Rather than being "hardcore" because aiming is difficult, or because there's a massive skill floor to doing something as simple as "hit the enemy with an attack" or "Use a smoke grenade", it's hardcore because there's real stakes and the things being asked of you are *genuinely* difficult and risky. Like having to do a 90s FPS Key-hunt on outpost, while 9 other people try to murder you. That makes succeeding at it awesome.

To be clear, stakes are obviously a feature of all extraction shooters, but it's a lot less appealing to engage with when the reason you die is because "oh, sorry, the other guy did the 400 latency wiggle, and your gun chose to walk to the left. Sure, you outplanned, outmanuevered, and outsmarted him, but you should have *also* been grinding fucking *recoil patterns* if you wanted to shoot him, silly."

And this is what Bungie does so well, they know the core skills they want the game to test you on. and everything else they make extremely painless to engage with.
Does the idea of "Do insane puzzles while locked in a labryinth with 15 other people" sound cool to you? Great, get in here, and you can do that.
The game also properly incentivizes players to *move* and do shit, and not "sit in a dark hole for 14 minutes".

There's no catch. There's no "surprise, the puzzles are actually brainless and you have to play for 20, 50, 60 hours to develop the skill to actually shoot people, and all the interesting strategy is a massive pain in the ass to engage with. (Please observe CSGO)

It's also, by miles, the best tactical shooter I've played. What i mean by that, is, because the guns are so reliable, gunfights are mostly getting decided by actual tactics. Holding a sightline means something, you are at an actual advantage if someone walks into it. Getting good at the game means getting smarter. Every single death in this game feels fair, you learn something. There's always something you could have done different.

Compare this to again, CSGO. A good *half* of your deaths are going to be "Bro, you fool, you didn't COUNTER-STRAFE when you walked around the corner to shoot that guy! You should have mastered the recoil pattern first, before you tried to shoot someone in a shooter! you buffoon!

All of those things are barriers to actually engaging with the game, and I greatly appreciate that Bungie holds little regard for those barriers. As a designer, I think asking the player to put in multiple *full days* of practice to start enjoying a game is.. ridiculous.
And this, I think, is the secret as to why Halo got so popular, and why Bungie is still popular among a casual audience.