Halo Infinite’s Linear Firefight Should Inspire Return of a…

In Halo Infinite’s latest multiplayer Operation, Operation: Last Stand, players are able to take part in a new multiplayer playlist entitled Firefight: Battle of the Academy, seemingly a follow-up to Infinite’s multiplayer narrative seen through cutscenes from Infinite’s launch to Season 3: Echoes Within. Halo Infinite's Battle of the Academy features two Linear Firefight maps, Cole Protocol and Out With a Bang, which have players eliminate Banished forces called to invade the Avery J. Johnson Academy of Military Science by the A.I. Iratus. With Battle of the Academy featuring dynamic environmental storytelling and most fans reacting positively to the Linear Firefight maps, Halo Studios could build upon these innovations by reintroducing a forgotten Halo 4 game mode: Spartan Ops.

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By Eric Warner

Halo 4’s Spartan Ops Explained

During the development of Halo 4, 343 Industries initially worked on reintroducing Firefight into the game, but featuring new side objectives besides the game mode’s classic wave defense gameplay as seen in Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach. However, as 343 Industries strove to meld Halo 4’s multiplayer with in-universe lore, the developer began to change this version of Firefight to include an overarching narrative in conjunction with Halo 4’s campaign. This ultimately resulted in the Spartan Ops gamers were able to play at Halo 4’s launch in late 2012. Spartan Ops was told through episodes that each featured five missions that could be completed solo or in a Spartan-4 Fireteam of up to four players.

In terms of gameplay, Spartan Ops has players often eliminating Covenant remnants and Forerunner Prometheans either on foot or in vehicles. A few sections may additionally have players complete small puzzles or activate and deactivate pieces of technology in order to progress through the mission. While the events of Spartan Ops are canon, players can still freely customize their Spartans and have them appear in their customized armor. In terms of the setting, all of Spartan Ops takes place either in the various environments of the Forerunner Shield World 0001, otherwise known as Requiem, or within the UNSC Infinity, with most missions reusing campaign environments and multiplayer maps.

The Story of Halo 4’s Spartan Ops

Spartan Ops takes place six months after the end of Halo 4’s campaign in early 2558, following the UNSC Infinity’s return to Requiem to conduct research on the Shield World and eliminate Covenant remnants and Promethean forces led by the Didact's Hand, Jul ‘Mdama. While Spartan Ops’ cutscenes follow the escapades of Fireteam Majestic and Spartan-4 Commander Sarah Palmer, players embody the members of Fireteam Crimson as they often assist Majestic and Palmer’s plans with faraway objectives. Eventually, Infinity calls in Doctor Catherine Halsey, former head of the Spartan-2 program, to help research Requiem and its artifacts. However, this inadvertently results in Halsey’s reluctant alliance with 'Mdama to find the Absolute Record of all Forerunner technology and the subsequent fall of Requiem into its nearby star.

All 10 episodes of Halo 4’s Spartan Ops are no longer accessible on Xbox 360 versions of the game, but the entirety of Spartan Ops can still be played in Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

The Potential of a Spartan Ops Successor in Halo 7

Despite being originally pitched as a multi-season story, only one season of Spartan Ops was released in Halo 4, with its storyline being continued in the Halo: Escalation comics as well as Halo 5: Guardians’ main campaign. However, due to the mixed reception of the Spartan Ops game mode, especially compared to the more fan-favored Firefight, Spartan Ops never returned in any subsequent Halo title. Firefight, meanwhile, did somewhat return in Guardians as Warzone Firefight, while a more modular form of Firefight appeared in Halo Infinite, but neither mode is the same Firefight as featured in ODST or Reach. While Spartan Ops’ first outing was entirely successful, there's still a lot of potential for a narrative-focused PVE mode similar to Linear Firefight to appear in Halo 7.

Halo 7 could feature both developer and fan-made Firefight maps, but during each new Operation or Season, release a map or playlist following a short story in the Halo universe with a cutscene. These narrative events don’t have to be linked together like Spartan Ops or even Halo Infinite’s initial multiplayer cutscenes, but instead feature standalone stories similar to those told in Halo Waypoint Chronicles, such as Halo: The Third Life. For example, one narrative event that Halo 7 could depict and have gamers play through is fighting super-soldier Janissaries aboard a Banished ship following the faction’s failed invasion of Earth. These narrative-focused Spartan Ops-like maps and events could help keep lore-focused fans engaged in the game while allowing their maps to be replayed in traditional Firefight scenarios.

Spartan Ops’ Gabriel Thorne was originally supposed to star in Halo 5: Guardians as a member of Fireteam Osiris before being replaced by former ODST Edward Buck due to scheduling conflicts with Thorne’s actor Ethan Gregory Peck.

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