In case you didn’t know, back in 2010 Halo was sold to Microsoft so that it’s then developer, Bungie, could leave Microsoft and become its own company. Some of Bungie’s employees stayed behind to start a new studio inside of Microsoft called 343 Industries.

I have the firm belief that 343 is doing a bad job with Halo. Just to avoid confusion, The Bungie-made Halo games are Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, Reach and ODST. The games 343 developed are Halo 4, 5, Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike.

When Bungie ran Halo the story was amazing. Few people seem to know that the story Bungie set up, both in the games as well as in the books, was fantastically written and inventive. I have read the book Halo: Contact Harvest many times and it is still one of my favorite books. Halo was about grand mystery and discovery.

However, the new games have practically none of either of these feelings. The early games had amazing moments of wonder and shock: the reveal of The Flood in Halo: Combat Evolved, the first sighting of the Gravemind in Halo 2 and the first moment that you see the Ark are all standouts in a series full of breathtaking moments. The only times when the new games have had moments like these are when they are referencing the older games and lore.

The new games spend the entire time desperately trying to connect them self to the clearly superior older games. Even when they are trying to be creative they are bad. The only boss battle in Halo 5 is dull and uninteresting, and guess what? You have to do it 5 different times. Even when they try to have cool moments they don’t make any sense.

At one point in Halo 5, Master Chief gets in a fist fight with newcomer to the series, Spartan Locke. Anyone who knows anything about the extended fiction of Halo should be able to tell you that Master Chief would be able to win that in a matter of seconds, but somehow Locke fights back. This makes no sense. In a similar style, Master chief fights The Didact at the end of Halo 4. The Didact should be able to crush Chief in seconds, but somehow Master Chief wins.

The new games aren’t necessarily bad, it’s just that they ruin the creativity that Bungie used to bring to the series. They have become uninteresting and bland sci-fi from the trend setter they used to be.

This writer can be reached via Twitter: @EthanNathe26.

For more from this blog, read Checkpoint: The Witness review.