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Rumor: 343 Industries Will Only Supervise Development of Future Halo Games

DAHGAMING

Member
I love the direction Microsoft is taking. Bold, unpredictable, pure unadulterated confusion. Keeps us gamers guessing so we don't get bored with gaming....bored with life. My ex wife did the same when confronted about her relationship with my neighbor.

Now I live in my parent's spare room with my Series S. My parents would have never guessed that 45 years later, their only child would be living with them again!

I fucking love being a gamer!

Now this is a fine piece of work, respect and love to you Xbox brother 💪💪💪.
 

Codes 208

Member
But i do think that gears had a big drop in quality, i think halo 4 is better than gears 4 and gears 5 is not really that much better than h5 or infinite.


The gameplay is copy paste so even if it feels extremely stale to me it's still fun for many people, hard to fuck that.
I agree with this. For starters whoever decided that db’s should be the only enemy for nearly 50% of gears 4 needs to be flogged. Secondly the gameplay and mp were a carbon copy of 3

The issue i had with 5 (outside of its mess of a story) is the multiplayer felt both different and worse than prior games
(The hivebusters expansion was good though)
 
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VAVA Mk2

Member
Yeah we'd already heard rumors to this effect.

I will say, shuttering 343i entirely would be bad optics for Microsoft. What they're doing here seems like a smart way to do that in essence while leaving 343i alive on paper. The name remains, but it just becomes an extension of the go-to-market / business side of Microsoft. 343i as the developer of Halo 4 / 5 / Infinite ceases to exist and they can explore farming Halo out as a franchise to other developers.
They would manage lore amongst all media, though. Basically they revert back to their role in 2007.
 

DragonNCM

Member
WCCFhalo1.jpg


Via WCFFTech
The Halo series developer 343 Industries will only supervise the development of future entries in the series, as Microsoft is reportedly not confident in 343 internal developing anymore.

  • In 2023 and 2024 343i internal employees were cut down from around 500 to less than 280.
  • The internal 343i communications and marketing teams were cut and now it's directly MS which manages them (some members of the old teams were transferred to the MS ones)
  • The reliance on outsourcing increased as MS is not confident in 343 internal developing anymore *ouch*
  • So for the next Halo projects 343 will just work on the Concept and Pre-Production phases (along with the "Lore check") while actual Production would be done by other SH, only supervised by 343 (similar to what done with Halo Wars 2 with Creative Assembly)
  • 2 new big Halo projects in the works right now (most probably Halo CE Remake and Halo "7"), both in Pre-Production phase and the sooner release not until 2026 at least. One of them, probably Halo "7", will have a much higher players' number MP (so probably including the "Tatanka" MP project legacy made for 100+ players and in the works at Certain Affinity, initially planned for Infinite)
  • Only 30% of current 343i is actually developing game contents, while all the rest are project management, producers and business roles
  • Budget is now much more controlled by MS (which made new hires slower and more difficult as one of the results)
  • Halo Infinite made a lot of money but still didn't meet MS targets for it. Now on "life support" after releasing already contractualized contents with external suppliers, with remaining support on Forge contents only
God bless US, God bless MS, Halo will be great again !!!! :)
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
So the consensus is every Halo since Bungie left has sucked?

Been saying this for years. Halo 4,5 and Infinite are so poor compared to it's predecessors.

Infinite was definatly going in the right direction but executed so poorly.

The Core of infinite was great. Grapple hook etc. I'd say the only issue with infinite, which is a big one, is content and biomes.

To think we had a triple A halo that basically existed in one medium sized map area was a joke. When they announced it I was so hyped that we may work our way around biomes maybe going in abandoned volcano type areas or arid dry areas. It failed miserably on its maps and rinse and repeat content.

Embarassing. It could have been incredible.
 

Gojiira

Member
Oh i don't know, i was barely capable of finishing g4 without costantly thinking about a double suicide (for me and my crashed balls) and didn't get far with g5 and bailed out from that one entirely.

Personally i find them on the same exact level as 343, i don't care if the gears have sold more.

People now suddently believe in coalition because they are making a gritty prequel with the original cast, if 343 get rid of the new enemies and make a prequel of halo where you meet the covenent for the first time the people would be on board aswell, but i'm not gonna forget what these people made until now, my memory is not that short.
‘Where you meet the covenant for the first time’..Gonna need some clarifying chief, First Encounter with the Covenant was Reach so hard pass on a modern MS re-quel, it was already done perfectly.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
‘Where you meet the covenant for the first time’..Gonna need some clarifying chief, First Encounter with the Covenant was Reach so hard pass on a modern MS re-quel, it was already done perfectly.
Was reach the very first time humanity encountered the covenents?

Because i played reach and even if i don't remember jack shit about the plot it was clear that it was not the very first encounter with them.

By first encounter i mean going from thinking of being the only smart race in the universe to discovering that aliens fucking exist :lollipop_grinning_sweat:

I think gears is doing exactly that, very first contact of locust with the humans.
 

Roberts

Member
I still think HI is the most fun Halo campaign to play and I've played them all twice. Maybe because I wasn't a huge Halo fan back in the day.
 

LastBattle

Member
It's a shame because the core gameplay of infinite was great and arguably the best in the series. All they had to do was just support the game but instead they just completely messed up the opportunity and let the game flounder. To be honest, at this point they shouldn't even advise.
Completely agree. The gameplay was really, really good. I also liked the campaign, despite its short comings on being restricted to one biome and also a lack of epic set pieces. The foundation was there and I really thought they’d release many DLCs that expanded the campaign. I guess the engine was beyond salvaging.
 
Supervising? They have proven to have bi idea how to revitalize this franchise and should let someone else make a new one without any interference.
 

Gojiira

Member
Was reach the very first time humanity encountered the covenents?

Because i played reach and even if i don't remember jack shit about the plot it was clear that it was not the very first encounter with them.

By first encounter i mean going from thinking of being the only smart race in the universe to discovering that aliens fucking exist :lollipop_grinning_sweat:

I think gears is doing exactly that, very first contact of locust with the humans.
Well technically they did encounter them previously when a Human ship was raided which led to the War starting on Harvest, but Reach was the point the War went into full swing.
I dont think theres enough scope for doing anything related to pre-Reach without it just retreading the same ground of the Covenant glassing human colonies. Just isnt enough there.
No I think Halo needs either a much more disconnected sequel or a reboot.
THOUGH a prequel about the very first Spartans could be cool but only if it really showed how horrific it was and I doubt they would given how Space Opera the series has become.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Jizz "I'm not a journalist" Corden.

He's just a PR machine, can't believe anything coming out his mouth.

Also : didn't he "quit" ?

AY LMAO at these fookin' shills, no sympathy whatsoever

Does this mean the rumour is true or not? I'm confused how this works
 

BlackTron

Gold Member
Hold up... the studio has 280 project managers and producers?

No wonder they couldn't get anything done.

MS is useless at managing dev studios.

Exactly.

343 failing is really just saying MS failed. It's their studio. If they wanted other people to make a Halo game, they wouldn't open a different studio; they would just change the people in it and try different things...which they did.

But because their company culture is not quite conducive to brilliance, no amount of revolving heads or blaming individuals will solve the problems really holding them back.

That is why they must give up and have a different studio make the game. However if the taint of their management encroaches too deep, that too will fail.
 

Sony

Nintendo
In general, it's becoming increasingly common to have other studios co-develop games. In case of 343 is mostly jarring because of the layoffs and how much the studio decreased. But again, outsourcing isn't new and is increasingly done across the industry.
 
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Zannegan

Member
Several of those Activision studios used to be great FPS developers. They've been doing nothing but COD junk for years. Let them take over Halo.
I wouldn't hand over mainline Halo to a CoD support studio, no matter how talented they once were (and who knows after years of being on the CoD grind). They're such different series with different gameplay focuses.

With that said, if someone wanted to make an ODST in the style of COD, I wouldn't be mad. Call of Duty's short TTK would actually work well in the context of an ODST game, highlighting the disadvantage of being a mere grunt fighting in the age of alien elites and power armored spartans.

Honestly, I'd even love to see a mainline Call of Duty series take place in the Halo universe (even though Infinite Warfare says that's probably a bad idea). The three year rotation would then be Modern Warfare, Black Ops, ODST.

Just dreaming over here since it seems like the original report isn't even true.
 
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BlackTron

Gold Member
Microsoft should construct a gigantic slingshot, load 343 HQ into it and launch it directly into the sun

The thing about these takes is they are basically saying that Microsoft should put themselves into a gigantic slingshot and launch into the sun.

Which is actually hilariously (unintentionally) true.
 

intbal

Member
I wouldn't hand over mainline Halo to a CoD support studio, no matter how talented they once were (and who knows after years of being on the CoD grind). They're such different series with different gameplay focuses.

With that said, if someone wanted to make an ODST in the style of COD, I wouldn't be mad. Call of Duty's short TTK would actually work well in the context of an ODST game, highlighting the disadvantage of being a mere grunt fighting in the age of alien elites and power armored spartans.

Honestly, I'd even love to see a mainline Call of Duty series take place in the Halo universe (even though Infinite Warfare says that's probably a bad idea). The three year rotation would then be Modern Warfare, Black Ops, ODST.

Just dreaming over here since it seems like the original report isn't even true.
Even COD slaves would be better than 343.
 
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