2. Halo 3

Zack: When I was putting together the first draft of the best Halo multiplayer maps ever made, I initially sat down with a notepad and just thought off the top of my head of my 15 favorite maps. Even if I didn’t remember the name of the map, I’d put down details. I then looked all the maps up and about 11 maps on the list were from Halo 3. So yeah, the multiplayer in Halo 3 is amazing. But it also features a great Forge mode, four-player co-op, and a campaign that I still replay regularly. That final Warthog run…just the best. If this was the end of the series, it would have been fine by me.

Ari: Halo 3 was Halo at the height of its powers: a suitable capstone to a definitive trilogy, with a multiplayer portion so engaging it seemed like literally everyone who played games played it—for years. In a vacuum, isolated on its own merits, Halo 3 is the ne plus ultra of Halo games. Of course, there’s one game in the series that proves no Halo game exists in a vacuum…