My thoughts on paid Halo Reach DLC

So, yesterday it was announced that the first map pack for Halo Reach will be landing on November 30th.  The Noble Map Pack will cost $10 and include 3 new multiplayer maps.  Since the announcement there has been a lot of discussion on whether or not charging for the pack is justified.  I have always been a Halo fan and have supported Bungie by buying the games & the subsequent DLC.  But this time I have to admit that I am a little disappointed in this being a paid pack, especially at that price.  Here's why.



Halo Reach came out with a very paltry selection of maps to begin with.  The fact that most of these maps are lifted straight out of the campaign makes this even worse.  And aside from those, the rest (including Forge World maps) are remakes of old Halo maps.  None of Halo 3's base maps were from the campaign, and I don't believe any of them were remakes either.  I do like some of Reach's maps, such as Powerhouse, Spire, Boneyard, and Sword Base.  But there are others such as Reflection and Boardwalk that I feel are very average maps.  Not bad, but not up to Bungie's typically awesome standards.  The fact that so many are campaign rips makes it obvious that not as much time and/or effort was put into making them.  Whether this was a case of Bungie cutting corners or Microsoft pushing for a premature release is unclear, but though the game is solid it doesn't seem like you get as much, map wise, for your $60 as you did with Halo 3.

Now frankly, for the reasons I listed above I think Bungie should do the "right thing" and make it up to their die hard fans who waited and line and bought expensive special editions of the game by making this first pack free.  Those points I just made have been expressed by most friends I have spoken with about the game.  They love the gameplay, as do I, but feel the maps are a bit lacking right now.  Well, that happens.  This could be a feel good move by Bungie by releasing a free map pack to make up for the lack of quality maps included with the game.

I think the above should be enough of a reason, but there is a another big reason that the pack should be free;  Halo 3's DLC had a big problem.  I paid for all the map packs, and was happy to do so because I thought the new maps were generally really awesome.  The problem was, once I actually had downloaded the maps I wasn't able to play them online very much.  By making map packs paid, Bungie couldn't force everyone to pay for the maps by integrating them into the standard playlists.  And so, if you buy the new maps you were not able to play them without going to a special "DLC" playlist.  Unfortunately, this playlist was populated by a fraction of the players the standard playlists had and also included non Slayer gametypes that I was not a huge fan of.  In short, by making the maps paid they penalized even those who were happy to cough up the money.  And I am afraid of this happening on Reach.

Bungie and Microsoft are pulling in tons and tons of cash on this game.  I, like millions of other gamers, have always done my part by buying each of these games as they are released and even forking out the cash for the paid extras.  But this time I have to take exception to what they are doing.  Reach's multiplayer maps are subpar compared with previous games, and charging us for their laziness is not a customer first attitude.  All this said, I will probably end up paying for these maps just because I like the gameplay so much.  But I certainly hope I will actually get a chance to play them, instead of them being cast off to some other playlist.  Who remembers the golden days of PC gaming where map packs were just a given thing that was part of your initial $30-50 investment in the game?  Unreal Tournament 2004 is a great example of this.  It's just a shame Bungie and Microsoft have let their greed take over.  But can you really blame them?  They have millions of gamers at their mercy, so I'm sure that while people will moan and groan about this, they are still gonna shell out the dough.  But my opinion of both companies has gone down a couple pegs today.