I Want To Be Alone, But Now I Never Will

Three guesses why I’m writing this…..3….2…1….GO!

Or better yet, just watch this below and it’ll summarize what I’m about to talk about.

Halo fans, including myself, have been making constant demands for the return of PvE game modes. Knowing 343i, they sometimes listen to us, but it depends on which crowd screams the loudest. Know what I mean?

Around the end of this month, 343i finally decided to grant our wishes by giving us a game mode of Warzone that is like Firefight…..just not the FF we were expecting.

It’s still Warzone, but when the word “Firefight” was thrown in there as the icing on the cake, I was hoping I could once again kick back, kill some baddies, without having to compete with other players who kills the most of them. Whether they describe it as cooperative gameplay or not, gamers still try to see who does the most killing.

That is why, I have always enjoyed playing PvE game modes alone, so I don’t have to lose my temper when I’m seconds away from killing the boss, and then someone else jumps in and his bullet steals the kill. I put up with this in Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer as well, only it’s not as frequent since there is an option to limit it to just friends.

I tried the beta over the weekend it was released. I managed to rack up a decent amount of kills, even the Mythic Warden. Yes, Mythic Warden Eternal. 

But here’s where the problem arises, this is 343i we are talking about. You can suggest a ton of shit to them, and they will either ignore your request or put it into consideration. When they do that, they think of how much money it will make. If it doesn’t make a lot, they won’t do it. Sad but true with the gaming industry…even with my mere request for a Didact emblem. They make a ton of unecessary little things that you don’t need or care about. If you ask for something specific within those little things, they don’t respond to your request, even if you know for a fact that the idea to make whatever you wanted has occurred to them.

If it’s something bigger like Infection, playable Elites, or splitscreen…it’s either delayed in release for a long time, or it’s denied with a ridiculous excuse like: “oh I’m sorry but we’re extremely xenophobic when it comes to playable models” or “60fps is the way to go”. 

The truth is, I grew up as a lone wolf gamer playing against AIs. I didn’t give a shit, I had fun for hours on whatever game it was. Hell, being able to adjust their difficulty level was a bonus so if I needed a warm up, or a challenge, I could decide that.

Not multiplayer, you can’t do that anymore. If you just started playing and have no experience, you can’t decide what to play against. No one’s going to go easy on the newbie. I like to take it slower and work my way up in skill. I find that easier to do that alone than with other people.

Now single player is dead in the gaming world, especially on certain consoles. It all depends on that, the industry, and the franchise.

For me, playing alone is just less stressful if you’re the type of gamer who doesn’t care about your rank or skill level. You are in control of what you want to play against, and you don’t have to worry about other players stealing things from you like certain kills.

On Halo Reach, I would play Firefight score attack for hours and now I’m in the rank of Commander. I binge played it when I got to the Warrant Officer ranks. Don’t ask me how long it took for me to get to Captain. I only wanted to at least get to Lt. Colonel so I would have all the Elite armor.

Anyway, the problem that I will now face for the rest of my life as a gamer, is I will have no choice but have to play with others, and a lot of times, gamers are often classified as those who play for hours and that’s all that they do with their free time. Since I have other hobbies, my skills aren’t sufficient to theirs, hence another reason why I like to play alone.

I miss the days where I could go lone wolf against hordes of Covenant or Locust. Wish I also got a chance to do that against Reapers, Collectors, Geth, and Cerberus. But then again that’s not such a huge loss because Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer, I am actually really good at it.

I’m not antisocial, I just prefer to not go through the hassle of having my kills stolen, dealing with idiots who complain when I steal their kills, and not have my skills compared to others; because that just makes me insecure.

I might still play Warzone Firefight when the full version is released, but it would be really nice if 343 at least lets a custom mode of it be available, or a single player mode of it where you can choose the map and the enemy difficulty level, but still earn the same amount of REQ points and XP.

It’s only fair to the people who are not competitive/MP nerds like myself, and trust me I know I’m not alone. I don’t care if the crowd of people I stand in who want this as well….isn’t as large as the competitive/MP crowd. We deserve something too.

-Emily