot traffic to the store, and you can manage various sections, such as cleaning up outside the storefront, cleaning and tidying in the store itself, and helping the manager with his apartment that is above the store. However, there are also toys in the antique shop that come alive at night (as is series tradition) and Chibi-Robo can help them with their various issues. Chibi-Robo can also go out on missions and "scavenge" for antiques to add to the store. Using the money from selling antiques, you can customize your store and the space outside it. Similar to the first game, at some point an evil antique toy tries to put a stop to things, and you have a boss fight to cap off the "main" story (similar to the first three games).

It ain't exactly reinventing the wheel, but I think it does a nice blend of mixing the structure of the first game with the customization options that got added in the DS games and stuff like managing the park from Park Patrol.

I must admit I've never played a Chibi-Robo beyond the first level of Zip-Lash, but this idea sounds great! An antique store is a perfect mix between making sense for a game sequel as well as simply being an attractive concept. It's fun to explore the goods of an antique store as a human, helping out at one as a small Robot sounds delightful! Thank you for sharing this!

 

[chocolate_supra]

So as yall might know, my dream game is Chrono Break. *hold for shocked gasps*
I did a write-up years ago about a story for Chrono Break that I had brainstormed out with a friend and I cannot find it for the life of me but I'll try to remember it as best I can:

You start off the game as a young man (teenagerish) in Zeal whose neighborhood gets razed. He's saved by a powerful shadow magic user with a cape who helps the kid unlock his own magic ability (which comes quick because, ya know, growing up in Zeal) and is recruited into the warrior-wizard's crew. Relatively standard JRPG fare follows as the boy follows the caped man across the green fields and forests of Zeal (which is a lot bigger than depicted in the SNES game so as to have it feel and travel like an actual nation) and the tundra of the surface world, fighting monsters and recruiting allies while trying to find the people who razed the boy's village.

Then the twist, because of course. It was the caped man who razed the kid's home! Turns out he is Dalton, who had been using his shadow magic to pop back in and out of the Dimensional Vortex after the events of Chrono Trigger as a sort of bridge for time travel. He had seen firsthand how unstable the timelines became with all the events that unfolded during Trigger and Cross especially, and decided to create a paradox of his own by killing his younger self. His belief is that his own power would give him the ability to reshape the timeline after the paradox weakens its integrity, essentially making him a god. And he figured the more powerful his younger self became the worse the paradox will break things, so he razed his own childhood home to motivate his younger self to get stronger and then essentially kidnapped himself to train him up into a chrono trigger.

Yeah, you've been playing Young Dalton. And then he kills young him/you.

Except, as we know from Chrono Cross, the people and places that are destroyed through time-travel don't actually cease to exist, they are simply shifted to the Darkness Beyond Time. Remember all the bubbles floating around with vague depictions of other eras during the battle with the Time Devourer? In my idea those are all the different possible places and eras that have been denied existence through time meddling, and that's where both Daltons end up. Except not in the same spot or the same, like, plane of existence. It's too vast. So player-Dalton finds that with enough practice his shadow magic gives him the ability to distort his way into the Dimensional Vortex and back out into the normal timestream, just like old-Dalton.

So now the back half of the game is player-Dalton using distortions in the vortex as time gates to era-hop across time and try to undo the damage Old Dalton is doing from the DBT. Possible party members range from those you recruit in the first half of the game, to some members of the casts of Trigger and Cross (as Tokita said was his initial idea for the game), allowing the game to not only introduce new areas and characters but also revisit old ones in shiny new 3D (I continue to insist this is a better way to go about that than remaking CT as a modern game). As the party time travels around fixing the Breaks eventually things get so unstable that they're forced to go to the DBT to face Old Dalton himself, who has at this point ascended into a FF-style beautiful/grotesque thing with his hands reaching into all eras.

Obviously there's a ton of gaps and I even have questions about my own damn ideas, like what characters would be smart to bring in from other games? Do we reverse Dalton's murder of the OG Chrono Trigger party? How could Lavos even factor in, or should Lavos factor in? I do have a thought that it'd be kinda badass for Lavos to show up at the very end of the final boss, as though Dalton has gotten so powerful that Lavos itself considers him a threat and shows up as part of a wild kaiju-vs-kaiju final blow. I dunno. Probably too fanservicey, who knows.

And that's as good as I can remember. Lord knows it's not a story as much as a series of ideas for beats and twists, but it's been in my head for so long. It might even be dumb, I dunno! But I've wanted to get it written out, and this was a good spot to do it.

Anyway hell yeah, cool thread @jirou!

 

[oldpuck]

I have had a game that I've wanted to exist forever, in any form. But I also think this game would make a great spinoff for my favorite franchise, which happens to be Zelda. So here it is.

The Carnival of Time, or What If Link's Crossbow Training Was Very Different but Also Good.

The Story
One year since Tears of the Kingdom. Zelda - now Queen Zelda, fully ascended to what remains of the throne - has continued rebuilding Hyrule in the wake of Ganon's second defeat. Castle Town has been reborn, and rebuilt, the hub of Hyrule. Zelda has been reading about the Hyrule of the past, and discovers a reference to an ancient festival that celebrated the harvest. To officially open the town, to restore morale, and to celebrate the year since the dragons fought in the sky, she orders a return of that celebration.

People from all over Hyrule will come to play games, eat food, and generally have a great time. And at the opening ceremony for the event, Purah, the Royal Engineer, will unveil a tower that sits at the heart of the town. The tower will allow all the villages of Hyrule to communicate with each other, and at its central face is a clock that tells the time of day, the season, the cycle of the moon. It's built on ancient tech, much like Purah's aging technology, but she's 100% confident in it. Besides, she's heard that a clock was traditionally associated with this ancient festival. What was it called? Oh yeah!

It's called The Carnival of Time.

You play as Link, obviously, standing in the crowd around the tower the moment the celebration begins. The Carnival of Time lines up with a lunar eclipse, and the tower activates, the moon vanishes, bathing the town in darkness. Bong! Bong! Bong! goes the clock tower, and when the moon returns... Queen Zelda and many of the festival goes have been transformed into children.

Link needs to restore these people to their proper age - especially the Queen of Hyrule who is now a shy, scared 8 year old with no memory of her adult life. The key to the change seems to be held by a mischievous trickster in an all green outfit, who calls himself a "fairy", and a dark, serious young man with amnesia, who disdains the Carnival for reasons he himself can't fully understand.

The Core Loop
Castle Town, is like Animal Crossing meets Kakariko Village from Breath of the Wild. Characters from all over Hyrule live out their days in town on a semi-predictable schedule, and Link can meet, talk to, get gifts from, and give gifts to the various characters he meets there, changing and improving his relationships with them

The Carnival of Time is full of mini-games and activities that can be played with all of the Hylians/Zora/Gorons currently visiting the Carnival. Playing games with people in Castle Town improves your relationships with them, but also wins prizes - prizes which themselves can be gifted to residents and visitors of Castle Town.

Improving relationships not only gives you more cool gifts, it opens up new game modes for the various mini-games in the Carnival. Some characters are better at a game, and will unlock new difficulties. Some will give you new challenges or wrinkles to the various games.

Some of your villagers the visitors/residents have been changed into little kids. All of these kids have some part of their childhood that needs to be re-experienced, either to process some trauma of their youth, or simply to relive a positive experience. Once they've done this - usually by playing a game with you - they will return to their proper age. This unlocks them as characters you can progress your friendship with, or play games against in the festival proper.

Some of the transformed folks are running parts of the festival - they're running games, or opening food stalls. Returning them to their proper age unlocks new activities in the Carnival.

The core loop involves playing games to move relationships with villagers forward, and moving relationships with villagers forward (or completing their stories and restoring them to their full age) in order to unlock new games.

And yes, Link has a third freaking house in this one, customizable like in Tears of the Kingdom, but centered around displaying Link's acquisitions, like Breath of the Wild. It functions as a minigame in it's own right, a reason to acquire cool stuff from other games, and a place to invite characters over to hang out, thus improving relationships with them.

The Games
The Legend of Zelda has included some form of mini-game since the first entry. But for the most part, these games have been designed to be mastered. They are simple, arcade style games, with very little variation in play over time, because mastering them is necessary for either moving the story forward, or getting item upgrades like heart containers.

The games in Carnival of Time are designed to look and feel like classic Zelda mini-games, but with greater replayability. Think of Six Ball Puzzle from Clubhouse games. It lacks the depth of Tetris, or even Bubble Bobble, but there is a genuine core game play there, and randomness that makes each game masterable, but different. This is just some of the games, to give you a flavor

Shooting Gallery. The classic Zelda minigame. This version is stylized like the mechanical contraptions of the Zonai, with cogs and moving parts over which cutouts are moving. The game is built on waves of enemies that travel across the foreground, middleground, and background. There are waves of increasing challenge, and each wave can run faster and faster. Eventually waves can start before the previous waves have ended (like waves in the foreground while a wave in the background completes). This allows a "max score" mode that goes forever until the waves are simply not completable in human reaction time. And the waves are followed in an order of increasing challenge, but random, so no two games are identical

Fishing. Come on. It's fishing. But instead of a stocked pond with a set number of fish, it works more like the fishing mini-game in Forgotten Land, where it turns into a rhythm game with more complex inputs. Scoring is based on weight and type of fish, but we'll also keep an Animal Crossing record of all the fish you've managed to acquire. Think of all the aquatic animals (cookable and monsters) in Zelda, and you see how far that can go.

Hide and Seek. This always made my heart sing in Skyrim, playing with kids and watching them play with each other. But it's not a minigame proper in that franchise. With all these little kid characters, someone can hide in the Carnival and even run around, while you search for them semi-asynchronously. It can be a background activity (like the Bombers in Majora's Mask), something you're doing when you see a kid, while you are otherwise playing around in the carnival. Learn the carnival layouts, get fast, and learn to navigate the crowds that change with the time of day.

Racing, Racing, Racing. Race contraptions from ToTK. Obviously we can’t deliver a Mario Kart like experience here. But instead we have a set course, and we randomize the Zonai gadgets at the top of the race. Players have a limited time to assemble their random gadgets into a cart, then must race their collapsing monstrosity to the finish like. Peak drunken party game vibes.

Mancala. Like old men playing chess in NYC or Go in Japan, this format strongly supports just chilling with a character one on one for a board game. And I happen to like Mancala.

Cooking. Again riffing off of the mechanics in the base game, we can have a pseudo random version of Overcooked. Zelda recipes have predictable ingredients from the name, make and serve orders in a food stall as quickly as possible.

The Story Part II
It seems a little silly to put the game’s end in a pitch, but since the game won’t exist, why not? The green guy is obviously Tingle, selected purely because his devotion to childlike joy and dumb comedy - as well as his strong association with mini games - make him perfect as the equivalent of King Roam or Rauru, showing up to give the basics and then generally getting out of the way.

As for Zelda, the most recent incarnation doesn’t seem to have had a great childhood. That character's natural response to a situation that is, at heart, just an excuse for some mini-games is so obvious you'd be a fool to not tap it narratively. And if you've got a piece of magic that makes people younger, and the Ghost of King Rhoam canonically running around, having that magic de-age him into a younger, serious, bearded man and force that guy to just have some fun in his life is too much to miss.

The obvious end of the game is for Zelda to remain a kid as long as possible, and for this Overly Serious Guy With A Beard to learn to have some fun in his life, and standing into a proxy father relationship to Zelda until - surprise - the both age forward and the really are father and daughter, and the ghost of King Rhoam gets a moment to connect to his daughter. Perhaps it steals a little from the emotional arc in Hyrule Warriors, but that's because it's a good arc!

 

[jirou]

And that's as good as I can remember. Lord knows it's not a story as much as a series of ideas for beats and twists, but it's been in my head for so long. It might even be dumb, I dunno! But I've wanted to get it written out, and this was a good spot to do it.

Anyway hell yeah, cool thread @jirou!

Love this! What I think is interesting is the focus on story, I guess because in your mind it being similar to either Trigger or Cross in gameplay is inherent? It makes sense to think about a sequel in terms of story of course!

The green guy is obviously Tingle

..... Yeah I obviously thought of that immediately, of course......

This one is super well written too, damn! I love how specific you are with it and even have multiple minigames thought out. I could really see this game in my mind's eye just from you describing it!

 

[Stilt Village]

I want a game that combines exploration with language learning. Not a game that attempts to teach you a full language, as I think that could lead to it being an unfun game and an even less effective way to study than Duolingo. Instead it would be a game with many different languages you can choose at the beginning in addition to choosing your native language. You would be either a traveler or an immigrant and try to learn the language of the place you're at - this would have to be either a fictional place or there would have to be many different areas depending on which language you choose. In the beginning you would maybe have access to a few words - the classic Hello, Thank You, Goodbye - and then using an in-game notebook you learn the language all NPCs speak around you. Some NPCs might even know your native language. It would be a huge undertaking to write all of this but the general idea would be to emulate the feeling of learning a new language in a new place. Driven mostly by the players natural curiousity you would explore the area, visit hubs like Cafés or go to festivals, maybe even visit local museums and try to understand it. In other words, imagine playing a game in a language you are learning but the player character mirrors your intent of learning. I realize this idea is still very green, but I wanted to choose something that is not a remake or a sequel for the OP.

I had pretty much the same idea after playing through the Forest Temple in Jiggies of Time, which involves decoding a writing system. I really enjoyed doing that.

But instead of holding back for the sake of making it actually fun, I wanted to go all the way with it to really create the impression of foreigness. A completely invented language so that everyone starts on even ground. ...Which is probably why I had completely forgotten about it until now, because I was unsure if even I would actually want to play that. What I had in mind was completely impenetrable, zero hand-holding, you actually just have to figure out what people are saying through pure immersion. And this was just a feature of the game, whatever it may be, it wasn't even the point! The appeal of the idea to me was more a strong means of selling complete immersion in a made-up world I think, like a game for those people who swear by Morrowind and call for the death of map markers taken up to 11.

If I wanted to make it about learning the language as a fun puzzle, I think a game-wide archaeology project would be more enjoyable. Say like, if Zelda had a layer to it where there's text all over the ruins spread across the world, and you could gradually find clues to put together a Rosetta Stone and use it to solve the mysteries of these ruins. Like the ruins with Braille in Pokemon, except you just looked that up.

I think that's in an interesting sweet spot though where Nintendo would never go for having you piece together something hidden so organically within the world even as a totally optional part of the game, but an indie developer would probably shoot way past it for something far more cryptic and obtuse. Maybe I'm wrong and someone's already done it, it's basically just what Jiggies of Time had on a larger scale instead of confined to the puzzles of one level.

...And actually, a game with a similar premise to what you described might exist? There's that one Esperanto lesbian isekai visual novel (yes), The Expression Amrilato. The player character is lost in a foreign world, and you have to learn the local language as the main premise of the game. And probably also be gay I guess, I dunno.

 

[ComradeKoopa]

Halo: Unbound

Time for my extra spicy dream Halo game pitch. This game serves as a franchise reboot, taking place after the events of Halo 3—everything after Halo 3 is thrown in the trash. Post is huge so I'll hide it.

Spoiler

Plot

Following the culmination of the Human-Covenant war and the ensuing collapse of the Covenant, Sanghelios finds itself in a state of disarray, engulfed in civil conflicts. The Arbiter, leader of the Swords of Sanghelios, has sought stability and central control of the planet, engaging in conflicts and power grabs across the planet for years.

The game starts after the exposition, where you play as the Arbiter alongside Your Spartan in the midst of conflicts with the likes of Mdama's Covenant and the Servants of the Abiding Truth across various regions and keeps, engaging in both small scale, guerilla style combat and large scale battles. As the conflicts reaches a head, the planet is sieged by the entirety of the Banished led by Atriox.

The Banished, having long infiltrated intelligence operations on Sanghelios with their spies, sent word to Atriox about the headway The Arbiter has made on locating the remains of the Forward Unto Dawn. In their typical pirate fashion, Atriox sought to locate the remains of the frigate and possibly the Master Chief himself (or whatever is left of his MJOLNIR), a gambit to bolster their forces in preparation for their ultimate goal: control of The Ark.

The finale is essentially a race to and through the frigate to locate Chief's cryo tube. The game ends in The Arbiter and company successfully reaching Chief first, waking him up, and kicking Banished ass as they escape. Maybe they blow of the frigate somehow, dealing a devastating blow, who knows?

Obviously this requires loads of retconning and maybe it's hammy or doesn't make complete sense, but I don't care, it sounds fun to me. Playing as the Arbiter the entire game and exploring various regions across Sanghelios would be kickass.

Gameplay/Multiplayer

The single player campaign follows the traditional discrete mission design philosophy, with each mission acting as large, semi-open and semi-linear areas with successive goals. An abundance of environmental variety, set pieces and interesting enemy encounters are a focal point. Each mission should be highly memorable with its own unique offerings.

From the get-go, you play as the Arbiter and a Spartan sidekick who can be customized a la Reach. As you play through the game, you can seamlessly and instantly swap between controlling one or the other character, with the uncontrolled character operating as AI (think Halo 3 and the Arbiter). Their abilities and mechanics are identical, so switching is simply a matter of positioning. If your companion dies, they eventually revive on their own after a period of time. If you die, you go back a checkpoint. No "down" states and reviving.

Four players can play together (even in split screen!), and everyone can play as their unique Spartan if they wish, with the Arbiter acting as a fifth AI companion.

Let's get down to the nitty gritty.

Sprint

It's gone. Period. I could relitigate the case against sprint once more as others have done since 2011, but I'll keep it short and sweet.

Sprint is a mechanic that contradicts the established movement philosophy of the original trilogy. The capacity to engage all primary combat actions with unbridled movement is foundational. Imagine weapons, melee, grenades, and equipment forming a sacred square—movement sits in the middle. Sprint breaks this philosophy by requiring the player to sacrifice free and unbound combat in favor of the fastest movement option.

Additionally, sprint emphasizes forward movement as opposed to omnidirectional movement, which has subtle yet sinister effects on flow and map design. Player flow becomes choppy, and map design becomes elongated with longer lanes and sightlines.

Finally, sprint takes up an entire button that could be used for something more fun and compatible with the classic movement philosophy...

Thrust

Thrust as a default mechanic returns, but with adjustments. With a reasonable cooldown period, thrust takes the place of sprint, offering a rapid but readable and trackable movement boost in whichever direction you're holding.

In order to keep thrust compatible with the concept of unbound movement and combat, the player can engage in ALL primary combat actions during the entirety of thrust. In Halo 5, thrust would interrupt combat actions, and combat actions couldn't be performed for most of the thrust duration. By allowing combat during thrust, gunplay and CQC become more interesting and dynamic without too much unpredictability.

To make CQC even more interesting, there's now a chain thrust mechanic. The player can instantly use thrust the moment they kill an opponent, allowing for chain thrust movements. Imagine a player jumps, thrusts backwards and then performs and ninja—the player can then instantly thrust again if they desire, possibly toward another opponent or safety. CQC evolves from dull spraying and melee to sophisticated movement based on skill, but without infringing on free movement/combat.

Intertia/Strafe/Momentum

A cornerstone of classic Halo's movement philosophy and gunplay revolves around player intertia and readability. Halo Infinite is particularly horrendous in this area with targets appearing tiny on the screen and difficult to read due to animations, instant strafe acceleration and outlines (which are now entirely removed).

Instead, player inertia is pronounced like the classic games. Strafe acceleration has a velocity curve to eliminate awkward strafe dancing without completely removing the strafe dance as a core aspect of gunplay. In keeping with readability, thrust is balanced to have a stable, trackable speed and animation.

Momentum is highly pronounced, especially with regard to thrust. Rather than thrusting forward and having your momentum suddenly plumment, momentum can be maintained for a period with hopping (not unlike crouch slide jumping in the classic games). More importantly, by thrusting into angles in map geometry, your momentum is redirected based on the angle. For example, if you thrust into an upward 45° ramp and hit jump once you make contact, you get a decent height boost, offering more interesting ways to move around maps. Another example would be jumping and landing on a downward ramp, crouching and then thrusting to receive a forward boost.

Oh, also, proper player collision returns. Hooray, bouncing off teammates heads!

Clamber

The issues with sprint apply equally to clamber: it interrupts combat as a movement mechanic and it emphasizes forward-facing movement. Thus, clamber is also removed. All maps are design so jumps can be completed with a standard jump, crouch jump, or momentum thrust jump.

Slide

Gone. With the thrust launching mechanic described above, slide becomes mostly pointless anyway.

Radar

The radar now functions as a combat sensor, only displaying player positions when engaging in combat actions, including shooting, throwing grenades, using equipment, and the like. This improves the gameplay experience by keeping the players eyes on the actual environment, and rewarding visual, audio and spatial awareness. This also improves gameplay for lower skilled players, as a veteran players are able to use the traditional radar like wall hacks given their familiarity with maps and flow.

Weapon Mechanics and Sandbox Design

I'll get this out of the way: bloom is gone.

The perfect Halo sandbox is no easy feat, especially since it has yet to be achieved by a wide margin. I believe the ideal sandbox has a wide variety of weapons, equipment, and vehicles, each serving unique purposes and balanced based on ease of use.

For starters, ALL weapons are now projectile based. With the new movement philosophy focusing on intertia, readability and methodical positioning, all weapons require varying levels of leading based on their bullet velocity and distance. This creates a type of gunplay with a high skill ceiling and serves as a wonderful balancing mechanic for long-range combat on large maps. Snipers would obviously have the fastest projectile speed, whereas weapons like the BR and CE pistol are slightly slower to balance them for medium range. The AR, shotgun, and other short range weapons are balanced via bullet spread and large reticles.

For balancing, especially with primary weapons like the assault rifle, battle rifle, and others, weapons that are more difficult to master should have faster TTKs and wider skill gaps. This is a basic balancing philosophy where players can pick their poison based on their confidence, skill level, and intended play style.

In my opinion, the ideal high-skill utility weapon would be a rebalanced CE pistol. A three-shot-kill gun, the pistol receives a slight nerf to rate of fire and range capacity compared to its original concept. This weapon is ideal because its optimal TTK is fast, but its average TTK range is very wide, meaning it's difficult to master and achieve a perfect 3sk due to its precision, creating a fairly wide skill gap. The BR and, even more so the AR, on the other hand, have narrower skill and TTK gaps, their optimal TTK taking longer than the pistol due to their ease of use. Essentially, it would be pistol>BR>AR, with other potential primaries falling between these in varying degrees based on mechanics, range, etc.

Secondary weapons would serve specific-use or primary-complimentary roles, as they always have.

Equipment was handled fairly well in Halo Infinite, but much of the equipment is user-focused, whereas in Halo 3, equipment played as a neutral element on the battlefield, requiring the user to employ them strategically. With a return to the latter philosophy, equipment from Infinite could be reworked in fun ways. For example, repulsor affects teammates or it becomes a device that can be launched and emits a displacement burst; gapple shot becomes a temporary zip line anyone else can use; dropwall blocks shots from both sides. You get the idea.

Grenades receive a significant rebalance compared to Infinite. First, the rate at which grenades can be thrown is reduced; you cannot just whip all your nades super fast anymore, just like the classic games. Additionally, frag grenades no longer bounce like rubber bouncy balls, and their bounce depends on the material they collide with. Imagine something between CE and 3 in terms of bounce. Further, fuse time is slightly longer across all grenades and the grenade indicator is removed; this rewards a keen eye. Even more, grenade hit markers are gone, reducing the tendency to throw nades as an enemy locator. Finally, friendly fire is ON, meaning players have to be cautious about their grenade use lest they harm their teammates.

Vehicles, like the movement philosophy for players themselves, have significant intertia and weight, just as they did before. Vehicles have slower acceleration, lower top speeds, and generally more inertia when maneuvering. The health system for vehicles is now based on the Halo 3 model, but the vehicle malfunctioning mechanic as vehicles receive damage returns from Infinite. There is also no longer a doom state, meaning vehicles will explode instantly when destroyed, rewarding the player who reduces the enemy vehicles to zero health.

A fun new mechanic with vehicles is vehicle-to-vehicle boarding. Players in the passenger seat of the Warthog, the back of the Mongoose, the seats of the Falcon, and other similar passenger positions now have the ability to seamlessly board another vehicle FROM their seats. For example, if your teammate drives their Warthog next to an enemy Warthog, the passenger can hold the board button and fluidly kick the enemy out straight from their seat. This would make vehicle-to-vehicle combat even more interesting, buffing passenger capacities and encouraging coordination.

The fan-favorite assassinations mechanic returns, with a plethora of fun, unlockable assassination mechanics. Additionally, assassinations are even more context-sensitive, with loads of unique animations depending on positioning, momentum, weapon, etc.

Customization/Progression/Menus

I'll keep this section short because it isn't important to me.

You can play as an Elite if you wish. The models and hit boxes are equal to Spartans; no impact on gameplay between the two models.

Player customization takes cues from Reach, with tons of unlockables simply by playing the game and earning commendations or credits via general challenges that can be completed in any playlist. There is also a shop with a regularly rotating selection. All pieces can be bought individually, and items rotated out can still be purchased from archives, with older or less popular items receiving eventually discounts.

The menus and UI don't suck. Look at Halo Reach.

The match composer from MCC launches with the game, allowing players to play exactly what they want, when they want.

The classic 1-50 ranking system returns, with the addition of a secondary global placement number once 50 is achieved in that playlist.

Modes

Fully fledged Firefight returns, with loads of uniquely designed maps and indispensable customization options.

All classic game modes return, including assault, juggernaut, VIP, etc.

Some extraction style mode a la Helldivers 2. Low hanging fruit I know but it would be a hit.

Forge is just as advanced as Infinite without the horrendous lighting and plethora of bugs.

Summary

Halo: Unbound launches as a feature-complete $60 game with an epic campaign and polished multiplayer experience with loads of developer-made maps and modes to enjoy. It's supplemented with a live service, offering fun new modes, maps, and customization options through a reasonable shop and normal progression. The gameplay is in the name: unbound, a reference to a focus on entirely free movement and combat. The game offers a reprieve from the twitchy, speed-focused shooters of today with a slower and methodical, but highly deep and satisfying design with a focus on accessibility but mastery.

Would this be a hit? No. Will it happen? Not even close. But this is more or less the game I've wanted since 2009, and it hasn't even gotten close. I'll continue dreaming and going on and on about it on the internet to people who either don't care or have already moved on.

 

[chocolate_supra]

Love this! What I think is interesting is the focus on story, I guess because in your mind it being similar to either Trigger or Cross in gameplay is inherent? It makes sense to think about a sequel in terms of story of course!

Oh absolutely! I'm a big fan of turn-based combat and I still think it has a place in modern gaming (as DQXI and BG3 have shown). Whether it's more traditional CT/FFVI style gameplay or bit more flourishy like CC I wouldn't be able to pick (I love both) but if they leaned more towards the CC side I would at least like to see more unique character techs and a little less emphasis on having a bunch of spells you can buy and give to any character. And as nostalgic as I think it would be to continue the top-down viewpoint (or mostly top-down like CC), I think part of even justifying this whole idea would be making a big, modern 3D experience out of CT's eras and locations. Zeal alone should be absolutely breathtaking if they revisit it, and I'd love to explore it in a more MonolithSoft way.

And of course the dream-dream would be for Monolith to be involved in a big way. A lot of the core founders came from the Chrono team anyway, so it'd be perfect! There's your big Switch 2 holy-shit-graphics MonolithSoft game, right there.

 

[Sin & Punishment]

For me it's always going to be Earthbound 64.

I really wish they migrated development to the Gamecube.

Mother 3 remains one of my biggest disappointments in gaming. It's not a bad game, but it's underwhelming in many ways. The scope of Earthbound 64 had Ocarina of Time potential.