The most profound objective in any Halo series was ‘spiritually inspired’ by the nuke sequence in Modern Warfare 2

I grew up in a golden age of FPS games. With the likes of Modern Warfare 2, F.E.A.R., Halo: Reach, and Black Ops 2 all releasing back when I had no responsibilities and all the time in the world; I didn’t know how good I had it.

Looking back on it now, it’s clear to see that we had it so good because, well, excellence breeds excellence. There was no shortage of inspiration for devs to pull on back in the 2000’s and early 2010’s.

In fact, Halo: Reach’s designer Niles Sankey has confirmed this by dropping by to tell fans just how much other releases of the era inspired Reach. “Modern Warfare 1 and 2 were huge influences on Halo Reach’s campaign,” Sankey says in a social media post. “The tonal execution in those games was (and still is) absolutely brilliant.”

That’s not to say that Halo at the time had absolutely nothing going for it. “We knew that Halo did some things better (AI combat, vehicles, etc),” Sankey says. “But we also knew the MW games were beating us in other departments.”

One area which the Modern Warfare games had Halo beat was in inter-character relationships and, crucially, its ability to tell a gritty and rather depressing story. “Many of the moments in Reach were inspired by the brilliant work of Infinity Ward,” Sankey continues. “Including the Nobel team squad interactions, and ‘Objective Survive’ was spiritually inspired by the Nuke sequence (in Modern Warfare 2). We just tried to push it one step further.”

Reach’s final Lone Wolf mission and Current Objective: Survive still haunts me. At the time I’d only just gotten over Loose Ends, and now my poor naive young self was faced with another previously implausible situation. I’d never considered the possibility of the character I’d play in a game, someone who was so clearly meant to be the hero, not making it out alive. I was all too familiar with important characters I liked kicking the bucket, but Reach’s final objective did, and still does, hit different.