Halo Wars 2 review

Reviewed on: Xbox One

When the first Halo Wars was released 8 years ago, there was a certain fear among fans about turning the much-acclaimed Halo FPS into an RTS spin-off. And now, with the release of Halo Wars 2, we can see it was very well received, not only by fans of the series but also by lovers of a good RTS.

In Halo Wars 2 we can see how big the franchise has become, so big that great games can be made even without its Spartan Master Chief. These are stories and characters that have soul, charisma and the rich traits of great stories. It’s no longer all about John-117, and you start to meet new heroes.

The story continues right after the end of Halo Wars. UNSC Spirit of Fire: after a jump through space, the ship’s A.I. wakes its whole crew from cryosleep. After traveling 28 years through space, they end up discovering the rise of a new alien faction (the Banished) and the danger present on the Ark, a dangerous Forerunner station that is none other than the factory of the Halos, the powerful weapons of mass destruction on a galactic scale. On this Ark there is the new A.I., who will help you a lot during the game, and who carries a feeling of revenge, since her entire crew that lived there on the Ark was totally wiped out by the Banished. We can’t fail to mention our powerful enemy, Atriox, an extremely violent brute worthy of the franchise’s enemies, and of course you can’t imagine him outside the Halo franchise in the future. A rebel brute, sent to the front lines to die just to clear the way for the Covenant, but he was the only one who came back alive; after many, many battles he grew tired and rebelled against the Covenant, starting the biggest army of rebels in the universe.

And despite being an RTS, the missions are exciting, frenetic and full of action from beginning to end, and at several points they aren’t limited to just building bases and attacking, having to flee with a few soldiers, or resist hordes of enemies with only what you were given. The campaign has an online Co-op mode, very interesting for the genre.
The gameplay is very well adapted to the Xbox controls. The fluidity of the controls is very well crafted, so within minutes you can possibly adapt to them, with quick shortcuts and everything else that needs agility in a game of this genre.

The graphics themselves are very detailed in the units and in all the terrain on the map, the explosions are very well made, and with the camera zoomed in you can see the details of the units, which are the same ones found in the series’ FPS games. There is a large number of units, human, Covenant, brutes and Forerunner, each with its own heroes with super powerful special abilities, where you can even summon a Scarab.
The CGs of this game are jaw-dropping, made by Blur Studio, the same studio that produced those of Halo 2: Anniversary, incredibly detailed, and today among the best ever seen in the gaming world.

Like any good RTS, you can play both online and in private offline matches depending on what you choose, 1v1 or 3v3, or 4-way free-for-all, on several maps and difficulty modes; the online modes are very varied, from 1v1 to 3v3, or free-for-all too. The game has the Firefight mode, a Halo classic, where you face hordes of enemies for as long as you can hold out, and as the rounds go by the difficulty keeps increasing.
A highlight is the Blitz mode, both online and offline, a mode where you use cards to build your deck. You earn these cards by playing any match of the game normally, or even by buying them with real money in the game’s store. This mode has no ranked play, so nothing influences gameplay, as each card only works within it. In this mode there are no bases; players use cards that cost energy, which must be collected over the course of the match, whether at specific locations, by defeating enemies or just by waiting for the match clock to advance. The game comes with a pretty decent repertoire of cards. Finishing the campaign unlocks a good part of them. The player is allowed to build decks with leaders who have their own abilities and exclusive cards. Buying cards serves to strengthen what the player already owns. That is, the cards obtained are permanent. They don’t go away when used in matches, because the more identical cards the player acquires, the more resistant and stronger the respective card’s platoon becomes permanently.

A highlight is the sensational Stronghold mode; in this mode the energy and supply elements are unlimited, the players already have everything at hand from the start of the match, and it’s up to them to decide to expand their bases and create more and more units, with a clock on screen that unlocks new equipment as the match progresses.

The first Halo Wars takes place 21 years before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved, while HW2 takes place 28 years after that, right after the events of Halo 5, probably kicking off some events of Halo 6, and who knows, a new and old enemy returning.
Halo Wars 2 is recommended for lovers of the Halo series, to learn a bit more about this vast universe, or for RTS lovers, and a game that can’t be missing from your collection.

FINAL VERDICT:

Story: 9
Audiovisual: 9
Gameplay: 8

Xbox One version