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[Eddie-Griffin]

Read this thread first to understand the context https://www.neogaf.com/threads/halo...it-screen-co-op-on-original-xbox-one.1641016/

343 Spent "Years" On Halo Infinite's Cancelled Co-Op Campaign, Glitched Version Was 80 Percent Complete

343 has finally commented on the cancellation of Infinite's co-op campaign.

www.thegamer.com

343 Industries has finally commented on Halo Infinite's cancelled co-op campaign, revealing that the team spent "years" working on it before scrapping it and that the glitched version that players managed to access was around 80 percent complete.

Just a few months ago, 343 revealed that the long-awaited campaign co-op mode for Halo Infinite was cancelled, sending the community into a fervour and acting as yet another blow to the game. This was made worse when players were able to glitch into an early version of the mode, which seemed to work well enough that the mode's removal was confusing for all.

Baron said, "We of course were working on (local campaign co-op) for many, many months... years. There are a lot of challenges there from a technical perspective, and what people were able to glitch into is probably 80% (complete). But, the amount of work for us to get from an 80 percent quality to a 100 percent quality is significant. And the amount of effort that would take right now is not something that we can commit to, and I'm not even sure how long it would take to be honest."

Interestingly, Baron also brings up a topic that's been fairly hot over the past few months - having to make games work for "all platforms". Although the conversation around that has been centred on the Xbox Series S in recent months, in this case it seems likely that Baron means the Xbox One version of the game.

Baron said, "There are things where, even if we have just a few crashes — I'm not sure what platform those players were playing on, because we would have to support all platforms — that's not maybe even something we can even get through our certification passes."

On the surface if you look through this quickly it might seem reasonable as to why it was cancelled, the forced simultaneous release and development for the Xbox One and the Xbox One X created a problem to where they couldn't get the co-op to function properly on all 5 versions of the game.

The issue I have with this is that Infinite started the development on the Xbox One, not Xbox Series, so if they were having development issues with the co-op even by 2021 several years later, that makes me question what else was going on in the background. Because the reason why the Xbox One versions weren't cancelled is because that's where development started and where the engine was built. Infinite was not made with the Series consoles in mind which is why there are plenty of graphical problems and why 120fps MP looks the way it does, they didn't even start choosing a design for the Series S until 2017 and the the engine for Infinite started around the launch of Halo 5 in 2015.

It's unknown whether 343i pushed to still release on the Xbox One consoles they started on, or were mandated to. But given that Forza Horizon 5 started out as a One game and also managed redesigned the game to take advantage of the hardware of the Series consoles and PC without these issues, it really only makes this seem like another case of 343i developer incompetence.

Since the co-op glitch was first discovered players have uploaded longer videos of them using the glitch and it works for a good chunk of the game.

Personally, I believe that co-op was cancelled because Halo Infinite launched in such a bad state they can't split their resources more than they already have to polish the rest of the co-op, instead of the cause being troubled development being held back by the platform they started on, especially if they were working on the co-op specifically for years as they claim.

 

[Arachnid]

Halo is known for coop. Current gen games removing it from even series that historically had it is so damn lame.

 

[K' Dash]

Let’s see all the software developers opinions here in a few minutes.

 

[Moses85]

 

[Big Baller]

 

[TransTrender]

Fire 343i from game development

 

[Dick Jones]

Fire 343i from game development

Put them in the wood chipper for fear they are free to ruin other companies games development

 

[TransTrender]

Put them in the wood chipper for fear they are free to ruin other companies games development

Pretty much
Can't let the contagion spread
Fire the ring

 

[Gobjuduck]

Co-op wasn’t canceled, it just came out. It was split screen co-op that got canned. Right?

 

[Dee Dah Dave]

343i and probably many other Microsoft development teams have fallen victim to the cancer that is, diversity hiring. The results of which are being shown in real time. Sub standard output.

 

[damidu]

peak project management work right here, lol

 

[Banjo64]

They spent years fingering their own bum holes. Plague Tale Requiem was made by 70 employees and a fraction of the budget and is a better game. Fed up of the bullshit, fuck off 343.

 

[Represent.]

Microsoft studio management continues to be an embarrassment

 

[ungalo]

I'm not going to defend 343i in any way, but it's baffling to see that Microsoft manage to get the least gains out of any situation everytime. It's basically the opposite of "the best of both worlds" expression, it's the worst of both worlds. It really ends like that consistently for Xbox, that's almost fascinating, perhaps they're cursed or something.

 

[Dick Jones]

343i and probably many other Microsoft development teams have fallen victim to the cancer that is, diversity hiring. The results of which are being shown in real time. Sub standard output.

Stinkles is a white male and he is about as useful as tits on a bull. It's shit management and no drive to actually do anything meaningful. The company that didn't do shit, was gifted one of the biggest franchises in gaming and because they never built anything, never earned anything, they don't know what it takes to make games.

Unlimited funds and years of development can only do so much

 

[CamHostage]

On the surface if you look through this quickly it might seem reasonable as to why it was cancelled, the forced simultaneous release and development for the Xbox One and the Xbox One X created a problem to where they couldn't get the co-op to function properly on all 5 versions of the game...

Eh, but be careful of that line... looks like it's a GameRant-type comment meant to click to a hot topic elsewhere, without actually quoting any context.

I haven't had time to watch this whole video so I don't know what specifically they're referring to as far as the challenge of there being several platforms needed to support at the same time, but I would assume it's on the multiplatform deployment and the online interdependency of the game? (It's cross-platform, so most aspects in the multiplayer mode built for one must be built and built the same for all; not the same for Campaign, though you'd want to maintain core compatibility for when DLC is released.) If they actually wanted to make a feature specifically for the PC or Xbox Series X/S versions of the game, that's plenty possible (and in fact the raytracing feature is being developed for high-spec machines now... taking a while, but it's happening.)

If what he's referring to is purely workload, and that the 5-SKU output demand is a significant burden, that's something to dig into, but it probably still won't be a long time before a developer really comes forward with how hard it is and how much manpower has been expended on the Series S version or the PC version or the One/One X. (We get little grumbles here and there, which TheGamer linked to about Series S being an albatross, but that link and the lack of context is what makes me leery of just taking this second-hand article as gospel...)

(This is the actual content that the pullquotes came from, BTW, it's a 43-minute livestream)

 

[Fake]

Dude...

 

[Mr Hyde]

Aren't you guys awfully close to the "kicking a dead horse" territory by now?

 

[Dee Dah Dave]

Stinkles is a white male and he is about as useful as tits on a bull. It's shit management and no drive to actually do anything meaningful. The company that didn't do shit, was gifted one of the biggest franchises in gaming and because they never built anything, never earned anything, they don't know what it takes to make games.

Unlimited funds and years of development can only do so much

Stinkles as far as I understand isn’t even a developer, just some community crank or some such. The problems run far deeper than some toss pot like him.

I couldn’t give a damn if the ultimate crack team of devs is 100% black, or female, or pansexual, or sky blue pink with yellow dots on. I only care that people have been hired solely on merit. That certainly hasn’t happened at Microsoft in the last 5+ years.

 

[EverydayBeast]

How about having your game complete at launch? Halo use to be a huge knock out punch for Microsoft.

 

[Black_Stride]

They are dropping Xbox One support soonish right?
Maybe shadow drop split screen co-op then.

Till then we forge!

 

[baphomet]

As shitty as Halo Infinite is, it has a co-op campaign.

 

[Black_Stride]

I couldn’t give a damn if the ultimate crack team of devs is 100% black, or female, or pansexual, or sky blue pink with yellow dots on. I only care that people have been hired solely on merit. That certainly hasn’t happened at Microsoft in the last 5+ years.

Source?

 

[Big Baller]

Dude...

 

[Gamerdude123]

The Kathleen Kennedy of video games.

 

[Dee Dah Dave]

Source?

What, you think these big Western companies are hiring purely on merit these days, and not bending over backwards to hit their diversity quotas?

Please.

 

[01011001]

give the source code to fans and hobbyist devs will finish it in 3 months tops

 

[clarky]

Awesome, the weekly negative Halo thread.

Anything been said that hasn't already? Nope.

The dev was in an interview the other day explaining why they cancelled it.

But fire Bonnie Ross and the rest of upper management!!! Amirite? o fuck they already did that.

 

[Black_Stride]

What, you think these big Western companies are hiring purely on merit these days, and not bending over backwards to hit their diversity quotas?

Please.

 

[eastcoastkody]

Halo is known for coop. Current gen games removing it from even series that historically had it is so damn lame.

ima be honest....i didn't even know co-op in Halo was a thing. So its def not KNOWN for it

 

[clarky]

ima be honest....i didn't even know co-op in Halo was a thing. So its def not KNOWN for it

It kinda is.

And i actually rate the campaign in infinite. Easily the best fps campaign of last year or so regardless of what the vocal minority on here will have you believe. Far superior to MW2 for example.

 

[BlackTron]

And then they dropped her.

 

[Black_Stride]

Halo is known for coop. Current gen games removing it from even series that historically had it is so damn lame.

There is campaign coop.
There just isnt couch campaign coop.

 

[MarkMe2525]

343i and probably many other Microsoft development teams have fallen victim to the cancer that is, diversity hiring. The results of which are being shown in real time. Sub standard output.

Correlation does not equal causality. Or do you have specific lines of evidence that 343 hiring women, homosexuals, and brown people led to a substandard development cycle of Halo infinite. You know gay people and females can like Halo and make games right?

 

[Dee Dah Dave]

Correlation does not equal causality. Or do you have specific lines of evidence that 343 hiring women, homosexuals, and brown people led to a substandard development cycle of Halo infinite. You know gay people and females can like Halo and make games right?

Of course they can. Hence why I said I don’t care whether 100% of the team is made up of any of those. Providing they can talk the talk and walk the walk.

However I submit that large scale diversity hiring has taken place in recent years, where merit, aka competence, hasn’t been the primary incentive to hire.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

I give them a pass considering it's an indie game.

 

[MarkMe2525]

Of course they can. Hence why I said I don’t care whether 100% of the team is made up of any of those. Providing they can talk the talk and walk the walk.

However I submit that large scale diversity hiring has taken place in recent years, where merit, aka competence, hasn’t been the primary incentive to hire.

And there it is, the false premise. Through no fault of your own, you seem to have a misconception of what it means to promote "diversity" through the hiring process.

It does not mean companies hire to fill diversity quotas (racial quotas specifically are illegal). What these companies do is invest HR resources into reaching out to "diverse" educational institutions, job fairs, social networks, etc.. in an effort to get diverse candidates to INTERVIEW. Getting diverse people to interview is the crux as historically, there are less woman and black people in tech fields. If you want to hire more diverse people, you have to have more diverse people interviewing. If there are less diverse people in the job pool, they are harder to find, hence the increased effort needed.

That's it, it doesn't mean bad ass white programmer gets passed over for a black dude, gay person, or woman without merit. It means that the company has a better shot of finding people with the appropriate skills from a potential employee pool that wasn't available before.

Edit: I also would like to add that Microsoft themselves got in legal trouble from specifically awarding business to black owned banks and contractors. Like most things in life, I will never say it doesn't ever happen, as that is foolish. My point is that from an institutional level, competence is still the primary attribute that the hiring process is based on. They just interview from a larger pool of people now.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Future Content = GaaS awesome.

 

[Arachnid]

ima be honest....i didn't even know co-op in Halo was a thing. So its def not KNOWN for it

Pretty surprising tbh. I feel like most people have memories of co-oping the campaigns with a buddy in a night or wrecking others/eachother via 4-play split screen in blood gulch or an edited map. I even miss the bitching about screen watching eachother lmao. I don't know of any shooter that's more known for the split screen experience than Halo.

If I'm being honest, I was always kind of shit at Halo compared to my buddies I played with who were gods that could stick people with pulse grenades from across map. I still always had fun with the social experience.

There is campaign coop.
There just isnt couch campaign coop.

Yeah, I know. I should have been more specific (talking splint screen). I still prefer couch co-op. Always more fun to be in the room with a buddy on legendary with some beers.

 

[THE DUCK]

Why another thread for the exact same thing posted 2 months ago?

 

[01011001]

ima be honest....i didn't even know co-op in Halo was a thing. So its def not KNOWN for it

how?
that's like not knowing that Army of Two has a coop mode...

 

[DEAD ORIGINAL]

It hurts to see halo in its current state, how good was that original trilogy great campaign's and the multiplayer local lan online it was brilliant fuck 343.

 

[Dee Dah Dave]

And there it is, the false premise. Through no fault of your own, you seem to have a misconception of what it means to promote "diversity" through the hiring process.

It does not mean companies hire to fill diversity quotas (racial quotas specifically are illegal). What these companies do is invest HR resources into reaching out to "diverse" educational institutions, job fairs, social networks, etc.. in an effort to get diverse candidates to INTERVIEW. Getting diverse people to interview is the crux as historically, there are less woman and black people in tech fields. If you want to hire more diverse people, you have to have more diverse people interviewing. If there are less diverse people in the job pool, they are harder to find, hence the increased effort needed.

That's it, it doesn't mean bad ass white programmer gets passed over for a black dude, gay person, or woman without merit. It means that the company has a better shot of finding people with the appropriate skills from a potential employee pool that wasn't available before.

Employee pool that wasn’t available before lol. Everyone got access to the internet or a pen and paper and envelope.

P.S - Google - BBC, white people need not apply. If they are doing it they all are. If you think diversity quotas aren’t being forced above hiring on merit then you living on another planet, sorry.

 

[Black_Stride]

Employee pool that wasn’t available before lol. Everyone got access to the internet or a pen and paper and envelope.

P.S - Google - BBC, white people need not apply. If they are doing it they all are. If you think diversity quotas aren’t being forced above hiring on merit then you living on another planet, sorry.

Atleast name these diversity hires and name the people who were skipped over for diversity hires.
Resumes are easy to find.
We can judge whether the people who you decided were hired for diversity quota really didnt deserve to work at these highly technical companies.

 

[tommib]

What, you think these big Western companies are hiring purely on merit these days, and not bending over backwards to hit their diversity quotas?

Please.

This is bullshit.

 

[NikuNashi]

Atleast name these diversity hires and name the people who were skipped over for diversity hires.
Resumes are easy to find.
We can judge whether the people who you decided were hired for diversity quota really didnt deserve to work at these highly technical companies.

If they were not actively trying to hire based on optics, then they wouldn't be parading it all over social media as a badge of honor. Pictures of blue haired groups of women only devs showing how progressive they are.

Now I know it's a complex issue, if I was a genuinely talented black dev who was hired based on merit yet had to sit next to six useless diversity hires who were warming seats I would be fuming. Also as a white talented dev seeing blue haired chicks being pushed to the fore to satiate some imaginary modern audience on social media whilst I was edged out if the camera shot.

As the old adage goes ' The proof of the pudding is in the eating'. And 343i are baking steaming turd puddings.

 

[LordCBH]

They fucking said after Halo 5 they’d never ship a halo without splitscreen again. They fucking outright lied. They should finish the local co-op mode and release it. Fucking liars.

 

[tommib]

If they were not actively trying to hire based on optics, then they wouldn't be parading it all over social media as a badge of honor. Pictures of blue haired groups of women only devs showing how progressive they are.

Now I know it's a complex issue, if I was a genuinely talented black dev who was hired based on merit yet had to sit next to six useless diversity hires who were warming seats I would be fuming. Also as a white talented dev seeing blue haired chicks being pushed to the fore to satiate some imaginary modern audience on social media whilst I was edged out if the camera shot.

As the old adage goes ' The proof of the pudding is in the eating'. And 343i are baking steaming turd puddings.

Diversity hires are fake news. There are diversity trainings and diversity is not a bad thing in the long run but if you think that multinational multibillion dollar companies will jeopardise their profit by hiring less talented people because of the colour of their hair, think again.

Also, if you see photos of staff and think they’re less talented because they dye their hair, seek help.

 

[Mr Hyde]

I see Master Chief trying to cop a feel there!

 

[cash_longfellow]

Read this thread first to understand the context

Uhhh, no, how about you explain without me clicking out? Lol
…..Eddie, Eddie, Eddie….I swear, every Friday you do this lol