Sunday, April 29, 2018

The ElDewrito Situation: My Thoughts

Hey Guys, it's been a month since I've written my last post. Lots of things have gone down and a couple of games have been released. I currently have two posts in the works and one of them is my personal choice for the best game of 2017. Also, I plan to release my thoughts on Far Cry 5 a month after release. Anyways, back to the topic at hand.

Halo Online was a cancelled free-to-play game that was being developed for the Russian audience. Since it was cancelled, the assets for the game were essentially abandoned. ElDewrito stepped in and used the available assets to create a mod in order to play Halo Online. Of course, it was successful. Microsoft and 343 Industries took notice of it and threatened potential legal action towards ElDewrito since the mod is using Microsoft owned assets.

There was an explanation from 343 Industries on Halo Waypoint and they stated, " While we are humbled and inspired to see the amount of passion poured into this project, the fact remains that it’s built upon Microsoft-owned assets that were never lawfully released or authorized for this purpose. As this project reverberated across the community, our team took a step back to assess the materials and explore possible avenues, while Microsoft, like any company, has a responsibility to protect its IP, code and trademarks. It’s not optional in other words".

Okay, as of writing this you can still play this mod. According to ElDewrito's official blog, the mod isn't going anywhere as well. The only thing that will happen is that anything in the game with Microsoft owned content will be removed from the game.

It's important to know that this is a Microsoft decision and not 343 Industries's choice. Although I don't think it's cool that they're stepping in and removing some portions of the game, they are in the legal right and can do whatever they wanted with the Halo license. However, it doesn't mean we still can't criticize them for this decision.

Although I have not played the mod, I can see the amount of support and dedication that is being put in this project. This game has a pretty large player base and from the looks of it this mod is built upon the older Halo games. You know, the ones where there were no microtransactions.

We're fast approaching the three year mark since the release of Halo 5 and have only seen one new Halo game so far, but it's not part of the main series.

In my opinion, I didn't really like Halo 5. Not just because the story for the game was painfully disappointing, but the multiplayer was essentially Call of Duty with more microtransactions. If you're enjoying Halo 5's multiplayer, that's great! However, you can't deny that its multiplayer is far different from what past games used to be like.

I feel like this mod is an "escape" from Halo 5. Halo fans have memories of playing Halo 2, 3, and Reach online. While this mod is essentially Halo 3, it's still being supported to be even better than what Halo 3 was. I do respect Microsoft allowing the project to still be available for download, but they did ask to halt the development of the mod.

Anyways, I'm not even sure how the future of Halo is going to look like. It's just not the same as it was over 8 years ago when Halo Reach was released. I don't want to sound pessimistic, but maybe this mod is a good indicator of what the fans want.
Till Next Time!!