There have been many great developers that have had rough beginnings. Then there are those who hit a game winning home run on their first at bat. You have your Rockstars, Naughty Dogs, and your Bungies that appear as if from their humble beginnings they just get it. They are creative, passionate, tactical, and intelligent. These developers know gaming, they’ve created franchises that are significant in the history or media itself.
I’ll save you the sad tale of developers long lost, time was not friendly to these few unfortunate studios. Good or bad though, all developers have one common story, one common theme. What’s the theme you ask? The theme is a “mark”, they’ve all had to make their mark on the gaming industry, they’ve all had to show what they’re made of. Which brings me to a developer who’s mark, from their beginning, was one of the biggest for any newly formed studio possibly ever. The developer I’m referring to is 343I, who was tasked with taking over one of gamings biggest ip’s in the Halo series. But with them doing so they’ve never had the chance to work out of the bright lights and out of scrutiny’s unpleasant view. In my opinion they have not had the chance to show their truly creative side.
At 343’s birth they were tasked with one mission, that was to take over the Halo franchise and continue its story. 343 has seen success and praise but when you’re dealing with an IP as beloved as the Halo franchise and its former developer Bungie, the sad fact remains that no matter what you do you will not please everyone and that’s exactly the case for 343. In this article I want to pose the question of what if? What if 343 had their chance to put their creative ability on display? What game would you want from them? Would it be new? Or would you want them to revitalize a dormant or dead franchise and breath new life into it? For myself I chose the latter, so let me explain why and what game.
343I was a company that was assembled for the purpose of breathing life back into a franchise that Microsoft and Bungie themselves thought it ran its course. So with Microsoft and 343 hiring for the purpose of bringing fresh ideas where none appeared to be I would think that this 343 team would be a creative one. And what better game to test that creativity on than a franchise that has attempted to pick itself back up for the past couple of generations. The franchise I’m talking about is Perfect Dark.
Perfect Dark is a franchise that’s in desperate need of creativity and direction. While it’s fan base used to consist of quite a few gamers, through recent attempts it has lost a lot of its listed and a lot of supporters. This is why I believe 343 should take this franchise and bring Joanna Dark to the current generation with big bang.
I’m choosing 343 not only for flat out creative prowess but as we’ve seen with Halo 5: Guardians, they also have a knack for creating strong, interesting and intelligent female characters; Olympia Vale, Holly Tanaka, Linda and Kelly are all individuals that I would not want to get on their bad side.
I also chose 343 because I don’t want them to grow tired of the Halo franchise. We saw this happen with Bungie and they appeared to run out of passion and run out of gas for the franchise. Maybe 343 could make a 3rd person Perfect Dark which would be different enough from Halo that it would keep things fresh for them.
I think the big picture here is that 343 takes a break from Halo and shows us what else they can do. So now I ask you my fellow gamers. What would you like to see 343 do? Comment below.
