: Why not just play Halo? Seriously. If you're going to make a new game, it
: only makes sense to make maps that fit in with the game mechanics AND
: aesthetics.

1. Halo does not have online play

2. The dare is to put in one Halo 1 map. This is not a prescription for the whole game. It'd be foolish to suggest that every Halo game use only Halo 1's maps as they appear in Halo 1 in perpetuity.

It's near-universally agreed that the quality of on-disc Halo maps has been in decline from Halo 2, to 3, to Reach, to 4, but no one seems to know exactly why, including Bungie/343i (unless you somehow believe they push out bad on-disc maps to increase demand for DLC, in which case Halo 4 would have certainly been a disaster for them). But we do know something needs to change.

It's fairly common for developers to put retro elements into new games, in kind of a fun, campy sort of way. The inclusion of an as-is H1 map could be something like that. We're far enough away from the days of Halo 1 that the majority of Halo 5 players probably won't have any firsthand experience with H1's maps, so there's a good chance its success (or lack thereof) won't be driven by nostalgia.

If it ends up being the most popular map, we will have learned something. If it ends up being the least popular map, it can (and will) be treated as a novelty. As long as there isn't a significant amount of time and effort spent creating it, I think it's a Modest Proposal.