The Russian free-to-play multiplayer title can impress

Mar 30, 2015 15:50 GMT  ·  By

By far one of the biggest stories of last week was the announcement of Halo Online, a free-to-play multiplayer shooter that's going to launch exclusively for the PC and, at least at first, only in Russia. The game has huge potential and can certainly become quite profitable, but only if its microtransactions are done in a good manner.

The Halo franchise has been around for over a decade, effectively proving way back in 2001 that first-person shooters can work well on consoles, as Bungie had the guts to bring its project on the original Xbox, after having partnered with Microsoft.

Since then, an array of titles have appeared across the Xbox, the Xbox 360, and the Xbox One, from Halo 2 to 3, 4, ODST, Reach, and more recently The Master Chief Collection which remastered all the major previous games for the Xbox One.

Some of those releases, like Halo 1 and 2, appeared on the PC as part of an ill-fated attempt to popularize the Windows Vista operating system among gamers. Unfortunately, those titles weren't supported all that well, and when combined with the horrendous Games for Windows Live system made by Microsoft, they caused more headache than pleasure to PC users.

More recently, amid rumors of Halo 3 for PC, Microsoft did bring a Halo game to computers, even through Valve's popular Steam network, in the form of Halo: Spartan Assault, an arcade twin-stick shooter that, while pretty fun, wasn't exactly a full-fledged first-person shooter.

Halo Online can mark a glorious return to the PC

Now, while rumors were certainly floating around, what with the cross-platform play promised by the Windows 10 operating system between PC and Xbox One, the Halo series has been confirmed for a return to the PC, through Halo Online.

In case you missed out on the announcement last week, the new game is a multiplayer-only experience, meaning no single-player story with Master Chief or anyone else. It will be free-to-play, and at least for now, it's only going to launch in Russia, a huge PC-centric market that has a proven appetite for free games.

The title arrives from developer Saber Interactive, a longtime partner to current Halo studio 343 Industries. Even if it's a US-based company, Saber has a division in Sankt Petersburg, so the Russia release came around quite easily, especially given the experience of the Innova, the entertainment studio that will distribute the game through its online network.

The gameplay details mentioned so far are also painting a pretty picture, as Halo Online uses the Halo 3 engine but looks quite good, features plenty of classic multiplayer game types like Assassination or Team Slayer, and many great maps.

Free-to-play games live or die based on their microtransactions

However, the main deciding factor that will make or break Halo Online is the economy, as the microtransactions could keep the experience fun and balanced for free and premium users, or could overturn the whole thing by offering way too many advantages to paying players.

For now, it seems that weapons and customization options will be available for purchase with in-game credits and real-world money. Depending on the in-game cost, things have the potential to remain pretty balanced.

However, if great weapons require a huge amount of grinding or if they provide way too much power to those who fork over the real-world cash for them, things won't stay fun for long.

In such a case, only paying members will continue playing, in order to justify their investment, while free users will flock to the multitude of other free-to-play shooters out there.

Halo Online has potential but Microsoft needs to pay close attention in order to make the return of its precious series to the PC a solid one. Depending on its success, it's quite possible that, with the help of Windows 10 and the Xbox One's PC-like architecture, more proper games in the series won't be Xbox One exclusives.