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Forbes: Does Microsoft Need To Give 'Halo' To Someone Besides 343?

Robb

Gold Member
I don’t think 343i is that bad. If anything they’re just extremely slow/inefficient, but I’ve enjoyed Halo 4, MCC and Infinite a lot.

Halo 5 is definitely the worst of the bunch by far, but it’s still a game that’s pretty good imo.

That being said it’d still be pretty cool to see a Halo game from another developer.
 
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Ozriel

M$FT
I’d like to see what I.D Software or Arkane could do with it.

Take it into an immersive sim type genre or push it even more into the run & Gun genre, this is just for single player, im not really sure what they could do multiplayer wise other than BR
ID Software, or even a COD team would do a much better job with Halo imo

ID software’s last attempts at MP with Doom haven’t ended well. 343’s campaign is solid already.

If Halo’s strong contingent of Bungie era fans are already complaining at even small changes to the formula, I’m not sure how an engine/physics change and/or genre change will be well received.

MS best course of action would be to fix the management and efficiency issues at 343i, since they’re pretty much the best option for the franchise, without sapping another studio.
 
ID software’s last attempts at MP with Doom haven’t ended well. 343’s campaign is solid already.

If Halo’s strong contingent of Bungie era fans are already complaining at even small changes to the formula, I’m not sure how an engine/physics change and/or genre change will be well received.

MS best course of action would be to fix the management and efficiency issues at 343i, since they’re pretty much the best option for the franchise, without sapping another studio.

Thats why they should stop trying to be like bungie. Time for a new coat of paint
 

Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
ID software’s last attempts at MP with Doom haven’t ended well. 343’s campaign is solid already.

If Halo’s strong contingent of Bungie era fans are already complaining at even small changes to the formula, I’m not sure how an engine/physics change and/or genre change will be well received.

MS best course of action would be to fix the management and efficiency issues at 343i, since they’re pretty much the best option for the franchise, without sapping another studio.
I say they give it a shot, they don't have too much to lose at this point. Halo would look amazing in ID's engine too
 
Reminder thst infinite is gafs game of the year cause this whole “343 is terrible” after making a goty quality game is silly. They made a great game but the service aspect isn’t up to snuff…far from a dumpster fire. Crossfire X, is a dumpster, Babylon falls is a dumpster. 343 is a talented game developer who doesn’t thrive on services.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
Thats why they should stop trying to be like bungie. Time for a new coat of paint

Just adding Sprint and clamber made a lot of fans apoplectic.

I say they give it a shot, they don't have too much to lose at this point. Halo would look amazing in ID's engine too

Lol, of course they have a lot to lose. You want them to abandon Halo Infinite while it’s still very viable?

Also, the opportunity cost of devoting ID to being tied down to Halo is the loss of any further Doom or Quake games….or new shooter IP.

If it was your business, you wouldn’t run it that way.
 

sendit

Member
I don’t think 343i is that bad. If anything they’re just extremely slow/inefficient, but I’ve enjoyed Halo 4, CE and Infinite a lot.

Halo 5 is definitely the worst of the bunch by far, but it’s still a game that’s pretty good imo.

That being said it’d still be pretty cool to see a Halo game from another developer.

I mean, they couldn't even get MCC right. They've been apologizing to Halo fans for 10+ years.
 
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Robb

Gold Member
I mean, they couldn't even get MCC right. They've been apologizing to Halo fans for 10+ years.
You might be right, I can only speak for myself of course. Outside of Infinite, I played these games long after their initial releases, so that’s what my opinion is based on.

And my impressions with Infinite is that the game is great but that 343i is very slow in providing content.
 

Moses85

Member
I’d like to see what I.D Software or Arkane could do with it.

Take it into an immersive sim type genre or push it even more into the run & Gun genre, this is just for single player, im not really sure what they could do multiplayer wise other than BR
Arkane

Django Unchained Leonardo GIF

Overhyped as fuck
 

Leyasu

Banned
The base is there for both SP and MP.

Just that the open world part of the SP is missing things to do plus co-op and the MP is missing maps and modes. The game is just severely lacking in the content department. Which is being compounded by the fact that they are taking ages to do anything.

Something is going terribly wrong with the studio. Terrible management, terribly outdated engine/tools and dev environment something else? Who knows? Phil and Matt need to get on top of it
 

Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
Just adding Sprint and clamber made a lot of fans apoplectic.



Lol, of course they have a lot to lose. You want them to abandon Halo Infinite while it’s still very viable?

Also, the opportunity cost of devoting ID to being tied down to Halo is the loss of any further Doom or Quake games….or new shooter IP.

If it was your business, you wouldn’t run it that way.
Change can be good. I don't think Doom Eternal sold amazingly well and Halo Infinite might not recover. We can agree to disagree
 
It would be great to see what other studios could do with it, or at least take a couple of teams from Id Software to show 343 some new ideas. They know FPS so well that I’m sure they’d have a good influence on 343.

Outside of that, it would be good to see other Halo games in different genres. Someone else mentioned immersive sim from Arkane, I could for sure get behind a game like that.
 

Graciaus

Member
It's incredible they haven't been canned yet. Ruined Reach, Halo 4 was awful, released MCC in an unplayable state for years, Halo 5 sucked and then another failure in Infinite. It's like Microsoft doesn't care if Halo is their hit series anymore.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
Halo 4 – Had a fairly decent campaign, but tried to COD-ify its multiplayer in a way that did not work for traditional Halo players at all.

And just as everyone else trying to copy CoD they failed miserably, but IMHO that's a direction Halo should go if it wants to prevail, the arena shooter formula is outdated and dead, nobody wants to play with one same (useless) gun over and over again. The controls are awful only "topped" by KZ2. Shield system is stupid. Radar works completely opposite as suppose to. The maps are build around BR and Grapple Shot, which nobody has. The list just goes on and on, but really, copying all the great ideas and solutions from CoD that made it storm the market would do wonders to the games while still being able to keep Halo's identity, you just need to know what and how to copy and what to maintain, but all in all, arena shooter genre doesn't have a place on the market anymore, not as a flagship AAA shooter at least, over the past 10-15 years it has been proven to death already that people want to customize how they play their games, including BR where people search for loot to pick up whatever they want to play with. Popular opinion is that Infinite lacks content, but forcing players to run with one same gun IS the lack of content, 343 can add 50 maps and 20 playlist but the end-user experience will be exactly the same, and people already got bored of it.
 

Kusarigama

Member
343i is among the most incompetent studios among the AAA space. They were made just for Halo and still with all the budget and human resources and lengthy dev time, they can't seem to bring Halo back to its former glory. It's the management issue and too much back seating and complancency.
 

Marvel

could never
I liked 4's story but it's mp sucked, 5 sucked and now infinite they've literally killed my desire to play Halo. Think I'm over the franchise now tbh.

Give it to another studio after like a 10+ year break.
 

BabyYoda

Banned
343 needs a massive shake-up, a complete house-cleaning of the studio's upper and middle management.
The problem is, Microsoft only care about the optics, virtue signalling and ticking boxes.

Firing a diversity hire (aka Bonnie etc) would mean they have to un-tick some libtard boxes and as is the case for pretty much every major corporation nowadays, wokeness is more important, pure and simple.

If adhering to their "principles" means destroying said franchise, then so be it.

Look at how they've taken Bungie's Cortana from a gorgeous, nude, feisty and all round very likable woman and turned her into a manish looking librarian-super-annoying-girl-thingy, no other evidence is necessary.
 



I wanted this. Imagine Halo with the fidelity of something like LOU. I've been wanting to get into Infinite's campaign but it just doesn't grab you the way it should. There is very little variety overall and you really feel the severe consequences for going open world (and supporting last gen). All the cutscenes are just Chief and the weapon. The scope just feels narrow, which is ironic considering. No crazy biomes. Just the same old terrain over and over again with textures and lighting out of something from 10 years ago.

Give me a real next gen halo with a tight compelling narrative story. I want the big set pieces, I want to SEE the big battle, not the remains afterwards. Halo is about those moments. I'll never forget Halo 3's ending and just how unreal it was when the ark goes off. 343 campaigns just feel like going through the motions. Very prescriptive and non unique.

Halo deserves better.
 
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In my opinion Microsoft should detach franchises from studios. Let studios earn the chance to develop a game from one of the big historic franchises based on merit. Like how Playground managed to get a chance with Fable after releasing back to back hits with the Horizon franchise. 343 didn't and has never deserved Halo. Microsoft tried to buy success by throwing money at a new studio but it just doesn't work that way. I like Phil Spencer but he should let 343 find their niche with something new. Give Halo to Arcane or another deserving studio. Even something small scale to find their feet (like ODST style) then something mainline.
 

Ozzie666

Member
When you have ID, you at least let them do the action and let others perhaps do the lore and story. Seems so simple.
 

MidGenRefresh

*Refreshes biennially
They should give Fallout to someone beside Bethesda. Give us some remasters, some new CRPG isometric entry. We need something before Fallout 5 in 2030.

Fallout, not Halo should be MS flagship title.
 

NikuNashi

Member
Imagine how much more productive 343 could have been if they filled those diversity hire seats with quality, experience and passion. They brought this on themselves.
 

Exanthus

Banned
Get rid of Bonnie Ross. Case closed.
I'd hate to think what infinite would have been if Staten didn't get involved, if only he was in the project sooner.
 

Sorne

Member
343 is talented in themselves. But they just need more staff and figure out how to optimize their content pipeline since it's not sustainable for them to spend 2 months adding a new game mode or two.
 

Kssio_Aug

Member
I think 343i is a group of decent developers, but their management sucks tremendously.

Since they put their hands on Halo, with Halo 4, I completely lost the narrative and had little to no idea what actually the plot was suppose to be, because I have never read or watched any material out of the game, and I don't really intend to (except for Eric Nylund's books that I still intend to read eventually). They also were never able to make a truly solid release, on schedule... they always had problems delivering the damn thing, and even though Halo Infinite was very well received they still failed to launch it with co-op campaign (basic feature for Halo).

That being said, I think they're able to deliver solid gameplay with good graphics considering the performance they use to aim at on all Xbox platforms (from Xbox One OG to Series X). But I don't feel they do justice for a first party developer of one of the biggest franchises in existence. I can't deny that Nintendo and Sony main teams do a much more solid job overall, and even Microsoft has better teams themselves.

So yeah... if 343i can't handle things better, I do believe Halo could be on better hands. Let 343i work on less important IPs or create something new.
 
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Games should be totally locked out from updates to fix bugs and add would be launch content and modes after release. Should be like the old days. Once it's out, it's out. No bug fixing. No releasing missing content later. Then maybe developers will be more careful about announcing and releasing shitty, incomplete and untested games. But 343, and MS as a whole, are too concerned with being diverse and "woke", and shouting out to the world how their dev teams are full of women and LBGTQ people. How about hiring qualified people and getting out a bug free, complete game, regardless of gender or sexual orientation?
 

Papacheeks

Banned
The bigger talking point is like I have been saying for the past 10 years or so. Microsoft needs XBox to be its own thing and not part of the Enterprise Machine. And I mean that in terms of how Xbox as a division is treated, managed, and looked at by people internally.

I think the issues XBox has always had regardless if Spencer, Booty, Mattrick at the helm is XBox as a division doesn't have an identity. If you don't have a identity, then the way it will be looked at is not like a entertainment/Art house. it then is looked at as just a pillar of the company that brings in revenue and aligns with rest of company growth in sub/service sectors, and enterprise with use of streaming by ways of their own server blades, azure, datacenters.

Bring back the wacky days of OG xbox where in my opinion it had identity. They will always have issues no matter who is at the helm of their internally managed studios.

RARE, 343i, Initititave, Undead Labs, playground (fable)? I mean how many failures and news articles will it take for the red flag to be thrown at this point?

They need the Direct X team like back in OG xbox days. Bring that shit back, forget about gamepass being the primary driver, and focus. The games themselves need to be the focus not the service they are delivered on.
 
Said this for ages, thing is they have finally found there feet with infinte, massive improvement ganeplay wise compared to 4 and 5, campaign is still lacking compared to what bungie did but again the gameplay is great, problem which is obvious to everyone is lack of content but they have had well over 5 years to sort this out abd the game even got delayed a year, they even have jason who pretty much help make all the best halos, my only guess is that 343 has 0 talent, and to me its obvious at this point that the coalition was the only ones that carried this development to the point of it being released, i do believe infinte will make a come back in about 2 3 years time like MCC but 343 need restructured or placed to dev something else over then halo, id also remove frank o connor for creating this mess also
 
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