The best Halo game is obvious, but the rest of the list is interesting
Halo 5 was easily the worst Halo, and it caused most of the remaining fans who had stuck around after the "golden years" to finally leave for good. The campaign was weak, and shifted focus away from the Chief onto another, Spartan Locke, a maneuver that unlike Reach, Halo 5 abjectly failed to pull off. While the multiplayer was dogged by lootboxes and stupid mechanics like Ground Pounding.
In Halo 5's defense, the customization was great, and the maps were genuinely well-designed, but that is about it. | © Xbox
Halo as a franchise was definitely already on the downswing by Halo 4, but it hadn't quite reached the pits of Halo 5, and there was still hope that it could rival the likes of Call of Duty. It released on Xbox 360 after all, so at least there were lots of people who could access the game. It's also worth noting that Halo 4 had a great campaign, and was maybe the best-written of all the games.
Halo 4's real downfall was the multiplayer, which used the armor ability system introduced in Reach. It wasn't quite a hero-shooter, but it was pushing in that direction in a way most fans hated, myself included. | © Xbox
Halo Infinite felt like a glorious comeback for the franchise... and then it died about three months after launch. The core of this game was great, with amazing maps and fun movement, but we needed regular content and we got none. Remember, by this point it was 2021, and shooter fans had come to expect a constant stream of new and shiny things to play.
Instead, the playerbase had to go for months with a very limited number of modes, and most players simply got bored and moved on. They also massively missed a trick by not introducing a Battle Royale. I know it's easy to hate the BR format because of how ubiquitous it has become, but Halo would be the perfect franchise for such a mode. Oh, and the campaign sucked. | © Xbox
There is definitely an argument to be made that this doesn't count as a mainline Halo game, but unlike ODST for instance, Reach did have its own multiplayer mode, so we're counting it. The reason the game is relatively low in our rankings is because the multiplayer mode it had was unimpressive, with an annoying armor ability system and forgettable maps.
But, both the campaign and the Firefight mode were fantastic. The campaign took on the daring task of focusing on a different group of Spartans rather than the Chief, but unlike Halo 5 it did it fantastically well, and each member of Noble Team became instantly iconic. While the Firefight mode really perfected the kind of PvE that Halo needed. | © Xbox
And now we get to the pinnacle of Halo, the OG trilogy. This was back when Halo was one of the biggest shooters in the world, back when it was quite literally selling consoles. The music, the story, the maps, the movement, the gunplay — it was all infinitely ahead of its time. In fact, Halo 1 basically laid the foundations for how all console FPS games would continue, with the twin stick control scheme, two weapon loadout, and integrated aim assist.
It probably also had the best opening of any Halo game, which is fitting for the first title in the franchise. But the best mission was probably The Silent Cartographer, which many of you will remember fondly from the demo, and which seemed to be playable literally everywhere in the early 2000s (how I miss those Xbox's in every tech store). | © Xbox
This could possibly have been in first place, as it does everything right. And, in fact, it definitely has the best mission of all time, Metropolis, which saw the Chief battling across a giant bridge in an effort to board a Scarab.
What put's the game slightly ahead of Halo 1 is that while it still had all the great split screen features, Xbox Live had launched in the intervening years, and it was beginning to become somewhat popular. So for many of us, Halo 2 was our first experience of online PvP on console. And looking back, it wasn't even that primitive, we had a ton of modes and great maps, and you could have up to 16 players in a lobby. | © Xbox
Halo 3 was godlike. And I know this is an insufferable thing to say, but you really had to be there. It was 2007, and by this point almost everyone was moving on to the 360 generation, where Xbox Live had become universal (and almost everyone was mic'd up thanks to that cheap, rubbish mic). This was the period when Halo was at it's most popular, and it felt like a real community, thanks to an excellent Forge and thousands of iconic fanmade maps and modes like Duck Hunt, Griffball, and Jenga Tower.
And that's not to mention how strong the multiplayer was by default, with iconic maps like The Pit, Guardian and Valhalla. Alongside a great campaign that saw us team up and even play as the Arbiter. It also had the most epic ending of any Halo game, which saw you escaping the ring's self-destruction in a Warthog, jumping the gap to make it onto the ship Forward Unto Dawn.
There will never be a Halo game as good as Halo 3 in its prime, and we have to accept that reality. But we'll always have the memories. | © Xbox
We haven't included Halo 3: ODST in this list, as we are only focusing on mainline Halo games with their own distinct multiplayer mode (yes, we know there's a debate to be had surrounding ODST, but for us, it's really just an expansion). Make sure to let us know in the comments if we've made any serious blunders, and enjoy the ranking!
