And with that, we have completed another Love/Hate series here on IC2S! I’m so glad that I managed to finally get through the Halo games – like I said at the start, I’ve had a lot of enthusiasm for this series, long before I got a chance to play them for myself. As you can see with my Top 100 Video Games of All-Time list, Halo 3 was such a well-crafted shooter that it made the list, and Halo 2 even cracked my top 25, which is pretty wild for a game I played for the first time only a few months prior! Funnily enough, my son has somehow found himself interested in Halo after getting some of the Mega Bloks figures. During the course of these playthroughs, we had a few magical evenings where he would sneak down past his bedtime and excitedly watch me play some Halo for a little bit, delighting in seeing Master Chief kick some ass before being sent back to bed. Hopefully I’m instilling in him some of that same wonder that first made me fall in love with this franchise.

As a bonus, I started 2025 with a throw-back session of Halo 3 multiplayer with friends. It was absolutely glorious, we all had a blast fragging each other. I honestly think that these games’ multiplayer modes might be even better today than they were on release – it’s so refreshing to play a multiplayer shooter that doesn’t have any battle passes, live service bullshit, paid cosmetics, daily/weekly challenges, etc. It’s just pure, unadulterated fun, tuned just the way you like it, thanks to Halo‘s fantastic custom game options!

Halo Games Ranked

Here is how I would rank the mainline Halo games’ campaigns:

If you read all of my Love/Hate articles, then I feel like these rankings should be pretty self-explanatory. However, these rankings would be a bit controversial in the Halo fandom, so…

• S-tier: Halo 2
  • Halo 2 is simultaneously the most unabashedly fun game in the franchise, and expands the narrative scope to a far grander and cinematic degree. Is it more linear? Sure, but I do not particularly mind when we get linear games like this (also, I think people overstate how open the original Halo was). Halo 2 is a fantastically-curated injection of fun.
• A-tier: Halo 3
  • Gameplay-wise, Halo 3 is probably the tightest, most well-balanced, and best-developed campaign in the franchise. However, its narrative is pretty weak for a trilogy-closer, especially in comparison to its predecessor, which makes me less-enthusiastic about it. I love a satisfying ending, so Halo 3‘s weaker narrative is a legitimate mark against it for me.
• B-tier: Halo Infinite, Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo: Reach
  • Halo Infinite at the top of B-tier and ahead of Combat Evolved is probably my most controversial opinion on this list, but I loved its gunplay that much. If not for the open world hurting the game’s level design, this could have had a serious shot of hitting A-tier, that’s how much fun I had with it.
  • For a lot of Halo fans, Combat Evolved is their favourite game in the franchise, so seeing it rank below Infinite is probably infuriating them right now. I’ll reiterate what I said before: the level design is just not fun to play. Between confusing levels with reused assets making it difficult to tell where you’re supposed to go, and repetitive encounter design, I spend way too much time in Combat Evolved not enjoying myself to truly love it. That said, it laid a rock-solid foundation and I really have to give it credit for how revolutionary it was on release.
  • Halo: Reach was somewhat disappointing to me. Its narrative and characters just didn’t resonate with me, and the fairly substantial changes to the series’ gameplay makes it less fun to play than Halo 3 was for me. It just kind of plodded along and then, suddenly, it was over. It definitely gets better as it goes, but I didn’t like it anywhere near as much as I wanted to.
• C-tier: Halo 4, Halo 3: ODST
  • Halo 4 operates kind of like fridge logic: you enjoy yourself when you’re playing it, but when it’s all over and then you think back on it, you decide that you enjoyed it less and less. It’s decent, but definitely a step down after one of the greatest game trilogies of all-time.
  • Halo 3: ODST down this low is probably the second-most controversial opinion on this list. Some people will say that this is their favourite campaign in the franchise, and claim it’s so deep and emotional: what game are you people playing that I missed out on? I cannot stand the characters’ dialogue, the semi-open world sections are dull, and the combat encounters are poorly-balanced.
• D-tier: Halo 5: Guardians
  • Halo 5 was obviously going to be at the bottom of this list, to the point where I almost considered putting a tier between C and D and calling it “comically empty space to emphasize how much Halo 5 sucks”. It’s a bad Halo game in particular, but it’s not even a good co-op shooter either.

Halo Weapons Ranked

There are a lot of weapons over the course of this series, so naturally I wanted to rank them. Note that I am not ranking each individual weapon for each time it appeared in a game; rather, I am only using the best version of each weapon, which will be noted on the image. Some weapons are technically “different” weapons in subsequent entries, but if it’s just “_____ with a different name”, I’m just going to cover the peak version of that gun. Some weapons don’t really have a “peak” version, so I’ll go with the game that introduced them instead (eg, the sniper rifle is great and basically the same in every Halo game, so I’ve assigned it to Combat Evolved). Finally, Halo 5 and Infinite have “upgraded” versions of each weapon, which I’m ignoring entirely, since they would throw off the entire list.

Okay, got it? Here’s my ranking of the weapons:

There’s no way in hell that I’m explaining all these individually, so I’ll let this list speak for itself. However, I will break these down by game to see which one has the best weapons! There are 60 weapons on this list, but I’m going to exclude the 7 grenades since they can’t really be associated with one particular game, for a total of 53 weapons across 8 games to look at. Points will be awarded with the first place (M90 Shotgun) getting 53 points, the second place (Beamrifle) getting 52 points, and so on.

So, with that said, here’s how the points broke down:

• Halo: Combat Evolved: 169 points (42.25 average)
• Halo 2: 253 points (36.14 average)
• Halo 3: 255 points (23.18 average)
• Halo 3: ODST: Literally fucking zero, lol.
• Halo: Reach: 151 points (16.78 average)
• Halo 4: 249 points (27.69 average)
• Halo 5: Guardians: 67 points (33.5 average)
• Halo Infinite: 287 points (26.09 average)

Some observations from this data:

• Halo: Combat Evolved has only a few weapons that have stood the test of time compared to its sequels, hence its fairly low point total. However, those weapons that have continued to stand out are top-tier (literally, that game’s shotgun is insane and topped this list without question).
• Perhaps unsurprisingly, Halo 2‘s weapons have also really stood out for being great, with the second highest overall average and a very high point total. I would say that, arguably, this would make it the strongest overall roster (if not for the completely outclassed Brute Plasma Rifle, this game’s overall average would be nearly identical to Combat Evolved).
• Halo 3 is, unfortunately, brought down by its glut of very mediocre weapons, which tank its overall average. It’s probably got the best-balanced weapons of the entire franchise, but it doesn’t really reflect well on this list, because many of its weapons end up getting poached by other entries in the franchise where they performed better.
• Halo 3: ODST getting zero points doesn’t surprise me much. No weapon in that game really stood out to me, and it plays worse than Halo 3, so this was kind of inevitable.
• Halo: Reach has a lot of unique weapons, so it was inevitably going to get some points here, but having the lowest overall average and a very low point total shows just how “good” these additions were. If not for a series-best Needler, things would be pretty dire.
• Halo 4 also introduced a lot of new weapons, four of which ended up being personal favourites, which give it a solid overall average. The guns here are pretty good, what else can I say? Oh, one thing to note though: if I was counting grenades, then Halo 4‘s average would get tanked, because Splinter and Pulse grenades SUCK.
• Halo 5: Guardians only had two entries on this list: the most overpowered Plasma Pistol in the franchise, and the Splinter Turret. All of the other Promethean weapons were more interesting and fun in Halo 4, so this game gets absolutely screwed as a result… which is good, because it’s what it deserves.
• Like 4, Halo Infinite introduces a glut of new weapons to the franchise, but most of these are incredibly fun to use, hence its highest overall point total. However, it has a fairly low overall average due to the really generic UNSC rifles and the awful Disruptor pistol.

Halo Enemies Ranked

Like the previous category, I’m taking into account only the “best” version of any particular enemy type across the series. I’m also not differentiating the sub-classes of enemies (Elite Zealots, Brute Chieftains, etc), each ranking has taken them all as a whole. The main exception to this are Jackals, which have a few very distinct variants, which I have given their own entries:

And, just for fun, we’ll do the same scoring system as last time (out of 21 total entries):

• Halo: Combat Evolved: 96 points (10.66 average)
• Halo 2: 27 points (9 average)
• Halo 3: 0 points… ouch.
• Halo 3: ODST: 9 points, both total and average.
• Halo: Reach: 15 points… again, both total, and average.
• Halo 4: 18 points (9 average)
• Halo 5: Guardians: 18 points (9 average… I’m noticing a pattern here)
• Halo Infinite: 27 points (13.5 average)

I definitely need to give some observations from this data since, now that I have it call collated, it’s skewed pretty badly by the small sample size:

• It should really go without saying that Halo: Combat Evolved skews these numbers significantly, claiming 9 out of the 20 enemy types on this list. This game established how the core enemy types play (Grunts < Jackals < Elites). In nearly every subsequent game, they’ve either functioned identically, or they’ve been notably worse. It’s amazing how well they captured the fundamental essence of these enemy types right out of the gate, and the game deserves all the accolades for it. However, the Flood enemies drag the total down somewhat – they’re decent as a way to shake-up the core gameplay, but they are very repetitive to fight and you quickly tire of dealing with pod infectors and bursters, not to mention all the ones firing rocket launchers at you. The Sentinels are also really dull and ineffective enemies.
• Halo 2 mostly continues the formula established by its predecessor, but it does introduce a couple new enemy types. Most notably are the notorious Jackal snipers. They are potentially lethal, but they’re handled fairly in my opinion and are a pretty ingenious addition to the formula. The Drones are also a fairly unique and underutilized enemy type, but they’re at their best here in this game. Unfortunately, this game also has the Sentinel Enforcers, those annoying-ass, large, shielded sentinels that you have to blow apart piece by piece to defeat. Every time I had to fight these things, it was a total slog. The only thing keeping them from the bottom of the list is that they’re at least an uncommon enemy type.
• Halo 3 had zero enemies make the list… which, I guess, isn’t too odd, since it’s basically a trilogy-closer and isn’t introducing anything completely new. In my opinion, its enemies aren’t doing anything particularly new or notable compared to its predecessors or successors.
• Halo 3: ODST, on the other hand, actually gets some points this time, for the Engineers. These guys have been very under-utilized through the series, mainly because they aren’t impactful by themselves and have the potential to be annoying when they buff all nearby enemies with an overshield. I didn’t find them that annoying in my playthroughs, hence their fairly middling placement.
• Halo: Reach is another game that basically just has the same enemies as before, although it does introduce one new enemy type: the Jackal Skirmishers. These guys aren’t as fun as regular Jackals, but they do shake-up their playstyle substantially – instead of being slow with a big shield, they’re fast with a could small shields. A solid, late-game introduction to the series.
• Halo 4 introduced the Prometheans… which doesn’t help it too much, because there were only a couple different types of Prometheans, and they aren’t as fun to fight as the Covenant are. In particular, the Watchers are known for being really annoying, due to running away and resurrecting Knights. I did not have much issue with them in my playthroughs, but I could see them being lower in some peoples’ estimation.
• Halo 5: Guardians, we actually have a couple interesting notes here. The Knights are significantly more fun to fight than they were in Halo 4, hence their fairly high placement in B-tier. However, I really disliked the Armiger Soldiers, which are kind of like mini-version of the Halo 4 Knights, which dragged the game’s overall score down.
• Finally, we have Halo Infinite, which pulls off a coup by finally perfecting the Brutes. These guys have been a questionable enemy type for so long in the franchise, and have seen so many re-designs to try to get them to work, but I actually really enjoy fighting them in this game. Infinite also features the Skimmers, which show up on occasion and sort of act like the Drones. They don’t make a huge impact, but the Brutes were so good that, funnily enough, they manage to give Infinite the second highest average. Obviously, this is due to the tiny sample sizes, and due to Combat Evolved hogging most of the best enemy types, but funny to note nonetheless.

What Does the Future Hold For Halo?

The future is pretty uncertain for Halo. Halo Infinite‘s launch went well, but it very quickly bled players due to monetization and content issues, and the game has underperformed as a result. 343 Industries has also suffered mass layoffs on both the management and developer level, the studio itself has been rebranded as “Halo Studios”, and they will be using Unreal Engine for any future games rather than Halo‘s traditional, proprietary engine. So… honestly, no one really knows what will happen, but at this point, Microsoft has mismanaged the franchise so badly that there’s no sense in getting too excited for the future.

Personally, what would I like to see for a future Halo game? Well, as much as I enjoyed Infinite, I don’t think it’s the blueprint for the franchise’s future. You can’t just keep making Master Chief fight the Covenant on a Halo ring over and over again. You can get away with a throw-back once in a while, but when that’s done, you’re stuck in the same place you were at before.

I’d also prefer a more curated, linear level design again, but I am fine with the games remaining open world if they can refine the formula and make it more interesting to avoid modern-day open world fatigue. If we can keep the gunplay as good as it is in Infinite, then they’ll already be a long way towards success.

Aaaaaand that’s it for another Love/Hate series! I already have my next one in mind and will begin playing/writing it soon. Writing this one took me a couple months, so don’t expect the next one any time sooner than that. In the meantime, I’ll continue writing and posting here whenever the mood strikes me. (Also, I will continue/finish the Resident Evil Love/Hate series at some point in the future. I have not forgotten it or shelved it for good! I’m just having fun enjoying other things right now!)