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[fuck_diggity_cunt_ingdon]

Calling the 343 team talented is a mixed wedge as well, because there's clearly more wrong with how Halo has been handled over the years than top suit decisions, some of the decisions were made from within the core staff, some game design or content delays had little to do with management, the failure belongs to the whole studio not just some people. If you pretend that everything would be fixed by just changing a few top staff, than you've been ignoring the changes that have already occurred over the years in important leadership positions and nothing has gotten better.

Totally appreciate what you’re saying, I’m certainly not suggestion that there is one simple “fire these people” and all will be well.

I guess I’m just drawing from similar situations I’ve witnessed over the years in what I do. I’ve seen big creatives teams where really incredible ideas are met with all the will and money required but it falls apart because consensus won over vision - and that utterly fucks morale to the point where even really good, really talented people just want to get whatever they can done to get through what is probably a really shit time internally - and it probably feels like there is no end in sight to the pressure for a lot of those people - just like we can’t see a time where infinite is the game we hoped it would be.

And that’s what draws me to upper management /senior roles - because they’re the ones (you hope) have the experience and the power to make hard, necessary changes.

 

[Corndog]

Bonnie Ross should go, it's obvious. I really wonder if that hasn't happened because it would have diminsihed Microsoft and Phil's woke credentials. She's not up to the job, absolutely not.
She ran to Staten and had him do her job while another guy took the fall for the humiliating Infinite reveal. The buck should have stopped with her. And if they didn't want to do it publicly, then they should do it now, while nobody's looking. Just reassign her to something else less strategic and say she "wanted to spend more time with her family".
There's a good foundation in Halo Infinite but the game deserved to be a graphical showcase on console, something it will never be on that engine. Also they just don't seem able to churn out content. Those wasted 5 years of botched development that culminated with the failed reveal will be almost impossible to just erase. Something drastic needs to happen with the team and the game.
Maybe no COD next year means one the ABK COD studios can come in and help 343. Fire Bonnie, move everything to UE5 or the COD engine, Have Raven, Infinity ward or Sledgehammer come in to help revolutionise Halo and let 343 keep putting out updates for Infinite in the meantime. Maybe 4 years from now we will have another Halo worth of the Xbox's flagship title mantle.
I wouldn't get Id on Halo. Doom and Halo are two different games that play differently and that shine for different reasons. I wouldn't want the differences to become blurred.

Leadership certainly needs to be changed. I don’t understand how people haven’t been fired.

 

[Corndog]

I don't like talk about disbanding companies and firing people. These are people with families and bills and stuff. Still though it's yet another thing in a series of poor news. Like they can't get out of their own way. I wonder what Phil is thinking. This should have been his flagship XSX product and Gamepass seller. At the end of the day you've got to perform.

And if they don’t perform they need to be fired or moved to a non leadership role. What they are doing now isn’t working.

 

[Freeman76]

Give Halo to Rare. Let 343 work on remasters or something

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Give Halo to Rare. Let 343 work on remasters or something

We already let 343 work on MCC, and it was broken for almost 4 years.

 

[Lord Panda]

Probably already been mentioned, but maybe it's time to hand over the Halo franchise to The Coalition, and reboot the entire thing. Or pickup right after Halo 3, and remove Halo 4, 5, and Infinite from canon.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Probably already been mentioned, but maybe it's time to hand over the Halo franchise to The Coalition.

They are currently working on multiple projects, so that won't work.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

343 has now been in control of the Halo franchise longer than Bungie. They went from 4 excellent games, and ODST, to some salvaged ports/remakes, and Infinite (which I hear is good). It’s no question this has been the biggest disappointment out of any Microsoft studio.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/8832...incredibly-unpopular-among-viewers/index.html

Fans weren't happy about this. 343i's Sean Baron also raised controversy with comments that Halo is a competitive shooter first and foremost. Many fans objected to this, saying that Halo was a fun party game before anything else, and this comment sparked multiple YouTube responses adequately attributing Halo's early success to split-screen co-op and in-house, local PVP with friends.

he video was unpopular for a number of reasons we've outlined here, but there's a bit more. 343i confirmed Halo Infinite's season 2 would last until 2023. Despite some pretty surprising announcements like a Forge beta coming in November alongside a free battle pass, the Infinite September update has received 28,000 dislikes on YouTube compared to 8,000 likes. That's nearly 3x dislikes as likes from the video's current 222,448 views.

Right now 343i is in a tough position. The studio needs to change Halo Infinite's core framework to get it back on track, but that means delaying and even cancelling content while steadily working against a fanbase that often rallies against it and calls for the franchise being given to another studio.

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2022/...bombed-on-steam-after-recent-developer-update

It's no secret that the fan reaction to Halo Infinite's most recent developer update hasn't been very positive. The news that seems to have caused the biggest stir is 343's decision to drop development on local split screen co-op, a feature that's been in the works in some fashion since launch. Sadly, these announcements have led to a bit of review bombing over on Steam.

In the week or so since the announcements, Halo Infinite's Steam reviews have skewed negative, with the platform's tools now judging recent reviews as 'mostly negative'. For now, the overall user reception remains 'mostly positive', from the game's launch through to the present day.


Some of the reviews within this negative pile do bring up some valid points on the lack of features added to Halo Infinite since launch. One such review reels off an extensive list of features that still aren't present in 343's latest Halo title, and it makes for, admittedly, disappointing viewing.

The mindshare is quickly heading to the bottom, I think Microsoft notices it too, not Just Phil but probably Satya. They don't have until next year to turn things around so I expect drastic measures sooner than later.

 

[digoutyoursoul]

They are currently working on multiple projects, so that won't work.

And hopefully not let Gears multiplayer go down the same path , like Horde mode six months after launch or some nonsense

 

[ZehDon]

The mindshare is quickly heading to the bottom, I think Microsoft notices it too, not Just Phil but probably Satya. They don't have until next year to turn things around so I expect drastic measures sooner than later.

Not likely. Word about town is that Microsoft is largely happy that 343i has things under control. Of course, given Bonnie Ross's position within Microsoft, it seems most likely that this is just Bonnie Ross asking Bonnie Ross if everything is ok at 343i, and she was happy with the answer Bonnie Ross gave.

 

[small_law]

Everyone gave 343i a pass on Halo 4 because it was their first game, but everything they added to the Halo formula was a mess. The art direction was terrible, the new enemies were poorly designed, and the new weapons were duplicative. And for the record, no one plays a Halo game because Spartan Sarah Palmer is in it.

Then Halo 5 comes along and it was a complete turd. 343i clearly tried to position Locke as the next big thing for for franchise, probably because they don't understand why Master Chief is such a compelling character. The boss fight in the campaign was so bad and they made you do it half a dozen times. Yeesh. The only interesting thing about Halo 5 was the quasi MOBA arena mode, but they didn't put out content quickly enough to sustain a player base for it.

And the Master Chief Collection was an utter disaster. Broken. How do you screw up Halo matchmaking? That's the thing Bungie did. It brought FPS games to consoles because they got the controls right and they perfected console matchmaking. 343 broke that shit right out the box. It took them literal years to fix that game. I distinctly remember listening to the giant bombcast a year after that game came out and they were talking about how it was still busted. What?

The reality is it's 14 years later and we have a semi-competent Halo game in Halo infinite. That's it. Whatever faults Halo infinite has, it's the best release 343 has ever done. If you want to call that a failure, I think you're perfectly justified to do so.

So yeah. Let's not hand 343 anymore Halo. Or maybe anything else. Maybe we just trash that studio and start over. The money MS is going to lose on their next release is going to be more than the money they'll lose rebuilding the entire studio from scratch. Bonnie Ross, if she's still there, has had way too many chances. She was doing interviews before Halo 5 came out saying that they couldn't screw it up and it had to be right and this might be her last chance. Halo 5. Time for her and everybody else to pack bags.

 

[jigglet]

You can't just shut down 343i you morons.

What if they are operationally-fluid? Maybe they drift in and out of being competent, you can't just put companies into categories. What if they don't want to identify as being either competent or incompetent?

Fucking bigots you lot are.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

Everyone gave 343i a pass on Halo 4 because it was their first game, but everything they added to the Halo formula was a mess. The art direction was terrible, the new enemies were poorly designed, and the new weapons were duplicative. And for the record, no one plays a Halo game because Spartan Sarah Palmer is in it.

Then Halo 5 comes along and it was a complete turd. 343i clearly tried to position Locke as the next big thing for for franchise, probably because they don't understand why Master Chief is such a compelling character. The boss fight in the campaign was so bad and they made you do it half a dozen times. Yeesh. The only interesting thing about Halo 5 was the quasi MOBA arena mode, but they didn't put out content quickly enough to sustain a player base for it.

And the Master Chief Collection was an utter disaster. Broken. How do you screw up Halo matchmaking? That's the thing Bungie did. It brought FPS games to consoles because they got the controls right and they perfected console matchmaking. 343 broke that shit right out the box. It took them literal years to fix that game. I distinctly remember listening to the giant bombcast a year after that game came out and they were talking about how it was still busted. What?

The reality is it's 14 years later and we have a semi-competent Halo game in Halo infinite. That's it. Whatever faults Halo infinite has, it's the best release 343 has ever done. If you want to call that a failure, I think you're perfectly justified to do so.

So yeah. Let's not hand 343 anymore Halo. Or maybe anything else. Maybe we just trash that studio and start over. The money MS is going to lose on their next release is going to be more than the money they'll lose rebuilding the entire studio from scratch. Bonnie Ross, if she's still there, has had way too many chances. She was doing interviews before Halo 5 came out saying that they couldn't screw it up and it had to be right and this might be her last chance. Halo 5. Time for her and everybody else to pack bags.

I'd argue Infinite is FARRRR from competent. The good core gameplay is not enough to make up for everything else. Missing so many basic features and having barebones multiplayer with mostly bland maps and no regular influx of maps to sustain it isn't competent. The campaign though is where the biggest difference in quality between this and Bungies Halos is seen. I'd even say Halo 4 and 5 are at least still "real" Halos compared to this. You can't make 1 single environment with really nothing to flesh it out and call it a Halo game. Don't care how good the shooting and movement is if there's nothing to do except for take on small groups of enemies in the same encounter throughout the whole thing. There was just a couple small cutscenes and a few lines of dialogue to break it up! Shockingly bad attempt at a "game" despite it looking pretty enough.

How did 343 manage to not get lambasted by gamers and reviewers alike for this campaign?! It makes the Phantom Pain feel like Rdr2 and gta v combined with how little there is to see or do!

 

[small_law]

343 has now been in control of the Halo franchise longer than Bungie. They went from 4 excellent games, and ODST, to some salvaged ports/remakes, and Infinite (which I hear is good). It’s no question this has been the biggest disappointment out of any Microsoft studio.

When Bungie left MS, Halo was one of the most valuable entertainment properties on earth. Not video games franchises, entertainment properties. It was worth something like a billion dollars, more even. How much value has the Halo franchise lost in the past fourteen years because of 343's stewardship? Hundreds of millions of dollars at least. Maybe billions in terms of lost opportunities. A billion dollars in value destroyed.

It's one of the most catastrophic failures in the history of the video game industry, right up their with E.T. for Atari 2600, the early launch of the Sega Saturn, and the decision to pack in a Kinect with every Xbox One.

So it's not that we're being too harsh, we aren't being harsh enough.

I mean Naughty Dog is catching hell for re-releasing the Last of Us twice in the past ten years, but he ten-year anniversary of Halo 3's release was five fucking years ago and a remaster/remake/anniversary edition still hasn't happened. How is that even possible? One of the greatest games of its generation, if not all time, and 343i won't do it? Isn't that the reason the studio exists in the first place, to make Halo games?

 

[small_law]

I'd argue Infinite is FARRRR from competent. The good core gameplay is not enough to make up for everything else. Missing so many basic features and having barebones multiplayer with mostly bland maps and no regular influx of maps to sustain it isn't competent. The campaign though is where the biggest difference in quality between this and Bungies Halos is seen. I'd even say Halo 4 and 5 are at least still "real" Halos compared to this. You can't make 1 single environment with really nothing to flesh it out and call it a Halo game. Don't care how good the shooting and movement is if there's nothing to do except for take on small groups of enemies in the same encounter throughout the whole thing. There was just a couple small cutscenes and a few lines of dialogue to break it up! Shockingly bad attempt at a "game" despite it looking pretty enough.

How did 343 manage to not get lambasted by gamers and reviewers alike for this campaign?! It makes the Phantom Pain feel like Rdr2 and gta v combined with how little there is to see or do!

Don't misunderstand, I agree.

Everyone forgets Halo Infinite was delayed a year because it showed so poorly, Craig memes and all. Remember, that game was done. Finished. It was coming out like that. 343 actually was going to release it like that. Halo Infinite art was on the Series X boxes at launch. 343 thought they did well.

Phil Spencer pulled the game himself. He had to bring in someone from Bungie to fix things because no one at 343 had enough talent or self awareness to realize they done fucked it up.

So we're on the same page. Fourteen years and a billion dollars in lost value later, we get the best game 343 has ever made in Halo Infinite, a solid 5 out of 10 if I'm being generous. Very generous. More like 4 out of 10 and you could talk me down even lower.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

Don't misunderstand, I agree.

Everyone forgets Halo Infinite was delayed a year because it showed so poorly, Craig memes and all. Remember, that game was done. Finished. It was coming out like that. 343 actually was going to release it like that. Halo Infinite art was on the Series X boxes at launch. 343 thought they did well.

Phil Spencer pulled the game himself. He had to bring in someone from Bungie to fix things because no one at 343 had enough talent or self awareness to realize they done fucked it up.

So we're on the same page. Fourteen years and a billion dollars in lost value later, we get the best game 343 has ever made in Halo Infinite, a solid 5 out of 10 if I'm being generous. Very generous. More like 4 out of 10 and you could talk me down even lower.

Yeah it sounds harsh but I really think MS has allowed their most important and best franchise to be ruined. I don't see how they can come back from this. I actually think Halo 5 has a better campaign though. Here me out: yes, Halo 5's story was an abomination, the Warden boss fight was ridiculously bad game design, and the artstyle was questionable at best but the core gameplay was also pretty good and it at least felt like a real game instead of a tech demo. It had a great variety of locations and set pieces, something that was an important part of Bungies games. It had more enemy types even though the Prometheans were kinda lame with their laser accuracy. Having different locations, more enemy types, and set pieces allowed for the combat to have some variety. Infinite has better sandbox gameplay but you fight the same type of encounter over and over. It's just depressing. You fight your mix of elites, grunts, and brutes in similar types of camps with nothing to break it up and no variation. Sometimes you fight that encounter in the open world and sometimes indoors in a forerunner structure. Sometimes there's a "boss".

Halo needs different environments, biomes, and setpieces to be good otherwise it's pure repetition. Was there even a segment where we need to be on a vehicle in Infinite in order to successfully carry out a mission?

I don't know am I being too hard on Infinite by thinking there was more variety in encounter design in every previous Halo?

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

When Bungie left MS, Halo was one of the most valuable entertainment properties on earth. Not video games franchises, entertainment properties. It was worth something like a billion dollars, more even. How much value has the Halo franchise lost in the past fourteen years because of 343's stewardship? Hundreds of millions of dollars at least. Maybe billions in terms of lost opportunities. A billion dollars in value destroyed.

It's one of the most catastrophic failures in the history of the video game industry, right up their with E.T. for Atari 2600, the early launch of the Sega Saturn, and the decision to pack in a Kinect with every Xbox One.

So it's not that we're being too harsh, we aren't being harsh enough.

I mean Naughty Dog is catching hell for re-releasing the Last of Us twice in the past ten years, but he ten-year anniversary of Halo 3's release was five fucking years ago and a remaster/remake/anniversary edition still hasn't happened. How is that even possible? One of the greatest games of its generation, if not all time, and 343i won't do it? Isn't that the reason the studio exists in the first place, to make Halo games?

Yeah ..I don't think it's sunk in for everyone yet how collassal of a failure Halo has become.

 

[ZehDon]

... Phil Spencer pulled the game himself. He had to bring in someone from Bungie to fix things because no one at 343 had enough talent or self awareness to realize they done fucked it up...

If you're referring to Joe Staten, be careful with the narrative. Staten wasn't brought in solely due to his history with Halo, he was brought in because he's Microsoft's fixer - who also happens to have extensive history with Halo. He was Microsoft Global Publishing's creative director and head of design for a while, and directly made the tough calls to get Crackdown 3 out of development hell and actually release something, basically becoming the face of that game. He's got a similar role with Halo Infinite: make the tough calls, and get something shipped. Timeline wise, Staten was due to come on board at 343i just prior to Halo Infinite's year-long delay was announced. I suspect Staten is in place with a mandate to get 343i's house in order, whatever it takes. Once Infinite achieves "seasonality" and they've finished rebuilding their teams - which would explain the mass exodus from the studio - I don't expect Staten to be a permanent fixture at 343i.

 

[small_law]

If you're referring to Joe Staten, be careful with the narrative. Staten wasn't brought in solely due to his history with Halo, he was brought in because he's Microsoft's fixer - who also happens to have extensive history with Halo. He was Microsoft Global Publishing's creative director and head of design for a while, and directly made the tough calls to get Crackdown 3 out of development hell and actually release something, basically becoming the face of that game. He's got a similar role with Halo Infinite: make the tough calls, and get something shipped. Timeline wise, Staten was due to come on board at 343i just prior to Halo Infinite's year-long delay was announced. I suspect Staten is in place with a mandate to get 343i's house in order, whatever it takes. Once Infinite achieves "seasonality" and they've finished rebuilding their teams - which would explain the mass exodus from the studio - I don't expect Staten to be a permanent fixture at 343i.

I don't expect him to be a permanent fixture either. It's the fact that he was brought in at all. It's not that unusual to bring in a closer in the final year of development to cross the finish line. It happened with Bioshock infinite.

I'm just saying that when they showed the game, the whole Craig demo, my impression was that Halo infinite was as finished as 343 wanted it to be and it was going out the door for the series X and S launch. They pulled the plug on that and brought in a fixer because things had gone off the rails so much.

 

[small_law]

Yeah it sounds harsh but I really think MS has allowed their most important and best franchise to be ruined. I don't see how they can come back from this. I actually think Halo 5 has a better campaign though. Here me out: yes, Halo 5's story was an abomination, the Warden boss fight was ridiculously bad game design, and the artstyle was questionable at best but the core gameplay was also pretty good and it at least felt like a real game instead of a tech demo. It had a great variety of locations and set pieces, something that was an important part of Bungies games. It had more enemy types even though the Prometheans were kinda lame with their laser accuracy. Having different locations, more enemy types, and set pieces allowed for the combat to have some variety. Infinite has better sandbox gameplay but you fight the same type of encounter over and over. It's just depressing. You fight your mix of elites, grunts, and brutes in similar types of camps with nothing to break it up and no variation. Sometimes you fight that encounter in the open world and sometimes indoors in a forerunner structure. Sometimes there's a "boss".

Halo needs different environments, biomes, and setpieces to be good otherwise it's pure repetition. Was there even a segment where we need to be on a vehicle in Infinite in order to successfully carry out a mission?

I don't know am I being too hard on Infinite by thinking there was more variety in encounter design in every previous Halo?

No, you're spot on. They did a lot of backtracking in CE, reusing the same environments, but they were distinct. You were on a human ship, on a covenant ship, in a forest, on a weird bridge, in some weird structure, on and on and on. And environmental diversity only increased as the series went on. Halo 3 is probably the most diverse of the original three games.

Halo infinite topography does vary vertically, but it's the same forest with forerunner bullshit everywhere. It's very clear they cut and pasted whole swaths of assets and stitched them together.

Just look at Destiny or Destiny 2. Bungie reuses the same types of environment frequently, but there are dozens of different types of environments to begin with, so areas feel similar but never truly repetitive. And the yearly expansions typically introduce entirely new environments. Which queen added a swamp planet alternate reality thing. Beyond the light was Europa which was a snow planet.

 

[small_law]

Yeah ..I don't think it's sunk in for everyone yet how collassal of a failure Halo has become.

You have to step back and think about the fact that Bungie made Microsoft over a billion dollars with Halo. It was one of the most valuable media properties in the world after Halo 3 and ODST. Reach did well too. We're talking about the franchise that single-handedly saved the original Xbox from failing at launch.

And that's the thing. No one can justify how badly 343 has failed. Possibly a billion dollars or more of value destroyed. It would be one thing if 343 was just less successful than Bungie was, but to destroy the value of that property when you were given chance after chance for 14 years is reckless.

No one can objectively look at the result of their stewardship of the Halo franchise and declare it a success.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

The reality is it's 14 years later and we have a semi-competent Halo game in Halo infinite. That's it. Whatever faults Halo infinite has, it's the best release 343 has ever done. If you want to call that a failure, I think you're perfectly justified to do so.

I think the first game they did may have been the best release they did, but I don't know where you are getting 14 years, their first release was in 2011.

When Bungie left MS, Halo was one of the most valuable entertainment properties on earth. Not video games franchises, entertainment properties. It was worth something like a billion dollars, more even. How much value has the Halo franchise lost in the past fourteen years because of 343's stewardship? Hundreds of millions of dollars at least. Maybe billions in terms of lost opportunities. A billion dollars in value destroyed.

It's one of the most catastrophic failures in the history of the video game industry, right up their with E.T. for Atari 2600, the early launch of the Sega Saturn, and the decision to pack in a Kinect with every Xbox One.

So it's not that we're being too harsh, we aren't being harsh enough.

I mean Naughty Dog is catching hell for re-releasing the Last of Us twice in the past ten years, but he ten-year anniversary of Halo 3's release was five fucking years ago and a remaster/remake/anniversary edition still hasn't happened. How is that even possible? One of the greatest games of its generation, if not all time, and 343i won't do it? Isn't that the reason the studio exists in the first place, to make Halo games?

Halo 2 and Halo 3 broke the biggest entertainment records in gaming, despite the former being on a console that was crushed in sales by the PS2, yet Sony had nothing comparable even if you include third parties like GTA. It created the streaming, esports, video phenomenon that people take for granted now. 343 hasn't really gotten any accolades of that magnitude. Even Reach and ODST had been instrumental to gaming communities, competitiveness, and the more modern gaming marketing partnerships. Even if you didn't really like or were neutral on Halo you knew it was big.

Halo 3 won't be touched by 343 because they are trying to create a name for themselves to remove the negativity, and they still don't understand Halo so a remake of 3 wouldn't work, The remake of two was mostly visual and audio and was done in collaboration with 2 or 3 other studios and it was busted at release. Halo 3 remake being busted at release you may as well put a fork in the franchise.

Halo 3, is the best selling core Microsoft game of all time with over 14 million copies excluding Mojang and Kinect. At least as far as we know, apparently Forza Horizon has 14 million players or more but we don't know the sales numbers.

Maybe if Halo Infinite was released as it was advertised in 2020, which it wasn't, 343 may have gotten it's bad reputation overturned and people would be buying an Xbox Series console !;! with Infinite but they didn't it.

Think about that for a second, Halo with Halo Infinite is barely even a system seller anymore the damage is real.

Don't misunderstand, I agree.

Everyone forgets Halo Infinite was delayed a year because it showed so poorly, Craig memes and all. Remember, that game was done. Finished. It was coming out like that. 343 actually was going to release it like that. Halo Infinite art was on the Series X boxes at launch. 343 thought they did well.

The fury off and on the internet was real, i remember one of the reps tried to spin it as a demo build that wasn't representative of the finished product at close to the same time they said they were delaying the game for polish. I was laughing my ass off at that showcase.

Yes in 2020, the game was going to be released just like that.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Reach did well too. We're talking about the franchise that single-handedly saved the original Xbox from failing at launch.

Splinter Cell and Project Gotham were pretty big and they may have put more marketing on those, sure it was Halo and those weren't going to break records for entertainment products, but I don't think MS was going to fail at launch, thouh without Halo it may ahve sold worse than the Game Cube in the end. It was huge.

Yeah it sounds harsh but I really think MS has allowed their most important and best franchise to be ruined. I don't see how they can come back from this. I actually think Halo 5 has a better campaign though. Here me out: yes, Halo 5's story was an abomination, the Warden boss fight was ridiculously bad game design, and the artstyle was questionable at best but the core gameplay was also pretty good and it at least felt like a real game instead of a tech demo. It had a great variety of locations and set pieces, something that was an important part of Bungies games. It had more enemy types even though the Prometheans were kinda lame with their laser accuracy. Having different locations, more enemy types, and set pieces allowed for the combat to have some variety. Infinite has better sandbox gameplay but you fight the same type of encounter over and over. It's just depressing. You fight your mix of elites, grunts, and brutes in similar types of camps with nothing to break it up and no variation. Sometimes you fight that encounter in the open world and sometimes indoors in a forerunner structure. Sometimes there's a "boss".

Halo needs different environments, biomes, and setpieces to be good otherwise it's pure repetition. Was there even a segment where we need to be on a vehicle in Infinite in order to successfully carry out a mission?

I don't know am I being too hard on Infinite by thinking there was more variety in encounter design in every previous Halo?

See i can't blame them too much for this because with the promise of what 343i was making with regards to halo Infinite, being a long term open world service game to MS it sounded like a good idea, and having the game updated with content overtime would solve the problem of the previous games, they probably were not expecting 343i to screw up Infinite as bad as they did, which is why there was some scrambling with communication after the 2020 Infinite reveal.

Another thing is everytime there's a new Halo game and a record is achieved or the speed of sales are achieved MS would make an announcement, even if only once, of the games sales performance. Instead we didn't get that, what we got was HI was the "biggest launch in Halo history" which included games sales, but when people started questioning that, they walked back that announcement and said that the biggest launch was due to "20 million players" in the f2p portion of the game which 343 came out and said yep that means biggest launch.

You don't do those kind of spins if you have nothing to hide. Halo 5 sold over 5 million in a few months, I would be surprised if Halo Infinite sold over 2.

 

[Jinzo Prime]

If you're referring to Joe Staten, be careful with the narrative. Staten wasn't brought in solely due to his history with Halo, he was brought in because he's Microsoft's fixer - who also happens to have extensive history with Halo. He was Microsoft Global Publishing's creative director and head of design for a while, and directly made the tough calls to get Crackdown 3 out of development hell and actually release something, basically becoming the face of that game. He's got a similar role with Halo Infinite: make the tough calls, and get something shipped. Timeline wise, Staten was due to come on board at 343i just prior to Halo Infinite's year-long delay was announced. I suspect Staten is in place with a mandate to get 343i's house in order, whatever it takes. Once Infinite achieves "seasonality" and they've finished rebuilding their teams - which would explain the mass exodus from the studio - I don't expect Staten to be a permanent fixture at 343i.

So if Staten isn't staying, that the question arises: who is going to lead 343 or the Halo franchise from now on? It has been thoroughly demonstrated that Bonnie Ross and company don't have the skill or the vision to steer the ship, so who is going to take over as 343 head if not Joseph?

 

[Shubh_C63]

When Bungie left MS, Halo was one of the most valuable entertainment properties on earth. Not video games franchises, entertainment properties. It was worth something like a billion dollars, more even. How much value has the Halo franchise lost in the past fourteen years because of 343's stewardship? Hundreds of millions of dollars at least. Maybe billions in terms of lost opportunities. A billion dollars in value destroyed.

So much this and more. But I see people comparing 343 to Bungie which is kinda unfair. Bungie stand amongst one of the most talented devs on the planet, easily.

And to people who still keeps defending that H:I is an excellent game (cue the metacritic score). Your beloved game might be a lot better if you start making some noise.

 

[Negotiator101]

So much this and more. But I see people comparing 343 to Bungie which is kinda unfair. Bungie stand amongst one of the most talented devs on the planet, easily.

And to people who still keeps defending that H:I is an excellent game (cue the metacritic score). Your beloved game might be a lot better if you start making some noise.

I'd say Bungie are from the force of old, their output has been slow and patchy for years now but yes 343 are not cutting it unfortunately, I think it's the engine more than anything else mind .

 

[Hendrick's]

Statements like this make me laugh. There is no other studio that can make Halo at this point. If you look at the amount of content "fans" are demanding from this game and how strong the core game is, you would be crazy to think anyone else could do better. It would be a guarantee failure for anyone taking this on, unless you are meaning side projects in Halo universe, which is not a fair comparison.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Statements like this make me laugh. There is no other studio that can make Halo at this point. If you look at the amount of content "fans" are demanding from this game and how strong the core game is, you would be crazy to think anyone else could do better.

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

The fundamental problem with Halo is that Bungie made the bold choice to end the story in 3, it was "finish the fight" after all.

When I replayed the third game in 2020 it really struck me how rarely have I played a game that felt as much as a conclusion.

So if Halo has felt directionless since that's why, the story was over and story matters more than most gamers are willing to admit, it's the framework for which you hang good gameplay on, if the story is directionless, the game is going to reflect that (and story doesn't have to be real deep, it can be just "rescue Princess Peach" but hey, that's a very clear direction)

 

[Valedix]

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I dont play Halo games, so I can only go by what I see and read.

It was a lousy showing to start it off with Craig, the game lacked content, theres no split screen anymore and the previous game Halo 5 came out in 2015. The game finally launched in 2021.

If 343 cant release a polished flagship game for Xbox in 6 years, god help us all. It's not like they were asked to churn out Halo games like the 360 days where you'd get a new Halo every couple years.

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

You can't just shut down 343i you morons.

What if they are operationally-fluid? Maybe they drift in and out of being competent, you can't just put companies into categories. What if they don't want to identify as being either competent or incompetent?

Fucking bigots you lot are.

Don’t you guys get tired? Fuck me. I lean left and I don’t make every single post about stereotypical right-wingers.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

I dont play Halo games, so I can only go by what I see and read.

It was a lousy showing to start it off with Craig, the game lacked content, theres no split screen anymore and the previous game Halo 5 came out in 2015. The game finally launched in 2021.

If 343 cant release a polished flagship game for Xbox in 6 years, god help us all. It's not like they were asked to churn out Halo games like the 360 days where you'd get a new Halo every couple years.

Which doesn't help 343i's case because all those Halo games were good. ODST and Wars were good fun.

The fundamental problem with Halo is that Bungie made the bold choice to end the story in 3, it was "finish the fight" after all.

When I replayed the third game in 2020 it really struck me how rarely have I played a game that felt as much as a conclusion.

So if Halo has felt directionless since that's why, the story was over and story matters more than most gamers are willing to admit, it's the framework for which you hang good gameplay on, if the story is directionless, the game is going to reflect that (and story doesn't have to be real deep, it can be just "rescue Princess Peach" but hey, that's a very clear direction)

Well they made reach, but that wasn't a sequel to 3. However, the story is only a small part of the problem with modern Halo games, the games themselves having problems have nothing to do with the fact the 343i games take place after Halo 3. They could have all been prequels and the problems would still be there.

 

[jigglet]

Don’t you guys get tired? Fuck me. I lean left and I don’t make every single post about stereotypical right-wingers.

I lean pretty heavily left too. It’s called joking.

 

[CrashNBurn_281]

343i certainly needs to be fired. They have squandered Halo multiple times. Even most diehard Xbox people can see the writing on the walls.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Reports are that 343 is patching out the glitch on the nerwer consoles and you can only use it for now, on the Xbox One original and One S.

If true, the optics are pretty bad. Especially since they are also at the same time pretending things are fine for that "yappening" event.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

When Bungie left MS, Halo was one of the most valuable entertainment properties on earth. Not video games franchises, entertainment properties. It was worth something like a billion dollars, more even. How much value has the Halo franchise lost in the past fourteen years because of 343's stewardship? Hundreds of millions of dollars at least. Maybe billions in terms of lost opportunities. A billion dollars in value destroyed

Hard to argue against this.

I like what 343 have done with the multiplayer, but there's the feeling that they could have done a shit load more if the place wasn't on fire.

It never, ever feels like things are going well at 343. Always catching up, always slow. How long do these things take? No idea, but everyone else seems to do it quicker than 343.

Everyone forgets Halo Infinite was delayed a year because it showed so poorly, Craig memes and all. Remember, that game was done. Finished. It was coming out like that. 343 actually was going to release it like that. Halo Infinite art was on the Series X boxes at launch. 343 thought they did well.

Phil Spencer pulled the game himself. He had to bring in someone from Bungie to fix things because no one at 343 had enough talent or self awareness to realize they done fucked it up.

This video says that the guy who was looking after Halo infinite had been outright lying to people and was then removed from the project after that showing, before Joe Staten was brought in to drag things on track, which, as we all know, is still ongoing.

 

[Sosokrates]

It never, ever feels like things are going well at 343. Always catching up, always slow. How long do these things take?

I mean it is true that the multiplayer is only doing numbers that are a fraction of Halo in its hay day.

But some people just want to shit on infinite and 343 every chance they get.

If you play the game and listen to the reviews and visual analysis's, theres a lot of praise for infinite.

So it becomes a battle of just pushing a narritive. However the truth is not so black or white.

Infinite has had troubled development and 343 managed to release a very good game , while some features that have been included historically in Halo games are missing, there is also a lot of innovations for the series. Having a more an open world was what the original Halo envisioned and 343 have managed to improve apon that vision significantly, which is impressive.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

This video says that the guy who was looking after Halo infinite had been outright lying to people and was then removed from the project after that showing, before Joe Staten was brought in to drag things on track, which, as we all know, is still ongoing.

Bunch of bullshit. One person cannot lie against hundreds of employees, contractors and all the goings on. Playtests giving feedback, artists working on things, project leads managing deliverables, MS/Xbox presentations/inspections and there is a litany of reasons why one person could not just lie and hide the state of Halo Infinite during development and launch windows.

It's the entire studio heads being responsible. The engine is behind and pretty piss poor, the story is lacklustre and pretty much non-existent, the environment design did nothing to create variety and interest or even consistent traversal. I could go on and on.

One person lying doesn't cut it and is just a scapegoat. The entire management is responsible for the story, the art, the campaign set pieces, the multiplayer lacking maps, the quality assurance again being shit, the TV show being shite. Explain to me how one person could be covering all that up while simultaneously being responsible for it all? Stupid is stupid.

 

[Deputy Moonman]

Everyone forgets Halo Infinite was delayed a year because it showed so poorly, Craig memes and all. Remember, that game was done. Finished. It was coming out like that. 343 actually was going to release it like that. Halo Infinite art was on the Series X boxes at launch. 343 thought they did well.

Define, "done." Was it done or were they trying to get the game out the door because it had already been 5 years and they wanted to hit their deadline? You're assuming they thought they did well. When it comes to releasing a game and promoting it, you don't show a bunch of unhappy devs complaining about the state of the game. They're going to try and hype it up.

 

[Beechos]

I mean it is true that the multiplayer is only doing numbers that are a fraction of Halo in its hay day.

But some people just want to shit on infinite and 343 every chance they get.

If you play the game and listen to the reviews and visual analysis's, theres a lot of praise for infinite.

So it becomes a battle of just pushing a narritive. However the truth is not so black or white.

Infinite has had troubled development and 343 managed to release a very good game , while some features that have been included historically in Halo games are missing, there is also a lot of innovations for the series. Having a more an open world was what the original Halo envisioned and 343 have managed to improve apon that vision significantly, which is impressive.

The open world was shit and absolutely barren, nothing impressive at all with the world. The indoor cooridor sections were actually the best part of the game.

 

[Corndog]

Don't misunderstand, I agree.

Everyone forgets Halo Infinite was delayed a year because it showed so poorly, Craig memes and all. Remember, that game was done. Finished. It was coming out like that. 343 actually was going to release it like that. Halo Infinite art was on the Series X boxes at launch. 343 thought they did well.

Phil Spencer pulled the game himself. He had to bring in someone from Bungie to fix things because no one at 343 had enough talent or self awareness to realize they done fucked it up.

So we're on the same page. Fourteen years and a billion dollars in lost value later, we get the best game 343 has ever made in Halo Infinite, a solid 5 out of 10 if I'm being generous. Very generous. More like 4 out of 10 and you could talk me down even lower.

Joe staten hasn’t been at bungie for years. He left bungie in 2013 I believe.

Edit:source
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Staten

 

[Sosokrates]

The open world was shit and absolutely barren, nothing impressive at all with the world. The indoor cooridor sections were actually the best part of the game.

I disagree lots of different enemy placements around the map, and you see a crashed aircraft and you want to go check it out etc. They really nailed the feel that it was an alien world that was partly occupied.

 

[small_law]

Joe staten hasn’t been at bungie for years. He left bungie in 2013 I believe.

Edit:source
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Staten

It's how the gaming press covered it, so I'm not surprised if they failed to mention that. I mean it was all over the place.

 

[small_law]

Define, "done." Was it done or were they trying to get the game out the door because it had already been 5 years and they wanted to hit their deadline? You're assuming they thought they did well. When it comes to releasing a game and promoting it, you don't show a bunch of unhappy devs complaining about the state of the game. They're going to try and hype it up.

That game was coming out simultaneous with the Xbox launch. What they showed, minus the last minute tweaking for frame rate that most games get, was what we were going to get. It was set for fall 2020 at the very least, maybe November 2020 more specifically.

No one knows what anyone thinks, we're not mind readers, but given the fact that they were going to release it in that state, they were satisfied enough to push it out the door. If that isn't being done, I don't know what it is.

So they knew the game had issues bad enough to delay it for an entire year or lacked this self-awareness to know what they made was bad. It doesn't matter which it was; both speak to the quality of that studio.

 

[Corndog]

It's how the gaming press covered it, so I'm not surprised if they failed to mention that. I mean it was all over the place.

I’m just saying he has been at Microsoft for about 8 years. He hasn’t been at 343i though.

 

[Hohenheim]

Halo infinite (campaign) was one of my favourite games in 2021. Best Halo game in a long time. I don't care about the multiplayer, Split screen co-op or any of that.

And they recently got Joseph Staten back in the team. But yeah, disbanding the team before giving him a chance to really get to work, and then giving the franchise to a studio with no prior experience with Halo sounds like a amazing idea.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

I mean it is true that the multiplayer is only doing numbers that are a fraction of Halo in its hay day.

But some people just want to shit on infinite and 343 every chance they get.

If you play the game and listen to the reviews and visual analysis's, theres a lot of praise for infinite.

So it becomes a battle of just pushing a narritive. However the truth is not so black or white.

Infinite has had troubled development and 343 managed to release a very good game , while some features that have been included historically in Halo games are missing, there is also a lot of innovations for the series. Having a more an open world was what the original Halo envisioned and 343 have managed to improve apon that vision significantly, which is impressive.

I don't disagree with you, certainly Halo is spoken about like it's a bin fire but I enjoyed the campaign and have just finished the season pass and event challenge. It's a good game.

BUT, I don't think there are enough maps. Last time they released maps I was looking forward to it, I'd played a lot of Halo with friends and we were all a little burnt out on the same 4v4 maps (and then they removed one of them from the ranked playlist!) And what happened was 343 delivered one 4v4 map, so everyone stopped playing.

As we approach the anniversary of the game's release, that map will end up being the only 4v4 map they added to the package.

I get that development was troubled. But I don't understand why their team can't manage to put out more than one 4v4 map in a year. That's what I mean when I say it takes them longer than everyone else.

I don't know why there's no season pass starting in November. The things they give away, armour parts (one shoulder pad at a time), colour pallettes for guns, armour and vehicles, logos to put those things are SURELY relatively easy to make. I don't know why they can't keep that going. It would help with retention.

The only gaas game I've played is apex legends. The idea that they'd end a season without another starting immediately afterwards seems very unlikely to me. Why can't Halo manage it? That's the kind of thing I mean.

To me, getting the game supported with maps and keeping seasons going seems like an obvious way to keep a community engaged. Didn't they start with great numbers? People got bored. I mostly play Halo on my own now. When the game came out, I would regularly play with two groups of people, now, they rarely play.

That's what I'm disappointed by, personally. I don't care about splitscreen at all. I don't care about Forge (and historically, have hated Forge maps in matchmaking), I do care about 4v4 multiplayer and infinite needs more maps I don't understand why they only managed to ship a single map in a year.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

given the fact that they were going to release it in that state

What changed between the reveal and the final release? I ask because it looks pretty much the same. Yes, better lighting, textures, etc.

But I don't see why people who were appalled by the reveal would say the release was so much better. It's better, but still basically the same to my eye.