Halo (series) - Reception and Critical Response

Reception and Critical Response

Aggregate review scores

The Halo franchise has been highly successful commercially and critically. During the two months following Halo: Combat Evolved's release, it sold alongside more than fifty percent of Xbox consoles and sold a million units by April 2002. Halo 2's sales generated US$125 million on its premiere day, making it the fastest selling United States media product in history up to that time. Combined with Halo's sales, the two games sold 14.8 million units before Halo 3's release.

GameSpot reported 4.2 million units of Halo 3 were in retail outlets on September 24, 2007, a day before official release—a world record volume. Halo 3 broke the previous record for the highest grossing opening day in entertainment history, making US$170 million in its first twenty-four hours. Worldwide, sales exceeded US$300 million the first week, helping to more than double the sales of the Xbox 360 when compared with the weekly average before the Halo 3 launch. At the end of 2007, Halo 2 and Halo: Combat Evolved were the number one and two best-selling Xbox titles, respectively, and Halo 3 was the best-selling Xbox 360 title. Halo Wars was the best-selling RTS console game, selling more than one million units. The Halo series went on to sell more than 27 million copies by August 2009, and more than 34 million copies by May 2010. Tor Books reported that sales of all franchise materials are greater than $1.7 billion, and Bungie's games before Reach accounted for $1.5 billion in sales. The soundtracks to Halo 2, Halo 3, ODST and Reach all appeared on the Billboard 200 charts for at least one week. By May 2011, total gross of Halo merchandise was $2 billion, with 40 million copies of the games sold. The total amount climbed to $2.3 billion in July 2011, and $2.8 billion in January 2012.

The Halo adaptations have been successful as well. Many of the novels have appeared on Publisher Weekly's bestseller charts and the Halo Graphic Novel sold more than 100,000 copies, a "rare hit" for the games-to-comics genre. Ghosts of Onyx, Contact Harvest, The Cole Protocol and the first volume of Cryptum appeared on The New York Times bestseller lists, and The Cole Protocol also opened 50th overall on USA Today's bestsellers list. Tor's first three novels sold more than one million copies by April 2009.

Overall, the Halo series has been well received by critics. Halo: Combat Evolved has received numerous Game of the Year awards. In March 2007, IGN listed it as the top Xbox game of all time, while readers ranked it the fourteenth best game ever on "IGN Readers' Choice 2006 - The Top 100 Games Ever". Conversely, GameSpy ranked Halo: Combat Evolved tenth on its list of "Top 25 Most Overrated Games of All Time", citing repetitive level design and the lack of an online multiplayer mode. Halo 2 also received numerous awards, with IGN listing it as the number two top Xbox game of all time in March 2007. From its initial release on the Xbox in November 2004 until the launch of Gears of War on the Xbox 360 in November 2006 - two years later - Halo 2 was the most popular video game on Xbox Live. Halo 3 was nominated for and won multiple awards; it won Time magazine's "Game of the Year" and IGN chose it as the Best Xbox 360 Online Multiplayer Game and Innovative Design of 2007. Most publications called the multiplayer aspect one of the best features; IGN said the multiplayer map lineup was the strongest of the series, and GameSpy added that the multiplayer offering will greatly please "Halo veterans". Complaints focused on the game's plot. The New York Times said the game had a "throwaway" plot and Total Video Games judged the single-player aspect ultimately disappointing. The series' music and audio has received enthusiastic response from game reviewers.