I’m out. McFarlane’s out, so I’m out. There’s no way the Mattel crap, even if they are in the same scale as McFarlane’s figures, can look anywhere close to the quality of McFarlane figures to look like they’re part of the collection. So my Halo figures collection shall forever be missing Linda, Vale and Romeo. 🙁 Well, at least there’s still Mega Bloks.

Sigh….I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, I’m going to definitely miss the (not always) quality and detail of McFarlane Figures. Ever since I first heard the news back during Halo 3, it seemed like a match made in Heaven. The best american (canadian) figuremaker partnering with the best american videogame.

On the other hand, alas, the Halo 3 figures weren’t all they were cracked up to be (imo) with their small chests and long legs, and even the Halo Reach Spartans appear to be small in the chest and long in the legs as I’m staring at them right now. Their figure lines have been also completely out of scale with each other, and articulation points have changed for no reason at odd times (Halo Wars Red Team, why the split swivel thighs??)

And lastly, they have been seriously skimping on the releases of Halo Figures and therefore holding back the true potential of the product line, which reached its peak during Halo: Reach. And even then, during those mass produced figures, the quality went down to a degree with sloppy paint jobs. The fact that they couldn’t even get the main characters out by or after the release of the game speaks volumes to me. Though in reality, they do this because in order to make a profit, they have to get repaints to sell, and that means packaging a must have character in the series which means holding back main characters. It’s a sad reality but an understandable one on their end. But they could’ve easily been releasing more Comic Characters (they started to with Thorne/Palmer, could’ve continued with Lasky, Fireteam Jackknife, Fireteam Majestic Ayit Sevi, etc.)

It’s somewhat flabbergasting to hear that Retailers were “wary” of a $79.99 price point on a 6″ Scale Falcon, but here we are in 2016 with a $169.99 price point for a 6″ Scale TIE Fighter. However, Star Wars is a much bigger product line, so I can see retailers being less wary of that over Halo. I don’t think the Reach line sold nearly as good as they probably wanted (or did they?), so it seemed like either Retailers or McFarlane or both scaled back on the Halo Line altogether during and after Halo 4’s release. I don’t think they sold the kind of quantity they probably wanted with the exposure to kids they can now get with Halo 5, and with the MegaBloks product in full swing, it stands to reason they’d expand on that same branding (even though the product is NO WHERE NEAR the scale and placement of Lego).

Overall, I think the move to Mattel will be good for quantity, but not good for quality. Halo 5 appears to have been produced to be more marketable for younger audiences with the Teen Rating and the “competitive multiplayer” aspects with pizza gun skins, so it only stands to reason that 343’s long arching plan is to draw that same target demographic into buying other Halo products like the “Nerf” guns and the Toys. And I can’t blame them for that, as even as an old loser fan, it does feel like a new golden age for Halo themed products, whether they’re all toys or not.

Time will tell whether these new figures can stand up to McFarlane in any aspect (So far the color choices are looking more like scaled up Mega Bloks than absolute accurate depictions). But, at least we’ll actually hopefully GET Figures/Characters, as opposed to finally getting Linda and Vale by the time Halo 6 ships, if at all.

Well we all saw this coming anyway but I will say I’m surprised that it’s because their licence ran out that they’re stopping ad not by choice.

I actually see this as a good thing because McFarlanes’ production of these figures is far and few now. Even though the quality is great and the detail is amazing, there’s just no denying that since the great times of Halo 3 and Reach that the interest by the company themselves (it seems) has severely dropped.
4 figures for a full wave now where as Reach brought out about 7-8 standard figures, multi-packs and vehicles!

Although Mattels’ products can be classed as toys whereas McFarlanes are on the higher end being collectibles, I still hold hope that this is a step in the right direction. The first wave has Linda in it which many have been wanting for a while and they’ve even got a Ghost as well showing that vehicles are on the table too.
Though the detail might not be as high, the articulation with 30+ points is a welcome change. There might finally be a hinge in that 2nd inverted Elite knee for much more dynamic poses.
We can’t really say anything until the figures from Mattel drop themselves and we have them in-hand. Picking up the Master Chief and the Elite Zealot would be beneficial for direct comparisons to McFarlanes’ variants.

As for this last wave from McFarlane, I’ll be picking up Hermes and Buck. At this ooint the sword isn’t enough to sell me the Buck repaint Helljumper ad I really don’t care for another Athlon as the Hydra Missile Launcher comes with Buck.

i think it’s safe to say we’ll all miss McFarlanes share of these figures but be open minded for the ones in future.

First off I just wanna say that I’m disappointed for many reasons. If mcfarlane toys knew that series 2 was the last one why not go out with a bang and give fans Linda, vale and the arbiter? I wouldn’t mind the Mattel master license if we got those three. I just don’t want to come to terms yet. Not without at least trying something. What do you guys think about a petition to Mattel or whoever we need to? I know some people are done or have accepted it but why not try something?

Too bad we never got to Romeo to complete the squad.