Video Game Review: Halo Wars 2 - Halo at a large scale, again

Developer Creative Assembly/343 Industries
Publisher Microsoft Studios
Distributor Microsoft
Where we got our copy Microsoft
Genre RTS
Game modes Multiplayer, Single Player, Co-op
Players 1 - 6
Reviewed on Xbox One

Available on PC

Where to buy Microsoft/Xbox Store,

PottyZA

Published February 23, 2017

The game takes players on a nostalgic trip back to a time when the RTS genre wasn’t filled with endless variations of MOBA games, which makes for a great change of scenery. Part of me hopes this is a sign of a revitalisation of the RTS genre, but another part realises that people just don’t like it as much as they used to anymore, or nearly as much as I do.

Halo Wars 2 is the sequel to 2009’s Halo Wars and has lovingly been crafted by a development studio that could be considered one of the last stalwarts of a dying genre, Creative Assembly. They’re perhaps better known for the hugely successful Total War franchise, which makes it surprising that they would tackle a mostly traditional RTS filled with base building and tiny unit caps – and on a console, at that. They’ve done a great job building on and perfecting what Ensemble Studios accomplished with the first game. The developers have taken a game I loved and made it even better!

Being the latest in the line of Xbox Play Anywhere titles, Halo Wars 2 allows you to buy the game once and play it on either Xbox One or on a PC running Windows 10. Which is a great added bonus if you were planning on buying the game in any case.

The gameplay is pretty old-school by today’s standards and features base building, albeit not in the traditional sense – if you ever played the original Halo Wars then you know what to expect. It’s that, but better. The base building manages to introduce an interesting dynamic to the moment-to-moment gameplay: Do you choose to focus on getting as much resources as quickly as possible? Or do you decide to place all your manufacturing capabilities in one place?

A simple decision, like which buildings to build where, could change the course of the battle drastically. Much like the original, the game is not particularly genre-defying, but it does a great job of bringing the genre to a platform that’s hardly ever graced by the presence of an RTS game.

On Xbox One, Creative Assembly improved on the already good control scheme first devised by Ensemble Studios for the original Halo Wars. The controls and numerous controller shortcuts allow for a skilled player to make pretty quick decisions and act at a speed that almost (but not quite) rivals that offered by the combination of mouse and keyboard on the PC. Speaking of the PC, I’ve not yet had the opportunity to try it on that platform – though will be sure to add my opinion once I have.

Controlling the cursor and selecting the exact unit that you want to give orders to can be quite a pain, which makes sense, given that the analog sticks on a controller can’t match the precision of a mouse. If you never played the first game, the learning curve could be pretty steep – some actions aren’t exactly intuitive, and speeding up your multitasking abilities may be necessary to complete the campaign on higher difficulties.

The game features two factions that play pretty similarly, but both feature interesting and well thought out units to send into battle. Players can take control of either the human UNSC, or the alien Banished, which is a rebel offshoot of the Covenant, the main antagonists of the earlier games throughout the main Halo series.

Most of the units will be easily recognised by players familiar with the Halo universe, with some unique additions. To field these units, players build generators and supply pads for the resources required to fuel the ongoing war. The resource management aspect of the game isn’t too complex, which allows the player to focus on controlling the action and deploying their powerful leader powers.

Speaking of which, the game’s stellar sound design comes into play when you’re launching powerful EMP blasts, or bombing the enemy’s structures. You can feel every explosive thump thanks to the incredible bass in the game’s audio mix. This was one of the first things that really wowed me about the game, lots of other studios can learn a thing or two from Creative Assembly.

The game’s production values are superb, it’s clear that the developers put a lot of effort into all aspects of the gameplay experience. The cutscenes, in particular, are of incredibly high quality, similar to those found in the original game. The CGI is among the best I’ve seen in a video game and really helps to sell the characters and their story. The level of quality seen in the cinematics rival those of a big-budget TV series, and can be equally as engrossing to watch. The graphics and performance of the game itself are pretty good too, maintaining a solid 30fps, while delivering decent textures and gorgeous effects.

The story itself is compelling enough to make you want to play the campaign, but the actual narrative thread isn’t really the selling point here. Set twenty-eight years after the events of the first Halo Wars, HW2’s story begins not long after the events of Halo 5: Guardians. This is an interesting contrast to the pre-Combat Evolved setting of the original game, with the universe and its politics changing dramatically from the first game to the sequel.

Our heroes wake from cryo-sleep with no knowledge of what has changed since the height of the Human-Covenant war, with their only way home blocked by the rebellious Brute, Atriox, the leader of the Banished forces. He is a formidable adversary to the UNSC forces and a truly menacing villain, which is bucking the trend that recent Halo games have seemed to have been following (sorry, Warden Eternal).

My only issue is that it feels like Atriox was shoe-horned into the Halo universe, with no previous mentions or even hints at his existence. Surely, if there was a leader powerful enough to tear the Covenant a new one, we’d have heard about him as the Master Chief or Fireteam Osiris – it could even have been a tiny Easter egg that just teases with the idea of him and his faction’s existence.

The campaign is fully playable in two player co-op, with unlockable skulls adding an extra element of replayability to the experience. This concept of skulls, as Halo-regulars will know, is not unique to Halo Wars, and offers similar types of modifiers (albeit, more RTS-suited) to those found in the series’ main FPS titles.

In addition to the campaign, there are numerous multiplayer modes available to enjoy, namely: Skirmish, Strongholds, Domination, Deathmatch and Blitz. Strongholds is a fast paced mode where players rush to capture as many bases as possible before other players do. Domination is a capture the point type of game mode, similar to Company of Heroes or Dawn of War 2, where players fight for supremacy of the map by capturing and holding control points. Blitz is a unique take on multiplayer for an RTS game: Players play units and abilities from a deck of collectible cards, dropping the base-building aspects of the game in the process.

One variation of Blitz, namely Blitz Firefight, is a co-operative version of Blitz where players defend against waves of increasingly more difficult AI troops. I personally enjoyed all the multiplayer modes, with Blitz quickly becoming a personal favourite – short, intense, action-packed matches of Blitz amplify the greatest parts of Halo Wars 2.

The matchmaking itself is mostly effective. I found matches within seconds, but I wouldn’t say they were always as balanced as they could be. The skill ranking system could use some work, but all in all, it performs very well – you won’t be struggling to find a multiplayer match (not this early on, in any case)

Overall, Halo Wars 2 is a worthy addition to the Halo series, with fun gameplay and an evolutionary set of improvements to the original game. The game’s gorgeous graphics and superb sound effects help to immerse the player in the Halo universe and the story is arguably the best to come out of the series since 343 Industries took over. I recommend Halo Wars 2 as a must have for real time strategy fans or those looking for an extra helping of Halo-lore.

Halo Wars 2 is one of the best real-time strategy games available on consoles, and sadly also one of the only of the ones in the genre available on Xbox One. Hopefully, it can show developers out there that the genre really can work on consoles. I would generally love to see more RTS games out there, especially on console. Even the more fitting PC platform is encountering an RTS drought It would be great to see that trend change. The game takes players on a nostalgic trip back to a time when the RTS genre wasn’t filled with endless variations of MOBA games, which makes for a great change of scenery. Part of me hopes this is a sign of a revitalisation of the RTS genre, but another part realises that people just don’t like it as much as they used to anymore, or nearly as much as I do. Halo Wars 2 is the sequel to 2009’s Halo Wars and has lovingly been crafted by a development studio that could be considered one of the last stalwarts of a dying genre, Creative Assembly. They’re perhaps better known for the hugely successful Total War franchise, which makes it surprising that they would tackle a mostly traditional RTS filled with base building and tiny unit caps - and on a console, at that. They’ve done a great job building on and perfecting what Ensemble Studios accomplished with the first game. The developers have taken a game I loved and made it even better! Being the latest in the line of Xbox Play Anywhere titles, Halo Wars 2 allows you to buy the game once and play it on either Xbox One or on a PC running Windows 10. Which is a great added bonus if you were planning on buying the game in any case. The gameplay is pretty old-school by today’s standards and features base building, albeit not in the traditional sense - if you ever played the original Halo Wars then you know what to expect. It’s that, but better. The base building manages to introduce an interesting dynamic to the moment-to-moment gameplay: Do you choose to focus on getting as much resources as quickly as possible? Or do you decide to place all your manufacturing capabilities in one place? A simple decision, like which buildings to build where, could change the course of the battle drastically. Much like the original, the game is not particularly genre-defying, but it does a great job of bringing the genre to a platform that’s hardly ever graced by the presence of an RTS game. On Xbox One, Creative Assembly improved on the already good control scheme first devised by Ensemble Studios for the original Halo Wars. The controls and numerous controller shortcuts allow for a skilled player to make pretty quick decisions and act at a speed that almost (but not quite) rivals that offered by the combination of mouse and keyboard on the PC. Speaking of the PC, I’ve not yet…

Video Game Review: Halo Wars 2 – Halo at a large scale, again

2017-02-23

PottyZA

Entertaining and well thought out console RTS offering.

Total - 8.5

85 8.5

Whether it's the gorgeous graphics, fun multiplayer or entertaining story, fans of the Halo series or RTS games, in general, will find a lot to enjoy about the latest title from Creative Assembly.

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PottyZA

Tech Author at Geek Node

Developer by day, gamer by night. Charl loves everything about gaming and tech, and sometimes writes about them. When he's not busy gaming, you can be sure he's thinking about it.