Mr Khan said:
The key is if you design the game with this in mind. If 343i decided to drop voice chat from Halo 5 at the last minute, the game would be an inferior experience for lacking it. If you build it with the idea that you were never going to have it, however... Well, we'll see how well it works. |
My main gripe with that idea would be that it would appear that they intend to make a multiplayer shooter which makes it difficult to coordinate; which is a key element to most strategies in all shooters with competitive elements. If I play Battlefield on my PC, I can simply write to my squad in the chat when I use my K & M controls but this is not a luxury that console gamers usually have so you would either need to implement a map system which sort of negates the purpose of strategy if it reveals anything significant on the enemy's position or make the game is such a way that the actual competition part of the gameplay has less focus. Either way; it could potentially harm the game's appeal as an online shooter with a possible audience of any size.
To me, it looks like they're trying to sell this game to people who aren't otherwise very interested in online shooters, which is okay for what it is but I think it might end up as something less than it could be if they go this route and I don't think that this is the best demographic for them to aim at.
Options for voice chat, or even a "safe mode" would be better solutions, wouldn't even be hard to develop; the normal and hardcore modes of Battlefield games are quite different from one another but contain all the same base mechanics.
Heck; I think that this is what I'd do as the head of a project like this with some potential; a softer mode for younger players and a more competitive mode.