The Backstory of Halo Infinite - How incompetence drove the franchise into the ground.

[Dolemite]

This is a REALLY great read by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Click to read more...

 

[aleshemsky83]

I feel like the game was not that bad, however you can definitely tell it went through development hell. That and they hyped the multiplayer so heavily as a live service, and then it turns out it’s just an old school multiplayer deathmatch and capture the flag, the zoomers can’t really get their head around it.

Also the article is paywalled I just realized.

 

[S E P H]

Drove a franchise to the ground? Bias bruv, the game is good. Sure, it's not great, but it is very far from bad. The only problem is they released it probably eight months to a year too early, I've seen far worse gaming sins.

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

I liked the campaign a lot, and the core multiplayer was great, but they were not fit to run a live service game.

 

[S E P H]

I liked the campaign a lot, and the core multiplayer was great, but they were not fit to run a live service game.

Do you mean by the lack of maps and modes? It has definitely gotten better, but I think there were some weird decisions made like AR starts for normal game modes such as team slayer or BTB (map size doesn't make sense). Then they limit the number of BRs on each map, so if you come across somebody who was able to get a BR or something equivalent, then you would lose that battle 9 out of 10 times. Maybe I am just used to BR starts for every game mode.

 

[SimGrindcore]

For me, the campaign was top tier. I had a lot of fun.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Let it die. 343 had three games to get things right. Not to mention MCC being a joke for 4 years until they figured it out. Lack of content in multiplayer, hallowed out campaign, and a money grabbing F2P model no one wanted or asked for.

Huge disconnect between what fans want and what 343 provides. Let it burn.

 

[93LEAFS]

Do you mean by the lack of maps and modes? It has definitely gotten better, but I think there were some weird decisions made like AR starts for normal game modes such as team slayer or BTB (map size doesn't make sense). Then they limit the number of BRs on each map, so if you come across somebody who was able to get a BR or something equivalent, then you would lose that battle 9 out of 10 times. Maybe I am just used to BR starts for every game mode.

I'm not a fan of live service nor do I play them but they are massive revenue generators if successful (Destiny, GTA Online, Fortnite, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy 14, etc). But, they need constant expansions and content to survive and maintain a player-base. Something that needs to be mapped out and have significant resources allocated to it prior to launch. 343 has failed to meet those, with constant delays and limited updates. Remember, they delayed this game a full year from its planned launch, then launched missing features they promised (Campaign couch co-op, something they heavily promised), and then failed to constantly provide adequate updates that a live-service demands. I guess they couldn't delay it two full years from its promised launch, but due to that, the basic game should have been ready a year prior to launch with resources allocated to having constant updates for seasons of the planned for significant time ahead of launch.

It will probably help Halo to use an industry-standard engine such as Unreal 5, but, it'd probably be better off if they just didn't heavily rely on 18-month contractors they never plan to renew to avoid getting sued for permatemp status again. And, what does this signal to other Microsoft studios that rely on their own internal engines such as Bethesda Game Works, and iD (and Machine and to a lesser extent Arkane who either use iD engine or a heavily modified versions of it), or Activision when that deal closes as Activision (IE Engine) uses its own proprietary engine for COD. You hear about EA having issues with Frostbite due to it being terribly documented or CDPR having issues trying to change significant aspects of RED Engine during the development of CyberPunk, but you don't hear about studios like Rockstar, Sony (and the multiple studios they have with their own internal engines like Decima, and ND, Insomniac, Sucker Puch, and Santa Monica's own proprietary), Nintendo or Capcom (RE Engine) having nightmares due to contract workers being constantly turned over or poor documentation of their various internal game engines.

 

[x Tame Impala]

It will probably help Halo to use an industry-standard engine such as Unreal 5, but, it'd probably be better off if they just didn't heavily rely on 18-month contractors they never plan to renew to avoid getting sued for permatemp status again. And, what does this signal to other Microsoft studios that rely on their own internal engines such as Bethesda Game Works, and iD (and Machine and to a lesser extent Arkane who either use iD engine or a heavily modified versions of it), or Activision when that deal closes as Activision (IE Engine) uses its own proprietary engine for COD. You hear about EA having issues with Frostbite due to it being terribly documented or CDPR having issues try to change significant aspects of RED Engine during the development of CyberPunk, but you don't hear about studios like Rockstar, Sony (and the multiple studios they have with their own internal engines like Decima, and ND, Insomniac, Sucker Puch, and Santa Monica's own proprietary), Nintendo or Capcom (RE Engine) having nightmares due to contract workers being constantly turned over or poor documentation of their various internal game engines.

Exactly. This is why I’m not excited about Microsoft buying up all these studios. Look what low bar they let become passable for Halo. Whatever decisions 343 were allowed to make turned their flagship FPS game into a joke.

Guys are falling through the map on “The Pit” remake, during matchmaking. The game isn’t polished and it lacks content. Why would I trust Microsoft not to turn these newly acquired studios into something similar to 343?

 

[93LEAFS]

Exactly. This is why I’m not excited about Microsoft buying up all these studios. Look what low bar they let become passable for Halo. Whatever decisions 343 were allowed to make turned their flagship FPS game into a joke.

Guys are falling through the map on “The Pit” remake, during matchmaking. The game isn’t polished and it lacks content. Why would I trust Microsoft not to turn these newly acquired studios into something similar to 343?

I would just hope they manage iD and their engine team better than whatever happened with 343 and the development/management of Slipstream. In my opinion, the iD engine has produced the first-person shooters I've most enjoyed in recent years (Doom Eternal and the Wolfenstein series) and was basically the main competitor to Unreal for years before it was taken private (when I was growing up, it felt like every game was made with the "Quake" engine).

I'm very excited about what Microsoft's budget and its backing could mean for teams like Obsidian, Ninja Theory, and Double Fine. This could apply to InExile and Undead Labs but I haven't really played those studios games, so I hope their fanbases get better games through being purchased too, I just enjoyed the first 3 studio's games (Psychonauts 2, The Outer Worlds and am currently playing Hellblade). Pyschonauts 2 is likely missing things/not as complete without Microsoft buying Double Fine during development. We've seen how competitors' financial backing and the increased resources allocated to them have helped them take big steps forward (for example Sucker Punch and Guerilla for Sony). Also, all of those teams recent high-end games are in Unreal, and were made on limited budgets prior to acquisition. I am worried about what it means for already well-financed studios that were already performing strongly in the AAA realm. The first type of acquisition I think has great potential for gamers, outside the exclusivity that comes with it, but as someone with a Switch Oled, a PC that can handle 9th gen only games, and a PS5, that means nothing to me. As this will hopefully allow these studios to take large steps forward and give them the freedom to make the games they envision with less constraints. The big purchases I feel add nothing new to the marketplace, it just transfers entities. Same reason why I'm excited about Sony buying Bluepoint and Housemarque, but am indifferent to them buying Bungie who were already very well funded and have a long track record of making genre-defining games such as Halo and now Destiny.

 

[JaegerDice]

Crazy that through all that, they managed to make a game that plays as well as Halo Infinite.

Content is a huge issue, but damn if I still don't lose hours with a 'one more match' mentality once I start playing. And my Halo friends and I have been having a ton of fun playing Forge maps.

 

[aleshemsky83]

I feel like the thing that needs to be addressed with Halo in the future (gears of war too), its essentially a free game now, not even diehards buy it. If you look at microsofts actual game sales since they went full steam ahead with gamepass, they're down by like 90%. People only play gamepass on Xbox.

The model kind of makes it not cost effective to go all in on prestige AAA experiences. You can see it in Halo infinite. Everything happened through voice notes and holograms. There was no real story there, when you killed a boss there was no cutscene or any dramatic death, the boss would literally flop to the ground and the music would hard cut to silence and you'd just awkwardly go on to the next area.

With Sony and third parties, they dont put these games on a service at launch so they actually have to have production value for people to buy it.

 

[chicagoskycam]

Crazy that through all that, they managed to make a game that plays as well as Halo Infinite.

Content is a huge issue, but damn if I still don't lose hours with a 'one more match' mentality once I start playing. And my Halo friends and I have been having a ton of fun playing Forge maps.

Exactly, I recently started playing multiplayer again and the gameplay is superb. They added some forge maps to the playlist but that's about it. The content they sell, events, and battle passes are lacking. The maps per game type are lacking. They removed doubles ranked which pissed me off. They had a solid foundation for the game and it's like they gave up on it already.

The campaign was also really good and I rarely play campaings in any game.

Also, why is the OP posting articles behind a paywall??? Pointless.

 

[chicagoskycam]

I feel like the thing that needs to be addressed with Halo in the future (gears of war too), its essentially a free game now, not even diehards buy it. If you look at microsofts actual game sales since they went full steam ahead with gamepass, they're down by like 90%. People only play gamepass on Xbox.

The model kind of makes it not cost effective to go all in on prestige AAA experiences. You can see it in Halo infinite. Everything happened through voice notes and holograms. There was no real story there, when you killed a boss there was no cutscene or any dramatic death, the boss would literally flop to the ground and the music would hard cut to silence and you'd just awkwardly go on to the next area.

With Sony and third parties, they dont put these games on a service at launch so they actually have to have production value for people to buy it.

Yeah, but the goal is to sell additional content like cosmetics/battle passes and you need player engagement for that. they fully understand this. They dropped the ball with Halo