Something that made older Halo games so beautiful was the fact that they looked vibrant and alive. It was a place you wanted to be in because they were so beautiful.



While Halo 5 looks good in terms of graphics, it does not look good in terms of art. There is nothing wrong with the art itself but the way it looks is bad. The game does not feel alive at all and does not look vibrant, it looks GENERIC. This is a MAJOR problem since it immediately makes the game less enjoyable to watch and even play, yes it makes the game less enjoyable to play.



A game needs to look good, different and unique but Halo 5 does not look that different from other shooters that take place in the future. Everything is so shiny and lights and lightning effects are too bright, especially the sun. The game lacks color and beautiful skyboxes making it look even more generic. This is a major problem and can influence the longevity of the game. We do not want another Halo 4 were the population drops extremely fast.



How to make Halo 5 beautiful?

First of all, the shine on a lot of objects needs to be heavily reduced. This is the biggest reason why the game looks generic. Maps need to look special and unique and by making everything shiny you reduce the differences between the maps because the differences in art is reduced. It's a lot more beautiful when you can actually see the details on the objects and textures instead of looking at a shiny object.



Secondly, the brightness of the sun needs to be toned down to remove the disadvantages in gunfights caused by the sun. The brightness of the sun also prevents us from looking at the sky which may sound weird but it's not. Halo games always used to have beautiful skyboxes but I haven't seen any of those yet.



Thirdly, the maps need more colors to distinct themselves from each other and to make them look more vibrant. It's a sci-fi videogame, why on earth should it look more realistic? Other games are trying to be realistic but Halo never did this and this should not be the case with Halo 5 either. I really hope 343 is going to add more colors to the maps to make it look more unique and vibrant.



And finally, the game needs to feel alive. What I mean with this is that I want 343 to put their heart and soul into the artdesigns like Bungie did. Bungie always makes beautiful games that feel alive. Destiny is a beautiful game, it has beautiful skyboxes, beautiful maps with each map look very different from each other and the game has beautiful skyboxes. The game may have less colors than a game like Halo 3 but it still looks pretty vibrant. I hope 343 can learn from the way Bungie designed and implemented their art into their games so we can have a beautiful, vibrant and alive universe in Halo 5 that we want to be in for atleast 3 years until the next Halo game.



EDIT:



Art needs to be consistent, when play Halo 5 it needs to remind me of older Halo games as well, especially Halo 4 in terms of art since Halo 4 is the first part of the Reclaimer saga. The problem though is that a lot of things in Halo 5 look too clean and too modern (it looks too much like the real world which is a bad thing since Halo is a sci-fi game).



Halo used to be described as ancient because of the way the art looked. This is not a negative comment but a very positive way. Ancient does not mean it's outdated but that has an ancient feel/look when you are playing the game and looking at the art and environments. The environments and maps should not look modern and shiny at all, they should ancient.