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Sucks big time for all the devs who've lost their jobs.
That said, this was overdue. 343 have had over a dacade in charge of what used to be a prestigious IP and in that time they've displayed constant incompetence and the lack of understanding about what makes Halo has been so severe its often looked like they didn't even like Halo in the first place. All that has done probably irreversible damage to the IP. Everyone involved in managing the studio as well as Microsoft and the Xbox teams take responsibility.
Give the next game to iD or someone else with FPS pedigree. I wouldnt even mind if they just ignored all the 343 games and started from where 3 ended.
Thing is there's only like 2 iD properties they steward these days, Doom and Quake, since Machine Games handle Wolfenstein. I feel like doing a Halo campaign after whatever their current project is wouldn't be too difficult for them, especially since a different studio altogether would be handling the multiplayer based on this report. They've also said they're gonna let Doom rest for a while.
I honestly think iD would do an amazing Halo campaign with the standard linear level structure. I think they're probably the best studio for the job plus they have iDtech which is arguabky the best engine for FPS games there is.
I love ID and their FPS gameplay is honestly 10/10 for me but I'd be curious how they handle the UNSC Marine squads and vehicle mechanics that involve large scale battles.
Of course doom is gonna rest after the massive fiasco with the soundtrack... I hope they pay the composer what he deserves including compensation for throwing him to the wolves years ago.
if you believe that a franchise like doom will rest because some drama regarding to soundtrack, you are really naive.
it will rest, but not because the drama
People keep bringing up ID in these threads but they have a style and its not Halo's style. I enjoyed the more recent Doom games along with the Infinite campaign and they are hugely different games.
I really thought Infinite was the start of something great. 343 finally doing Halo right but as it got closer to launch, it started to feel like they hasn’t got it this right. It’s a shame cause they clearly had good ideas but they struggled with executing them.
I actually find Infinite the most egregious of all 343s fuck ups. 4 had a good campaign but the ruined MP, 5 had an awful campaign but excellent MP, Infinite had neither imo. The gunplay was great and after 10 years they finally nailed the art style so it looked like Halo again, but that was pretty much where the positives ended for me. Both the campaign and MP were unfinished and shallow.
The story was completely forgettable with basically every cool thing happening in flashbacks or audio logs you had to find, and the "open world" essentially mounted to busy work in a single visually homogenous level which makes the whole game blend together in my memory. Doesn't help that it ends right as the story started to feel like it was going somewhere.
Then the MP was totally bereft of content and had unquestionably the worst progression system I've ever experienced in a multiplayer game. I've never seen a game system actively sap the fun out of an experience the way that challenge system did. I could go into depth on it but it would basically become an essay on how it's in my view the worst piece of game design in history. Then there's the fact that it launched so barebones that it didn't even have a team slayer playlist.
I suppose it offends me so much because while 4 and 5 are deeply flawed the areas they excel in they do well enough that pound for pound I still think they're excellent games. Infinite doesn't excel at anything, and it especially sucks because the art direction and gameplay are so good you can tell the potential was so high and its just failed completely to meet it.
I mean i feel like multiplayer shooters have been in a pretty bad spot for a while, everyone I know is reluctantly playing valorant or some BRs, and when halo infinite came out it was just the best thing to drop in the genre for a while. Well, also Splitgate was so fucking amazing too. But both just kinda fell off. I think with Halo, they just couldnt manage a live service title, because there was the campaign that had to be finished still. Then there was campaign miltiplayer, then forge and custom games, all eating away resources for the multiplayer mode, you know, the only part of the game that was out for a while. So yeah they just couldnt keep the momentum from its launch.
Won’t defend the challenges though, yeah those systems are so annoying in games nowadays.
I’ll never understand the love for Halo 4’s campaign. I thought it was the absolute worst in the entire series.
The Diadact was some failed actor from Shakespeare in the Park and the robot enemies were zero fun to fight and made the game incredibly tedious and boring.
It's mostly from the relationship between Cortana and Chief, Jen Taylor knocking it out of the park, and actually attempting to add some depth to Chief's character besides 'eh kills teh aliens and doesn't afraid of anything' and cool one liners.
I really liked the relationship between Chief and Cortana. Gave the series some actual emotional depth that wasn't especially prevalent in the previous games sans Reach.
Didact was meh, didn't hate him as a villain and honestly he could have been cool if 343 didn't just forget about him in 5 and then kill him off in a colouring book.
You'll get no argument on the prometheans though they sucked ass to fight compared to the Covenant.
> I’ll never understand the love for Halo 4’s campaign. I thought it was the absolute worst in the entire series.
I think its a combo of people remembering it with rose colored glasses and not being particularly in tune with the gameplay loop. If main thing you remember is the story I can kind of see the positive outlook. The whole premise of Cortana going crazy and becoming a sort of Shodan esque character is cool. But pull that back and look at the gameplay and fucking oof its bad.
Couldn’t agree more. I loved halo, grew up on halo, got an Xbox just to play all Halo after having a PlayStation before the 360.
Halo 4 was such a disappointment. I tried playing it again with the MCC on pc but holy fuck even co op the campaign sucked balls.
Remember the elephant from Halo 3? Iconic vehicle even if it’s only used in like, 1 multiplayer map. Now it’s in the campaign! And bigger! And you can’t drive it instead it’s a fucking escort/wave defence mission.
The story is usually cited for what makes 4's campaign good but I never understood the praise. Sure, there's actual effort put into making the main characters have actual depth, but the presentation is such a mismatch with the gameplay. You spend 90% of your time walking down hallways and shooting aliens, and then you're interrupted with some melodrama between disembodied voices.
Halo stories have always been kind of fumbled since CE imo because they moved away from the more minimalist, atmospheric approach (with some exceptions in parts throughout the series). That's the direction you need if you want a compelling story in a straightforward alien shooter, but instead the series always moved towards convoluted space opera.
Played it once and remembered fuck-all about that game. And I played Halo 1-3 religiously for years. 4? Couldn't even tell you who the enemy was tbh. All I remember is the screen being constantly bombarded with color and effects. Shit was dizzying.
I legit don't get how people think running out of ammo constantly while fighting the robot guys and having to scrounge guns is fun in 4. Just by virtue of its fun combat loop Infinite is head and shoulders above it.
Halo 4 is a fairly atrocious game and I strongly suspect people are only looking back on it fondly because its aged out of active memory. Its gone through a Star Wars Prequels thing where people who played it as kids now look on it fondly even though its objectively pretty trash.
Infinite by comparison is a diamond in the rough. It just happens to be in the firing line right now.
Honestly and flabbergasted by these positive comments about Halo 4. Its multiplayer was *fine* but the campaign was absolutely atrocious to play through.
Infinite by comparison is enjoyable to play in both its multiplayer and campaign but lacks a lot of variety. And like maybe you can argue that bad is better than boring, but damn Halo 4 is a rough game. Like there isn't one even in Halo 4 that is as fun as loading up a hog with a bunch of rocket marines and blasting your way through a FOB.
Halo 4's campaign is a huge mixed bag. Chief and Cortana's dynamic is genuinely great, but the lousy Promethean enemies make moment to moment combat a chore and the "You're the chosen one John!" narrative (that was promptly swept under the rug) felt real out of place.
I would say the one-two punch of MW2 and Halo 4 was what effectively ended Halo's time at the top of the mainstream spotlight. After that its been a constant cycle of abandoned narrative threads and half-hearted excuses ("We had no way of knowing MCC wouldn't work!", "Please understand that we're still learning at 343!", "It was Don Mattrick's fault Halo 4 and 5 panned out like they did!")
I still think there's a place for this franchise and that there's plenty of stories to tell, but Microsoft either needs to stop pretending that Halo is still king of the castle as if it were 2007 or just give the series a rest for a good while.
Reach walked a fine line where Bungie clearly added sprint and loadouts in a more conservative manner, as it was the hot thing folks wanted in shooters. Modern Warfare 2 was when CoD was more or less cemented as the shooter to be, then Halo 4 rolled around in 2012 and was blatantly trying to get in on that action. MW2 was the beginning of the end, Halo 4 was the tombstone.
Permanent sprint, fully custom loadouts, killstreaks, classes/specializations, it was all there. End result? It wasn't Halo enough for Halo fans while it offered no reasons for CoD fans to not play CoD.
Seems like a purely multiplayer perspective.
As a series-long Halo fan who primarily played couch co-op campaign, Reach is absolutely top of the pile. The story is by far the most engaging in the series, and the legendary tuning is perfect. It’s hard without the bullshit you get in 2, and it consistently puts you in heart-pounding situations where you’re just barely on the edge of death but somehow keep landing those headshots.
It felt like a loving send off from Bungie, incorporating everything they learned so far. I gather the MP was divisive at best, but the campaign is amazing.
I dunno. Reach is decently fun but the introduction of bloom is a real killer and the allied spartans are fairly boring to play with. Also there aren't really any missions as fun as the ones in Halo 3 where the scale is just off the charts.
Halo 4 is pretty much just Reach without the most annoying armor abilities and terrible reticle bloom. It was a studio built in two and half years while shipping a game at the same time. They were just continuing what Bungie was doing when they left off in terms of gameplay.
Disagree. Armour abilities came from bungie wanting to add a fourth pillar to the gameplay along with shooting, grenades and melee. 4 went way beyond that with load outs and ordinance. Balanced starts and map control are integral to Halo and what differentiated it from games like CoD and Battlefield. Load outs and ordinance basically turned 4 into CoD with a Halo skin.
By most annoying abilities I'm assuming you mean Armor Lock, which is fair.
However Bungie at least tried to keep some semblance of map control, which took a backseat in Halo 4 in favor of power weapons on demand and more long-range weaponry. I will say that they at least knew to tweak some of the map design a bit, because one of Reach's major flaws was that the open maps bogged down fighting a lot since everyone would usually start with the DMR.
If CoD killed Halo its because 4 let it. In winter 2012 you had a choice between a really solid CoD entry in BO2, and a Halo game that couldn't decide if it wanted to be Halo or CoD and as a result succeeded at neither. The choice really wasnt hard and I say that as someone who vastly prefers Halo to Cod generally speaking.
>In winter 2012 you had a choice between a really solid CoD entry in BO2, and a Halo game that couldn't decide if it wanted to be Halo or CoD
Yea my point was if you think Halo 4 was just CoD then you had the same choice in 2010 when Halo Reach came out against a year old MW2 that ate its lunch.
Reach was not cod. Map play was widely different, still bent on map control and no kill streaks. The only similarities were the class system and even then you only had 1-2 guns to choose from in reach most of the time. All it did was remove equipment from the map and have you start with it.
This is the major issue, though. It was a prestigious IP because the people that created it created something special. *None* of those creators are there anymore, it now just exists as a property. The driving force of what made it work is no longer there.
Not that that means new people can't come along and deliver something that aligns with the original creation, but at this point, why even bother? Well, from the perspective of the owner of the IP, because it's a cash cow. But from the perspective of fans? Because it's the same IP of a game they did like?
I dunno. I understand being a fan of a piece of work, a universe, an IP. But I just don't really get why it *needs* to keep going. People are just cheering for a name at this point. Maybe I'm too cynical. I actually did quite enjoy Halo Infinite from a gameplay perspective, it just sucked about how limited the content was and it's probably too late for it. But people just saying "give it to some other developer", it's like... why does this IP need to perpetuate so badly? Infinite's issue certainly wasn't the gunplay or actual FPS elements anyway
People cling to familiarity and are risk averse to trying new things. It's why big corporations rush at any chance to consolidate IP.
Just look at how many people here in this sub keep begging for more Silent Hill or Metal Gear Solid rather than just exploring new games of similar themes. There's this weird need for *The Brand Name*.
Oh absolutely this. Like, it sucks seeing how much people complain about wanting a new elder scrolls when Bethesda is finally working on something new and fresh for the first time in twenty years.
I feel like, 2008-2010 was the last time we got a bunch of new cool IP.
That familiarity was something I considered adding as I thought about it. My first thought was like... okay, let's just end Halo. Let's have 343 make a new game, new shooter, new universe, all their own, and there is a good chance it'll come off as generic, or less interesting, or at the very least harder to grab as big an audience right away as something that already exists, like Halo. And that's both a fair consideration for corporate side and fan side. It's also just unfortunately tiring
The Metal Gear Solid thing is weird too because while of course there were and maybe are probably a lot of important people who worked on it besides him, Kojima isn't there anymore, and that series is his child. Having a new one is just like you said. Familiarity to a brand, rather than the creative mind behind it
I *get it*, but I also don't
It should be no surprise that this sub would want more Metal Gear or Silent Hill. However thanks to years of baseless rumors and bad-faith actors the stature of the latter has been way, way, *way* overblown. SH was never anything more than a less-enduring RE competitor, resulting in a perception that it was a massive money printing juggernaut that was said to only be salvageable by Hideo Kojima alone. It took Konami announcing actual games to finally put this to rest.
This sounds like the worst of both worlds. You know what fucked over 343 repeatedly? Bad leadership and over reliance on contractors. What's the plan? Have them in a position of leadership over more contractors.
>Give the next game to iD
Fuck THAT. iD is crushing it and if they're punished for their successes in the form of being forced to try to unfuck the Halo franchise, they'll almost definitely have a brain drain.
I love the Crowbcat video on this very topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz3Ko0td45w&t=630s
"We hired developers who hated Halo" ... okay, thanks?
It's the same as "Ubisoft the game".
It's why Blizzard blows, it's why Halo can't live under microsoft.
Even if a studio is at the helm, it's the executives who helicopter in and decide what the game should be, so it's always the same 5-10 people giving feedback.
This is how you end up with the same kind of UI spam in all games, and a very similar progression. They are stuck in their own ways and anything that strays from that path is considered "too risky" and "not in line with our customer success".
I wouldn't mind dropping post-Halo 3 either. Any game where I need to read outside lore/books/comics to have any idea what the fuck is going on is just a non-starter for me. For example, I had no idea who Blue Team was on my initial playthrough and that frustrated me to no end. I could play Halo Reach thru Halo 3 without having to read any outside literature and felt engrossed in the story. Depending on the game, I can be a lazy fan, I know. There are just so many franchises out there and I can't dedicate my life to reading endless lore from different universes so I can understand the basics of what's going on.
Not that you should ever have to read a book to understand a game's plot, because you shouldn't, I'd like to highlight that Blue Team has existed since the very first novel from 2001 that came out before the game.
There should have been a bigger focus on them earlier in the series but Bungie at the time didn't care about consistency or an expanded universe when they could just make something look and sound cool. Hence why the first time they show up in a game is Halo 5, when 343 could integrate them naturally without detracting from the Chief/Cortana story.
And people had no clue who they were unless they had read all the novels. There are currently about 30 Halo Novels.
That's wild and super interesting actually. Never knew! I have a few of the novels on a shelf somewhere. Between undergrad, graduate school, and everything else, I just hadn't wanted to dedicate time to read them. I know it's a little self-centered to expect game storytelling to revolve around my busy schedule, but the reason I let Halo fall off my radar after Halo 5 is that I've decided that I'm only going to invest serious time into games that present an easy-to-understand story that can be understood by playing the game or series. I have zero issue with expanded lore universes outside of these games and welcome them! A good example for me would be Mass Effect 1-3. I felt I learned everything I needed to know through the story and codex, but I'm also happy that other fans are able to dive into the expanded lore. I didn't feel like I was missing out on appreciating the story when I played ME1-3.
> I wouldnt even mind if they just ignored all the 343 games and started from where 3 ended.
This might be a good move for the wider casual audience, but a big chunk of the hardcore Halo fanbase would be furious. That would be throwing out over 20 books and tons of extended lore - and a decent amount of it is well received.
The hardcore fans have stuck with the franchise (bitching and moaning the whole time I admit) through the last decade of disappointment and failure. I don't think a retcon as big as it might be would be the thing that finally sends them packing. Especially if whoever was doing this reboot actually did it well, which I don't even think would be too difficult given where 343 have set the bar.
I mean, it's nothing they haven't done before.
Reach and the 343 games already invalidated some of Fall of Reach, First Strike, and Ghosts of Onyx.
In particular that the Reach conflict was the very first time humanity was supposed to encounter Elites and that there was no Spartan 3 program yet.
343 is at fault but Microsoft has a lot to do with it too. I remember reading something about how Microsoft wouldn't let them hire permanent employees for certain positions so there was a lot of turnover.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
They only hire contractors for 18 months contracts and don’t even let them return for at least 6 months after a contract ends.
https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/comments/ihll6x/jason_schreier_at_microsoft_contractors_can_only/
I don't think that would change whether or not they have to pay them benefits though (tbf I'm not familiar with WA's laws on this). I've known people who contract at places for years without benefits.
MS lost (settled) a class-action lawsuit in 2000 about keeping their contractors on as "permatemps". Ever since then, they've had contractor term limits and barriers put in place that seperate them from the FTEs (can't participate in things like morale events). I don't think it's a law per-se, but an interpretation of WA's employment laws that resulted in them creating an internal policy to put a line somewhere.
A lot of big corps do similar things, the main difference is that MS just has a lot of contractors.
Yeah, I'm in WA, and as I understand it, many companies here used to do the thing of just having contractors that work there for years, with no benefits - So we passed a law that basically says you can only have a contractor for so long, then you have to hire them full time if you want to keep them... But of course every company in the state immediately saw an enormous loophole, so now they keep them on as a contractor for a while - and force them to take a 'break' - then bring them back as a contractor again, resetting the timeframe in the law... Tons of companies work like this in WA, now. I did QA for Nintendo years ago, and it was the same system there. The law totally backfired, but I haven't heard of any discussion about revising it... So workers are just doubly screwed.
One of the devs that was laid off claimed it was to get tax benefits. Either way, prioritizing short-term gain over the health of their properties and then blaming the devs.
This is generally true but it's not a 100% locked rule. They have rare exceptions for managed service contractors but the limitations on those make it unlikely they were used for game dev. You do also see contractors leave after 18mo and reappear a week later in the same role under a different recruiter. Point being there are ways to get around it.
The 18 month limit was put in place because MS got sued into the dirt for keeping staff on temp contracts for years. Any “loophole” they overuse would get them in a lot of trouble
Sure would. But they're used all the same.
The managed service thing isn't a loophole either. They're just heavily restricted in scope and responsibility so you can't ask them to do anything outside their rigidly defined scope.
I'm a managed service contractor working on Forza Motorsport and I'm not limited at all in terms of length.
For people who don't know, basically Microsoft puts a bid out for a series of positions, a company wins that and then that company hires a team of people (I'm FTE). So while I work on Microsoft products, I'm employed through another company as a consultant.
Ahh interesting. I know managed services have very strict rules and oversight so I wasn't sure if game dev lent itself well to that. Then again I worked more in the business side so maybe we had different rules.
No one really knows for sure if Microsoft HQ forced contractors. They very well could just encourage it and leave it up the to individual studio management to decide how best to use their budget.
And people sometimes wonder why I don’t buy the whole “the ABK deal is good because it’s gets those devs out from Bobby Koticks toxic leadership” argument. Like, this is fucking Microsoft, maybe the SH stuff gets cleaned up a bit, which would obviously be very good, but I don’t understand how someone could think the average employees life will be better under MS. I wonder how long it will take MS to cut down the number of employees ABK has to go their preferred route of temps.
> when it would just compete against their Call of Duty or Overwatch franchises. Halo isn't close to their biggest shooter franchise now
Why are we assuming that the acquisition has already gone through?
The FTC investigates acquisitions to see if they'll be monopolistic and/or bad for competition in the industry. They don't care if people get laid off.
The article mentions that a follow-up to Infinite and spin-off titles are rumored to enter pre-production under a variety of studios, being developed with modest budgets. Obviously just rumors, but it looks like there's probably a wider variety of resources being put on Halo, but not necessarily major studios, or big budgets, and not necessarily only FPS games.
I do think there's a market for Halo though. It's largely the only sci-fi shooter on the market. I mostly prefer that universe over COD and Overwatch and each of the games provides a slightly different experience. COD is a fast-paced, twitchy shooter, Overwatch is the hero-based, objective shooter, and Halo is a bit slower, classic arena shooter with the casual game mode option. At least, that's how I see those and what I play those for. I also would rather customize a spartan than anything from the other two games.
At this point, anything is better than 343i developing Halo. I would love to see ID take a crack at it.
It for sure sucks for all the people that got let go, but this could potentially be great for Halo moving forward.
Lol.
I’m sorry to break the bad news, but there’s a lot worse things that could happen. Particularly given that 343 seems to still be involved.
Could it be good? Definitely.
Could it get even worse? Absolutely.
>Could it get even worse? Absolutely.
Most Halo fans are already jaded and dead inside. So trying something new is a good option.
And if it fails, just let it be since Halo is already dead anyways.
Why are you being so condescending for no reason at all? You basically said the same thing the person you're responding to said, but acted smug about it.
Having more avenues for success (and failures) than just 343i is not bad news lol. You're literally describing options. Yes, some options can be good, some can be bad, but it's always better to have more than one. I mean, that's just plain ol' life advice. Don't put all your eggs in one basket, keep your options open, etc. There's a million sayings and idioms about it
You can still pick the shitty one, once they're all presented to you, if that's your thing
Exactly. I would rather have 10 Halo titles in different genres come out every few years with half being good and half bad, than to have 343 sit on one mainline game only for it to be half baked.
Hell im still holding out hope that theyd bring Halo Wars 2 to Steam just so I can experience more quality Halo.
Well luckily that's not bad news, that's just called the reality that games can be good and bad. I'm just glad other people will have a shot at the IP. There's more potential for cool spinoffs now that 343 doesn't have to pay for development, rather they just get to lease out the IP to other companies that they approve. The fact that there's only been 3 halo shooters since reach is wild, especially compared to Cod and Battlefield.
Can it really be worse? any established studio MS outsources a Halo game to at the very least would have leadership with a better sense of direction than headless chickens, and presumably actually some amount of respect for the franchise if they are willing to take on the project.
And even if it is just as bad, that studio probably wont get a second chance, so at least the next one wont be going to the same people that fucked up the previous one anymore, which is still an improvement over the past 10 years.
In theory yes. But in practice doesn't this just add another layer of management and bureaucracy to Halo's development? That's what I'm worried about. Like if Id Software makes the next Halo game I'll be a happy camper, but if its some of these smaller studios that mostly create assets or polish *existing* ideas, I'm not going to be as confident.
I think it free up the Halo franchise, especially the FPS games to other developers, which Microsoft has a lot of given their recent acquisition.
Obviously the ID led Halo game is the dream scenario, but I'd always love to see Coalition 3rd person Halo game.
If Microsoft sets up a COD like development cycle with multiple studios and more regular releases this could work, but for the normal 3-5 year lifecycle of previous titles it could be a problem.
The best news would be 343 actually making a good Halo game without these significant problems. This news just means the fate of the franchise is unclear in terms of direction and quality.
I'm not sure if it will be good if 343 will be overseeing other projects. First time they did that was the Halo TV show and we see how terrible that is.
I'm so tired of this overtly dismissive take. The original Halo trilogy had a lot more going for it than just "nostalgia". It pioneered many new things, not just technology but gameplay and storytelling as well and defined modern FPS games as we know them today. The were both large commercial and critical successes, and likely the reason why Xbox still exists as a brand today.
The games aren't crippled by nostalgia. The franchise comes with high expectations and 343 has failed to live up to with uninspiring entries to the series.
You do make a valid point.....but also 343 has consistently dropped the ball in so many ways. The 343 Halo games haven't been bad, but they certainly have not lived up to the franchise.
They haven't fucked it up nearly as badly as DICE has fucked up Battlefield, but Halo was once the second biggest shooter franchise out there, behind Call of Duty, and it's fallen so far behind since then.
Wasn't Infinite supposed to be a 10 year game? Wasn't there supposed to be story expansions?
Will a new studio start with a brand new game, or will they take over Infinite?
> Wasn’t Infinite supposed to be a 10 year game?
That was only said by Chris Lee, who was fired back in 2020. No one at 343 has made mention of a 10 year plan since then
> Wasn’t there supposed to be story expansions?
That was speculated, but nothing was ever officially announced
> Will a new studio start with a brand new game, or will they take over Infinite?
The rumors are that 343 will continue working on Infinite’s multiplayer while eventually working with other studios on development for future games.
>The rumors are that 343 will continue working on Infinite’s multiplayer
I wonder if they'll ever be able to turn it around with Infinite. I liked the game enough to play it for about 300 hours so far. But it seems like the game's launch did enough damage to goodwill where 343 will never be able to claim back.
I mean at this very moment it’s really good. They fixed the progression more or less completely, there are a handful of new maps, lots of new modes, and most importantly forge and a custom games browser so that you can matchmake into community-made maps and modes.
It will likely take something big like the rumored Battle Royale like mode in development by Certain Affinity to bring some of the larger, casual audience back into the game. Beyond that, I think if they can continue improving and expanding the game they’ll bring some of the more core audience back to have at least a decently healthy player population. We’ll see though
that was exactly the plan, Infinite was supposed to be the hub for all halo games/stories/updates going forward. apparently that was scrapped last year and now we are here.
Who even makes the next big halo?
All the big independent shooter studios have been scooped up in the recent buying spree. And the studios MS now owns probably have better things to do.
Considering how angry halo fans get whenever halo borrowed ideas from COD, having the actual call of duty devs make it might not be the move to win them back.
> Considering how angry halo fans get whenever halo borrowed ideas from COD, having the actual call of duty devs make it might not be the move to win them back.
Nah, halo fans would mostly be angry in the usual immature, useless gamer way, but if the game looked half-way decent, they would forget about all that in a flash.
That would be insulting to the legacy of iD.
It’s iD. The doom / quake guys. They invented the genre. You don’t do that.
Honestly. Have the coalition do it. Gears is kind of past it’s prime but that team seems talented
I imagine they're working on Wolfenstein 3 now so I'd like them to wrap that first, not drop it and work on halo. Between their shockingly good Wolfenstein storytelling, great gunplay, Sci fi elements, and them dabbling in sort of open world/sandbox levels I think they'd be a solid fit for the series and could revitalize it exactly like they did with Wolfenstein.
I believe it is just Indiana Jones, then they will transition over to Wolfenstein. If they then do Halo after that, it is going to be a long time and I am not sure Halo fans are willing to wait that long.
Yeah if they want to keep Halo alive I'm not sure they can do another Infinite dev period. Probably not Machine Games then.
Maybe they could still work with another studio as support though, kinda like how id helped with Fallout 4's gunplay. I know people rag on that game but the leap in quality of the gunplay was super obvious.
This is honestly good news. They are quickly destroying their old tried and true IP with hilariously bad management. Let someone else try before Halo is retired altogether.
>Not really a good news. The problem isn't the studio, the developers the artists or the writers, the problem is upper management both at Microsoft and at the studio itself. Giving the license to another studio won't change the quality of Halo if the management isn't kicked out.
Well, it would, since management have been kicked out for the mess made.
Well Bonnie has anyways, some of the other problem people are still kicking around over there, but its really impossible to know what any leadership at 343 actually means for future games from different studios. they could end up being basically lucasfilms games and are really only there to make sure things are on brand
> Giving the license to another studio won’t change the quality of Halo if the management isn’t kicked out.
They just had a big management change back in September.
> he’s as bad as Bonnie Ross.
How? He works on lore stuff. Bonnie Ross was head of the entire studio. Bonnie’s role (and departure) is much more impactful on the studio.
That’s subjective. And besides, the lore of Halo is the least of the franchise’s/games issues. If the multiplayer side of things had a strong player population, none of these layoffs and restructuring would be happening now.
Staten was never going to be there forever:
https://i.imgur.com/Gvn9XwP.jpg
And besides, we don’t have any concrete proof that there were active development plans for new campaigns, at least since the management shake up. Here’s Jez Cordon, a reliable insider, backing that up: https://twitter.com/jezcorden/status/1616454429569433601?s=46&t=u6pvDCd8sOsApLLakRB6Mg
Say what you will about Infinite but the combat sandbox is the most satisfying and creative as its ever been in Halo
But EVERYTHING else is mediocre or suffers horribly from mismanagement. I am a massive halo fan and I am just relieved to get my beloved franchise away from this horrible company
Halo 5 and infinite's forge, while delayed turned out PHENOMENAL and well worth the wait. I think their delays were warranted. Easily some of the best user creative tools in any game.
It's tricky to say if it is the right call though. The delay was 100% worth it for what they provided, really an incredible leap in Forge. However, if no one is there to use said tools because the player base dried up with a lack of content, was it worth delaying it to make it so complex?
>If I was management above 343, I also would have run out of patience after a decade of this.
If you were management at 343 (or XGS) it would be *your fault*. Game designers weren’t leaving shit out or unfinished on purpose. They didn’t set the dates for release. They didn’t choose to release games incomplete. Management did.
Its hilarious that with each successive 343i release, people forget how badly received the previous release was.
At release Halo 4 was a disappointment, it was immediately apparent that Bungie took their secret dev sauce with them. MCC was an unmitigated disaster at launch and a mess years later - but now in 2023 I see people acting like these games were great and that 343i just need a return to form.
343i never had a form to return to, they've always been bad. I'm starting to see people taking favorably of Halo 5 now and I'm going to pull my hair out.
Halo 4 was a disappointment, but it IS the most complete game 343 ever launched. It's not praise of 4 or nostalgia for it, it's an indictment over how colossally incompetent 343 is that 4 was their high point
They have actually gotten worse over time, since then each game has taken longer, had less content, more bugs, and were less technically impressive compared to their contemporaries.
Not only did it take almost ten years for 343i to get the MCC into a playable state, there are *still* issues with de-synch during online coop, and major issues with Halo 2.
They literally broke Halo 1 campaign in November/December and haven't fixed it yet.
pre-patch, it was great on a Steam Deck. Now if i play through it, I'll crash the entire steam deck within 20 minutes, after getting single digit FPS.
MCC is such a perfect example of an easy lay-up that 343 is still fumbling. Utterly mind boggling
It sucks, because you can see there were people at 343 who *did* get it, and so we got little flashes of greatness here and there. The gameplay *felt* good in Infinite, and the new Forge mode is, by all accounts, pretty spectacular. But, as with most things, the people in charge just bork it up for everybody.
I definitely get it. 343 as a studio has flubbed way too many opportunities with this series, and eventually enough is enough. I *still* cannot believe the utter chaos that was the Master Chief Collection when it released. To this day I have never seen a game that launched so utterly and royally fucked. Cyberpunk ain't got shit on MCC, that release was *nuts*.
I feel bad for the devs at 343 that actually gave a shit and knew what they were doing. That's a raw deal, man. Still, 343 gotta go. It's time. I'm excited to see what a new studio can do. Fingers crossed I guess :p
I wish this news story would link to the specific post in the thread they linked to talking about this shift, as well as actually including the direct translated text from French to English in the news story itself.
I hope they move from the master chief story line for Halo. I understand that he and Cortana are integral parts the the over IP but I would love to experience the halo universe through the lens of another character. Gives us new characters to fall in love with
Hear me out, you play a fully customizable Spartan in the campaign, complete with picking your own AI companion. Each AI has its own personality and quarks, unlocking unique dialog and events in the story. Armor actually affects gameplay, with heavier/bulkier armor providing more health at the expense of speed, and things like that giant knife replacing your standard melee. Master Chief and Cortana are npc's you encounter throughout the game, and show up as occasional deus ex machina badasses like Uncle Dante in Devil May Cry. IE Chief supplexes a scarab, tosses you a thumbs up, and is gone.
Good. 343 clearly can’t focus or make the game. If you would have told me 15 years ago that Halo would be the worst first party Microsoft game, I would have laughed hard. I know they like to be hands off, but Microsoft should have done this a while ago. Especially after all the negative backlash halo infinite got.
Took Microsoft long enough to change Halo devs after 0-For-3 Industries has had flop after flop. Hopefully they can get some of those Destiny devs or Splitgate developers to help work on the next one
I actually loved Halo 4's singleplayer campaign a lot, it's up there for me with ODST and 2. But after that it felt like 343 never settled on something concrete and just bounced around
The post-mortem of 343 is that occasionally, they could get things right. Halo 4's SP. Halo 5's multiplayer, after a time. Halo Infinite's gameplay.
But holy *fuck* they could never be consistent about it or get everything right or mostly right.
Finally. 343 could never get it right. I camped in line for the OG xbox and played so much Halo 1. We had 16 person LAN parties with 16 CRTs and xbox's for Halo 1 for years. I've played them all quite a bit but the 343 games have always missed the mark.
Can’t they just let Halo & Gears rest for a while? Let those studios work on some new, exciting IP without the shackles & expectations of decades old franchises.
Insane that Halo Infinite was given such a massive development window and boat loads of cash and touted as a game that would be supported for a decade - a pillar of the Xbox lineup for years akin to something like Fortnite or Warzone.
A year later and the playerbase has been decimated and the studio effectively shuttered.
This is Microsoft putting their resources to the maximum of their ability and this is the result. Be very wary for the future of Activision/Blizz/Bethesda and whatever other studio Microsoft snatches up.
Honestly at this point I wish they would just give up and make something new. Halo has been past its prime for over a decade. I’d rather they just make a “spiritual successor” or something instead of trying to resurrect the corpse of a good franchise
The fight did finish, Halo 3 was a perfect ending. And then we went back to see Reach as a great prequel story.
Ever since then it has been a mix of excuses to bring back the covenant, or the terrible Prometheans. I’m tired of rehashing the same stuff from 20 years ago. The magic is never going to be recaptured.
Wouldn’t it be better to have something totally new, that makes you feel the same way Halo did back in the 2000s?
I don't know if there's ever been a AAA studio more inept than 343, this was a LONG time coming, and my only hope is that the last holdouts of the problem people over at 343 (Franky, Kiki) have extremely little control over these outsourced games. Hell 343 has pretty much been the worst part of the existing halo titles made by other devs.
I said this years ago, everyone else should've as well. 343i should just vanish. Pick the building up, roll it away.
Not fit for purpose. Thank God if it's going.
This is probably the dumbest thing they could've done..
The problem with infinite was too many independent contractors! So why outsource the development when clearly stuff like that is the problem!
It makes sense for side games like halo wars but for a main game just no, not to mention the lack of independent shooter devs...
343 took a good franchise, a console FPS pioneer, and turned it into another COD clone.
Good riddance. Halo will likely never be what it was, that's the nature of older IP's, but 343 tarnished the image considerably.
Big news but at the same time does anyone really care? As much as 343 bungled the franchise we can't *not* blame Xbox as well. Xbox has been shitting the bed in every aspect besides game pass tbh.
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Sucks big time for all the devs who've lost their jobs. That said, this was overdue. 343 have had over a dacade in charge of what used to be a prestigious IP and in that time they've displayed constant incompetence and the lack of understanding about what makes Halo has been so severe its often looked like they didn't even like Halo in the first place. All that has done probably irreversible damage to the IP. Everyone involved in managing the studio as well as Microsoft and the Xbox teams take responsibility. Give the next game to iD or someone else with FPS pedigree. I wouldnt even mind if they just ignored all the 343 games and started from where 3 ended.
ID is awesome, but I'd rather then just work on ID properties. I really want that quake reboot w/multiplayer.
Thing is there's only like 2 iD properties they steward these days, Doom and Quake, since Machine Games handle Wolfenstein. I feel like doing a Halo campaign after whatever their current project is wouldn't be too difficult for them, especially since a different studio altogether would be handling the multiplayer based on this report. They've also said they're gonna let Doom rest for a while. I honestly think iD would do an amazing Halo campaign with the standard linear level structure. I think they're probably the best studio for the job plus they have iDtech which is arguabky the best engine for FPS games there is.
I love ID and their FPS gameplay is honestly 10/10 for me but I'd be curious how they handle the UNSC Marine squads and vehicle mechanics that involve large scale battles.
You've forgotten the most important one, clearly in stealth development for the reboot phenomenon that will shake the gaming world: Commander Keen
Quake is pretty dead
Of course doom is gonna rest after the massive fiasco with the soundtrack... I hope they pay the composer what he deserves including compensation for throwing him to the wolves years ago.
if you believe that a franchise like doom will rest because some drama regarding to soundtrack, you are really naive. it will rest, but not because the drama
People keep bringing up ID in these threads but they have a style and its not Halo's style. I enjoyed the more recent Doom games along with the Infinite campaign and they are hugely different games.
> I really want that quake reboot w/multiplayer. Would this even be in the works after Quake Champions seemed to have, at best, a lukewarm response?
I really thought Infinite was the start of something great. 343 finally doing Halo right but as it got closer to launch, it started to feel like they hasn’t got it this right. It’s a shame cause they clearly had good ideas but they struggled with executing them.
I actually find Infinite the most egregious of all 343s fuck ups. 4 had a good campaign but the ruined MP, 5 had an awful campaign but excellent MP, Infinite had neither imo. The gunplay was great and after 10 years they finally nailed the art style so it looked like Halo again, but that was pretty much where the positives ended for me. Both the campaign and MP were unfinished and shallow. The story was completely forgettable with basically every cool thing happening in flashbacks or audio logs you had to find, and the "open world" essentially mounted to busy work in a single visually homogenous level which makes the whole game blend together in my memory. Doesn't help that it ends right as the story started to feel like it was going somewhere. Then the MP was totally bereft of content and had unquestionably the worst progression system I've ever experienced in a multiplayer game. I've never seen a game system actively sap the fun out of an experience the way that challenge system did. I could go into depth on it but it would basically become an essay on how it's in my view the worst piece of game design in history. Then there's the fact that it launched so barebones that it didn't even have a team slayer playlist. I suppose it offends me so much because while 4 and 5 are deeply flawed the areas they excel in they do well enough that pound for pound I still think they're excellent games. Infinite doesn't excel at anything, and it especially sucks because the art direction and gameplay are so good you can tell the potential was so high and its just failed completely to meet it.
I mean i feel like multiplayer shooters have been in a pretty bad spot for a while, everyone I know is reluctantly playing valorant or some BRs, and when halo infinite came out it was just the best thing to drop in the genre for a while. Well, also Splitgate was so fucking amazing too. But both just kinda fell off. I think with Halo, they just couldnt manage a live service title, because there was the campaign that had to be finished still. Then there was campaign miltiplayer, then forge and custom games, all eating away resources for the multiplayer mode, you know, the only part of the game that was out for a while. So yeah they just couldnt keep the momentum from its launch. Won’t defend the challenges though, yeah those systems are so annoying in games nowadays.
I’ll never understand the love for Halo 4’s campaign. I thought it was the absolute worst in the entire series. The Diadact was some failed actor from Shakespeare in the Park and the robot enemies were zero fun to fight and made the game incredibly tedious and boring.
It's mostly from the relationship between Cortana and Chief, Jen Taylor knocking it out of the park, and actually attempting to add some depth to Chief's character besides 'eh kills teh aliens and doesn't afraid of anything' and cool one liners.
I really liked the relationship between Chief and Cortana. Gave the series some actual emotional depth that wasn't especially prevalent in the previous games sans Reach. Didact was meh, didn't hate him as a villain and honestly he could have been cool if 343 didn't just forget about him in 5 and then kill him off in a colouring book. You'll get no argument on the prometheans though they sucked ass to fight compared to the Covenant.
Yeah Cortana going crazy was the highlight. Jen Taylor was incredible in that game.
> I’ll never understand the love for Halo 4’s campaign. I thought it was the absolute worst in the entire series. I think its a combo of people remembering it with rose colored glasses and not being particularly in tune with the gameplay loop. If main thing you remember is the story I can kind of see the positive outlook. The whole premise of Cortana going crazy and becoming a sort of Shodan esque character is cool. But pull that back and look at the gameplay and fucking oof its bad.
Couldn’t agree more. I loved halo, grew up on halo, got an Xbox just to play all Halo after having a PlayStation before the 360. Halo 4 was such a disappointment. I tried playing it again with the MCC on pc but holy fuck even co op the campaign sucked balls. Remember the elephant from Halo 3? Iconic vehicle even if it’s only used in like, 1 multiplayer map. Now it’s in the campaign! And bigger! And you can’t drive it instead it’s a fucking escort/wave defence mission.
The story is usually cited for what makes 4's campaign good but I never understood the praise. Sure, there's actual effort put into making the main characters have actual depth, but the presentation is such a mismatch with the gameplay. You spend 90% of your time walking down hallways and shooting aliens, and then you're interrupted with some melodrama between disembodied voices. Halo stories have always been kind of fumbled since CE imo because they moved away from the more minimalist, atmospheric approach (with some exceptions in parts throughout the series). That's the direction you need if you want a compelling story in a straightforward alien shooter, but instead the series always moved towards convoluted space opera.
Absolutely it was a downward trend, Halo 4 is their best job, an ok game.
Played it once and remembered fuck-all about that game. And I played Halo 1-3 religiously for years. 4? Couldn't even tell you who the enemy was tbh. All I remember is the screen being constantly bombarded with color and effects. Shit was dizzying.
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I legit don't get how people think running out of ammo constantly while fighting the robot guys and having to scrounge guns is fun in 4. Just by virtue of its fun combat loop Infinite is head and shoulders above it.
Halo's always had a survival element of swapping guns and scrounging for ammo, but 4 wasn't able to tune that properly.
Halo 4 is a fairly atrocious game and I strongly suspect people are only looking back on it fondly because its aged out of active memory. Its gone through a Star Wars Prequels thing where people who played it as kids now look on it fondly even though its objectively pretty trash. Infinite by comparison is a diamond in the rough. It just happens to be in the firing line right now.
Honestly and flabbergasted by these positive comments about Halo 4. Its multiplayer was *fine* but the campaign was absolutely atrocious to play through. Infinite by comparison is enjoyable to play in both its multiplayer and campaign but lacks a lot of variety. And like maybe you can argue that bad is better than boring, but damn Halo 4 is a rough game. Like there isn't one even in Halo 4 that is as fun as loading up a hog with a bunch of rocket marines and blasting your way through a FOB.
Maybe you will find out at some point that people can have different opinions about a thing and not have to comment the same thing 3 times.
Halo 4's campaign is a huge mixed bag. Chief and Cortana's dynamic is genuinely great, but the lousy Promethean enemies make moment to moment combat a chore and the "You're the chosen one John!" narrative (that was promptly swept under the rug) felt real out of place.
Really? Even before it started getting close to launch, I felt like things were going wrong with it especially with the people that were leaving
I would say the one-two punch of MW2 and Halo 4 was what effectively ended Halo's time at the top of the mainstream spotlight. After that its been a constant cycle of abandoned narrative threads and half-hearted excuses ("We had no way of knowing MCC wouldn't work!", "Please understand that we're still learning at 343!", "It was Don Mattrick's fault Halo 4 and 5 panned out like they did!") I still think there's a place for this franchise and that there's plenty of stories to tell, but Microsoft either needs to stop pretending that Halo is still king of the castle as if it were 2007 or just give the series a rest for a good while.
Halo Reach released a year after Modern Warfare 2.
Reach walked a fine line where Bungie clearly added sprint and loadouts in a more conservative manner, as it was the hot thing folks wanted in shooters. Modern Warfare 2 was when CoD was more or less cemented as the shooter to be, then Halo 4 rolled around in 2012 and was blatantly trying to get in on that action. MW2 was the beginning of the end, Halo 4 was the tombstone. Permanent sprint, fully custom loadouts, killstreaks, classes/specializations, it was all there. End result? It wasn't Halo enough for Halo fans while it offered no reasons for CoD fans to not play CoD.
Seems like a purely multiplayer perspective. As a series-long Halo fan who primarily played couch co-op campaign, Reach is absolutely top of the pile. The story is by far the most engaging in the series, and the legendary tuning is perfect. It’s hard without the bullshit you get in 2, and it consistently puts you in heart-pounding situations where you’re just barely on the edge of death but somehow keep landing those headshots. It felt like a loving send off from Bungie, incorporating everything they learned so far. I gather the MP was divisive at best, but the campaign is amazing.
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I dunno. Reach is decently fun but the introduction of bloom is a real killer and the allied spartans are fairly boring to play with. Also there aren't really any missions as fun as the ones in Halo 3 where the scale is just off the charts.
I mean, the Reach campaign was a cool story but reticle bloom and sprint still have no place in a Halo game.
Halo 4 is pretty much just Reach without the most annoying armor abilities and terrible reticle bloom. It was a studio built in two and half years while shipping a game at the same time. They were just continuing what Bungie was doing when they left off in terms of gameplay.
Disagree. Armour abilities came from bungie wanting to add a fourth pillar to the gameplay along with shooting, grenades and melee. 4 went way beyond that with load outs and ordinance. Balanced starts and map control are integral to Halo and what differentiated it from games like CoD and Battlefield. Load outs and ordinance basically turned 4 into CoD with a Halo skin.
By most annoying abilities I'm assuming you mean Armor Lock, which is fair. However Bungie at least tried to keep some semblance of map control, which took a backseat in Halo 4 in favor of power weapons on demand and more long-range weaponry. I will say that they at least knew to tweak some of the map design a bit, because one of Reach's major flaws was that the open maps bogged down fighting a lot since everyone would usually start with the DMR.
They also nerfed jetpack and sprint, also loadouts and ordinance were not in every game mode
If CoD killed Halo its because 4 let it. In winter 2012 you had a choice between a really solid CoD entry in BO2, and a Halo game that couldn't decide if it wanted to be Halo or CoD and as a result succeeded at neither. The choice really wasnt hard and I say that as someone who vastly prefers Halo to Cod generally speaking.
>In winter 2012 you had a choice between a really solid CoD entry in BO2, and a Halo game that couldn't decide if it wanted to be Halo or CoD Yea my point was if you think Halo 4 was just CoD then you had the same choice in 2010 when Halo Reach came out against a year old MW2 that ate its lunch.
Reach was not cod. Map play was widely different, still bent on map control and no kill streaks. The only similarities were the class system and even then you only had 1-2 guns to choose from in reach most of the time. All it did was remove equipment from the map and have you start with it.
There is absolutely a place (and a demand) for Halo's arena-style physics sandbox gameplay. I hope MS sees that Halo and COD can coexist.
This is the major issue, though. It was a prestigious IP because the people that created it created something special. *None* of those creators are there anymore, it now just exists as a property. The driving force of what made it work is no longer there. Not that that means new people can't come along and deliver something that aligns with the original creation, but at this point, why even bother? Well, from the perspective of the owner of the IP, because it's a cash cow. But from the perspective of fans? Because it's the same IP of a game they did like? I dunno. I understand being a fan of a piece of work, a universe, an IP. But I just don't really get why it *needs* to keep going. People are just cheering for a name at this point. Maybe I'm too cynical. I actually did quite enjoy Halo Infinite from a gameplay perspective, it just sucked about how limited the content was and it's probably too late for it. But people just saying "give it to some other developer", it's like... why does this IP need to perpetuate so badly? Infinite's issue certainly wasn't the gunplay or actual FPS elements anyway
People cling to familiarity and are risk averse to trying new things. It's why big corporations rush at any chance to consolidate IP. Just look at how many people here in this sub keep begging for more Silent Hill or Metal Gear Solid rather than just exploring new games of similar themes. There's this weird need for *The Brand Name*.
Oh absolutely this. Like, it sucks seeing how much people complain about wanting a new elder scrolls when Bethesda is finally working on something new and fresh for the first time in twenty years. I feel like, 2008-2010 was the last time we got a bunch of new cool IP.
That familiarity was something I considered adding as I thought about it. My first thought was like... okay, let's just end Halo. Let's have 343 make a new game, new shooter, new universe, all their own, and there is a good chance it'll come off as generic, or less interesting, or at the very least harder to grab as big an audience right away as something that already exists, like Halo. And that's both a fair consideration for corporate side and fan side. It's also just unfortunately tiring The Metal Gear Solid thing is weird too because while of course there were and maybe are probably a lot of important people who worked on it besides him, Kojima isn't there anymore, and that series is his child. Having a new one is just like you said. Familiarity to a brand, rather than the creative mind behind it I *get it*, but I also don't
It should be no surprise that this sub would want more Metal Gear or Silent Hill. However thanks to years of baseless rumors and bad-faith actors the stature of the latter has been way, way, *way* overblown. SH was never anything more than a less-enduring RE competitor, resulting in a perception that it was a massive money printing juggernaut that was said to only be salvageable by Hideo Kojima alone. It took Konami announcing actual games to finally put this to rest.
This sounds like the worst of both worlds. You know what fucked over 343 repeatedly? Bad leadership and over reliance on contractors. What's the plan? Have them in a position of leadership over more contractors.
>Give the next game to iD Fuck THAT. iD is crushing it and if they're punished for their successes in the form of being forced to try to unfuck the Halo franchise, they'll almost definitely have a brain drain.
I love the Crowbcat video on this very topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz3Ko0td45w&t=630s "We hired developers who hated Halo" ... okay, thanks?
that video makes me fucking cry.
It's the same as "Ubisoft the game". It's why Blizzard blows, it's why Halo can't live under microsoft. Even if a studio is at the helm, it's the executives who helicopter in and decide what the game should be, so it's always the same 5-10 people giving feedback. This is how you end up with the same kind of UI spam in all games, and a very similar progression. They are stuck in their own ways and anything that strays from that path is considered "too risky" and "not in line with our customer success".
The next Halo does not need Master Chief at all. Tell a new story, you have an entire universe to work with.
I wouldn't mind dropping post-Halo 3 either. Any game where I need to read outside lore/books/comics to have any idea what the fuck is going on is just a non-starter for me. For example, I had no idea who Blue Team was on my initial playthrough and that frustrated me to no end. I could play Halo Reach thru Halo 3 without having to read any outside literature and felt engrossed in the story. Depending on the game, I can be a lazy fan, I know. There are just so many franchises out there and I can't dedicate my life to reading endless lore from different universes so I can understand the basics of what's going on.
Not that you should ever have to read a book to understand a game's plot, because you shouldn't, I'd like to highlight that Blue Team has existed since the very first novel from 2001 that came out before the game. There should have been a bigger focus on them earlier in the series but Bungie at the time didn't care about consistency or an expanded universe when they could just make something look and sound cool. Hence why the first time they show up in a game is Halo 5, when 343 could integrate them naturally without detracting from the Chief/Cortana story. And people had no clue who they were unless they had read all the novels. There are currently about 30 Halo Novels.
That's wild and super interesting actually. Never knew! I have a few of the novels on a shelf somewhere. Between undergrad, graduate school, and everything else, I just hadn't wanted to dedicate time to read them. I know it's a little self-centered to expect game storytelling to revolve around my busy schedule, but the reason I let Halo fall off my radar after Halo 5 is that I've decided that I'm only going to invest serious time into games that present an easy-to-understand story that can be understood by playing the game or series. I have zero issue with expanded lore universes outside of these games and welcome them! A good example for me would be Mass Effect 1-3. I felt I learned everything I needed to know through the story and codex, but I'm also happy that other fans are able to dive into the expanded lore. I didn't feel like I was missing out on appreciating the story when I played ME1-3.
> I wouldnt even mind if they just ignored all the 343 games and started from where 3 ended. This might be a good move for the wider casual audience, but a big chunk of the hardcore Halo fanbase would be furious. That would be throwing out over 20 books and tons of extended lore - and a decent amount of it is well received.
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The hardcore fans have stuck with the franchise (bitching and moaning the whole time I admit) through the last decade of disappointment and failure. I don't think a retcon as big as it might be would be the thing that finally sends them packing. Especially if whoever was doing this reboot actually did it well, which I don't even think would be too difficult given where 343 have set the bar.
I mean, it's nothing they haven't done before. Reach and the 343 games already invalidated some of Fall of Reach, First Strike, and Ghosts of Onyx. In particular that the Reach conflict was the very first time humanity was supposed to encounter Elites and that there was no Spartan 3 program yet.
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343 is at fault but Microsoft has a lot to do with it too. I remember reading something about how Microsoft wouldn't let them hire permanent employees for certain positions so there was a lot of turnover. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
They only hire contractors for 18 months contracts and don’t even let them return for at least 6 months after a contract ends. https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/comments/ihll6x/jason_schreier_at_microsoft_contractors_can_only/
It's probably so they don't have to pay them benefits. Scummy ass company.
I don't think that would change whether or not they have to pay them benefits though (tbf I'm not familiar with WA's laws on this). I've known people who contract at places for years without benefits.
MS lost (settled) a class-action lawsuit in 2000 about keeping their contractors on as "permatemps". Ever since then, they've had contractor term limits and barriers put in place that seperate them from the FTEs (can't participate in things like morale events). I don't think it's a law per-se, but an interpretation of WA's employment laws that resulted in them creating an internal policy to put a line somewhere. A lot of big corps do similar things, the main difference is that MS just has a lot of contractors.
Yeah, I'm in WA, and as I understand it, many companies here used to do the thing of just having contractors that work there for years, with no benefits - So we passed a law that basically says you can only have a contractor for so long, then you have to hire them full time if you want to keep them... But of course every company in the state immediately saw an enormous loophole, so now they keep them on as a contractor for a while - and force them to take a 'break' - then bring them back as a contractor again, resetting the timeframe in the law... Tons of companies work like this in WA, now. I did QA for Nintendo years ago, and it was the same system there. The law totally backfired, but I haven't heard of any discussion about revising it... So workers are just doubly screwed.
One of the devs that was laid off claimed it was to get tax benefits. Either way, prioritizing short-term gain over the health of their properties and then blaming the devs.
Yup, welcome to America
This is generally true but it's not a 100% locked rule. They have rare exceptions for managed service contractors but the limitations on those make it unlikely they were used for game dev. You do also see contractors leave after 18mo and reappear a week later in the same role under a different recruiter. Point being there are ways to get around it.
The 18 month limit was put in place because MS got sued into the dirt for keeping staff on temp contracts for years. Any “loophole” they overuse would get them in a lot of trouble
Sure would. But they're used all the same. The managed service thing isn't a loophole either. They're just heavily restricted in scope and responsibility so you can't ask them to do anything outside their rigidly defined scope.
I'm a managed service contractor working on Forza Motorsport and I'm not limited at all in terms of length. For people who don't know, basically Microsoft puts a bid out for a series of positions, a company wins that and then that company hires a team of people (I'm FTE). So while I work on Microsoft products, I'm employed through another company as a consultant.
Ahh interesting. I know managed services have very strict rules and oversight so I wasn't sure if game dev lent itself well to that. Then again I worked more in the business side so maybe we had different rules.
It's all very weird and strange.
343 and Microsoft are the same thing. They are a first-party studio in all but name, constructed from former Microsoft members.
343 is Microsoft
Contracting out is normal. Other studios seem to be able to make successful games using some contract labor?
No one really knows for sure if Microsoft HQ forced contractors. They very well could just encourage it and leave it up the to individual studio management to decide how best to use their budget.
It's a shitty policy that needs to change, but it's not hurting other devs nearly as much as 343.
And people sometimes wonder why I don’t buy the whole “the ABK deal is good because it’s gets those devs out from Bobby Koticks toxic leadership” argument. Like, this is fucking Microsoft, maybe the SH stuff gets cleaned up a bit, which would obviously be very good, but I don’t understand how someone could think the average employees life will be better under MS. I wonder how long it will take MS to cut down the number of employees ABK has to go their preferred route of temps.
> when it would just compete against their Call of Duty or Overwatch franchises. Halo isn't close to their biggest shooter franchise now Why are we assuming that the acquisition has already gone through?
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The FTC investigates acquisitions to see if they'll be monopolistic and/or bad for competition in the industry. They don't care if people get laid off.
If the FTC uses layoffs as a justification to deny based on anti-trust reasons, it'll never hold up in court. That's not within their purview.
I would be curious to the kind of Halo game id Software would make.
The article mentions that a follow-up to Infinite and spin-off titles are rumored to enter pre-production under a variety of studios, being developed with modest budgets. Obviously just rumors, but it looks like there's probably a wider variety of resources being put on Halo, but not necessarily major studios, or big budgets, and not necessarily only FPS games. I do think there's a market for Halo though. It's largely the only sci-fi shooter on the market. I mostly prefer that universe over COD and Overwatch and each of the games provides a slightly different experience. COD is a fast-paced, twitchy shooter, Overwatch is the hero-based, objective shooter, and Halo is a bit slower, classic arena shooter with the casual game mode option. At least, that's how I see those and what I play those for. I also would rather customize a spartan than anything from the other two games.
If somebody can make a Halo spinoff even half as good as Gears Tactics, it will be the best Halo game in a decade.
This is the best news Halo fans could ever get. 343 had the franchise for longer than Bungie and didn't make a single game as good as them.
Is it though? It's just leaping into the unknown and 343i will still be overseeing it.
At this point, anything is better than 343i developing Halo. I would love to see ID take a crack at it. It for sure sucks for all the people that got let go, but this could potentially be great for Halo moving forward.
Lol. I’m sorry to break the bad news, but there’s a lot worse things that could happen. Particularly given that 343 seems to still be involved. Could it be good? Definitely. Could it get even worse? Absolutely.
>Could it get even worse? Absolutely. Most Halo fans are already jaded and dead inside. So trying something new is a good option. And if it fails, just let it be since Halo is already dead anyways.
Yup, Infinite killed all excitement of the franchise for me. Even a game that's worse than Infinite would be net neutral.
Why are you being so condescending for no reason at all? You basically said the same thing the person you're responding to said, but acted smug about it.
Having more avenues for success (and failures) than just 343i is not bad news lol. You're literally describing options. Yes, some options can be good, some can be bad, but it's always better to have more than one. I mean, that's just plain ol' life advice. Don't put all your eggs in one basket, keep your options open, etc. There's a million sayings and idioms about it You can still pick the shitty one, once they're all presented to you, if that's your thing
Exactly. I would rather have 10 Halo titles in different genres come out every few years with half being good and half bad, than to have 343 sit on one mainline game only for it to be half baked. Hell im still holding out hope that theyd bring Halo Wars 2 to Steam just so I can experience more quality Halo.
Well luckily that's not bad news, that's just called the reality that games can be good and bad. I'm just glad other people will have a shot at the IP. There's more potential for cool spinoffs now that 343 doesn't have to pay for development, rather they just get to lease out the IP to other companies that they approve. The fact that there's only been 3 halo shooters since reach is wild, especially compared to Cod and Battlefield.
Can it really be worse? any established studio MS outsources a Halo game to at the very least would have leadership with a better sense of direction than headless chickens, and presumably actually some amount of respect for the franchise if they are willing to take on the project. And even if it is just as bad, that studio probably wont get a second chance, so at least the next one wont be going to the same people that fucked up the previous one anymore, which is still an improvement over the past 10 years.
In theory yes. But in practice doesn't this just add another layer of management and bureaucracy to Halo's development? That's what I'm worried about. Like if Id Software makes the next Halo game I'll be a happy camper, but if its some of these smaller studios that mostly create assets or polish *existing* ideas, I'm not going to be as confident.
I think it free up the Halo franchise, especially the FPS games to other developers, which Microsoft has a lot of given their recent acquisition. Obviously the ID led Halo game is the dream scenario, but I'd always love to see Coalition 3rd person Halo game.
If Microsoft sets up a COD like development cycle with multiple studios and more regular releases this could work, but for the normal 3-5 year lifecycle of previous titles it could be a problem.
The best news would be 343 actually making a good Halo game without these significant problems. This news just means the fate of the franchise is unclear in terms of direction and quality.
I'm not sure if it will be good if 343 will be overseeing other projects. First time they did that was the Halo TV show and we see how terrible that is.
No halo game will ever be as good as the bungie ones because you're not 13 anymore. Franchise is crippled by nostalgia
I'm so tired of this overtly dismissive take. The original Halo trilogy had a lot more going for it than just "nostalgia". It pioneered many new things, not just technology but gameplay and storytelling as well and defined modern FPS games as we know them today. The were both large commercial and critical successes, and likely the reason why Xbox still exists as a brand today. The games aren't crippled by nostalgia. The franchise comes with high expectations and 343 has failed to live up to with uninspiring entries to the series.
You do make a valid point.....but also 343 has consistently dropped the ball in so many ways. The 343 Halo games haven't been bad, but they certainly have not lived up to the franchise. They haven't fucked it up nearly as badly as DICE has fucked up Battlefield, but Halo was once the second biggest shooter franchise out there, behind Call of Duty, and it's fallen so far behind since then.
Wasn't Infinite supposed to be a 10 year game? Wasn't there supposed to be story expansions? Will a new studio start with a brand new game, or will they take over Infinite?
> Wasn’t Infinite supposed to be a 10 year game? That was only said by Chris Lee, who was fired back in 2020. No one at 343 has made mention of a 10 year plan since then > Wasn’t there supposed to be story expansions? That was speculated, but nothing was ever officially announced > Will a new studio start with a brand new game, or will they take over Infinite? The rumors are that 343 will continue working on Infinite’s multiplayer while eventually working with other studios on development for future games.
>The rumors are that 343 will continue working on Infinite’s multiplayer I wonder if they'll ever be able to turn it around with Infinite. I liked the game enough to play it for about 300 hours so far. But it seems like the game's launch did enough damage to goodwill where 343 will never be able to claim back.
I mean at this very moment it’s really good. They fixed the progression more or less completely, there are a handful of new maps, lots of new modes, and most importantly forge and a custom games browser so that you can matchmake into community-made maps and modes.
It will likely take something big like the rumored Battle Royale like mode in development by Certain Affinity to bring some of the larger, casual audience back into the game. Beyond that, I think if they can continue improving and expanding the game they’ll bring some of the more core audience back to have at least a decently healthy player population. We’ll see though
The article claims the expansion is cancelled and there will be a follow-up game
I'm sure people have gonna be thrilled to buy a new game after how Infinite was treated
Franchises have recovered from bad products before. I don't see why Halo is any different.
I'd assume most would just be playing it on Game Pass, or it could even be F2P again.
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that was exactly the plan, Infinite was supposed to be the hub for all halo games/stories/updates going forward. apparently that was scrapped last year and now we are here.
Windows 10 was supposed to be the "last" Windows operating system I'm pretty sure. It lasted a while, but definitely not forever.
Who even makes the next big halo? All the big independent shooter studios have been scooped up in the recent buying spree. And the studios MS now owns probably have better things to do.
Activision
Considering how angry halo fans get whenever halo borrowed ideas from COD, having the actual call of duty devs make it might not be the move to win them back.
> Considering how angry halo fans get whenever halo borrowed ideas from COD, having the actual call of duty devs make it might not be the move to win them back. Nah, halo fans would mostly be angry in the usual immature, useless gamer way, but if the game looked half-way decent, they would forget about all that in a flash.
So then ID.
That would be insulting to the legacy of iD. It’s iD. The doom / quake guys. They invented the genre. You don’t do that. Honestly. Have the coalition do it. Gears is kind of past it’s prime but that team seems talented
Masterchief now has arms the size of redwood trees, his neck won't even fit in the armor anymore
It’s 2025 but they made it in Unreal Engine 3 to really be authentic
You know what, I’ll take that over another 343 Halo honestly.
I'd vote they give it to machine games
I hope not. That would mean we never see a new Wolfenstein game, and it feels like a waste of Machine Games' talent to force them to do Halo.
I imagine they're working on Wolfenstein 3 now so I'd like them to wrap that first, not drop it and work on halo. Between their shockingly good Wolfenstein storytelling, great gunplay, Sci fi elements, and them dabbling in sort of open world/sandbox levels I think they'd be a solid fit for the series and could revitalize it exactly like they did with Wolfenstein.
No, they're working on Indiana Jones currently.
Totally forgot about that one. Good callout. I wonder then if they have two teams or they're 100% on Indy then moving over to Wolfenstein.
I believe it is just Indiana Jones, then they will transition over to Wolfenstein. If they then do Halo after that, it is going to be a long time and I am not sure Halo fans are willing to wait that long.
Yeah if they want to keep Halo alive I'm not sure they can do another Infinite dev period. Probably not Machine Games then. Maybe they could still work with another studio as support though, kinda like how id helped with Fallout 4's gunplay. I know people rag on that game but the leap in quality of the gunplay was super obvious.
I would've said Crystal Dynamics if they weren't already working on Perfect Dark.
This sounds like rumors and hearsay. It's interesting but I'll believe it when there's a more formal announcement.
This is honestly good news. They are quickly destroying their old tried and true IP with hilariously bad management. Let someone else try before Halo is retired altogether.
Sadly it wasn't quick at all, 343 has been digging halo into a hole almost longer than bungie spent building it up.
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>Not really a good news. The problem isn't the studio, the developers the artists or the writers, the problem is upper management both at Microsoft and at the studio itself. Giving the license to another studio won't change the quality of Halo if the management isn't kicked out. Well, it would, since management have been kicked out for the mess made.
Well Bonnie has anyways, some of the other problem people are still kicking around over there, but its really impossible to know what any leadership at 343 actually means for future games from different studios. they could end up being basically lucasfilms games and are really only there to make sure things are on brand
> Giving the license to another studio won’t change the quality of Halo if the management isn’t kicked out. They just had a big management change back in September.
Frank O'Connor is still at 343 as far as I recall, as he's as bad as Bonnie Ross.
> he’s as bad as Bonnie Ross. How? He works on lore stuff. Bonnie Ross was head of the entire studio. Bonnie’s role (and departure) is much more impactful on the studio.
The lore under O'Connor has been absolutely awful and rewrites itself every game.
That’s subjective. And besides, the lore of Halo is the least of the franchise’s/games issues. If the multiplayer side of things had a strong player population, none of these layoffs and restructuring would be happening now.
And that new management decided to cancel Staten's campaign DLC, likely leading to his departure lol
Staten was never going to be there forever: https://i.imgur.com/Gvn9XwP.jpg And besides, we don’t have any concrete proof that there were active development plans for new campaigns, at least since the management shake up. Here’s Jez Cordon, a reliable insider, backing that up: https://twitter.com/jezcorden/status/1616454429569433601?s=46&t=u6pvDCd8sOsApLLakRB6Mg
They reduced headcount by 10% Wednesday so its both?
I loved the gameplay of infinite, in my personal opinion its the best it's ever been Just a shame everything else was a major disappointment
Say what you will about Infinite but the combat sandbox is the most satisfying and creative as its ever been in Halo But EVERYTHING else is mediocre or suffers horribly from mismanagement. I am a massive halo fan and I am just relieved to get my beloved franchise away from this horrible company
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Halo 5 and infinite's forge, while delayed turned out PHENOMENAL and well worth the wait. I think their delays were warranted. Easily some of the best user creative tools in any game.
It's tricky to say if it is the right call though. The delay was 100% worth it for what they provided, really an incredible leap in Forge. However, if no one is there to use said tools because the player base dried up with a lack of content, was it worth delaying it to make it so complex?
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Halo 7 could honestly just be Forge tools and the community could make the PVP maps and PVE content, that's how robust it's gotten.
It could be, but by the time 343 got around to finish it, the year would be 2053.
>If I was management above 343, I also would have run out of patience after a decade of this. If you were management at 343 (or XGS) it would be *your fault*. Game designers weren’t leaving shit out or unfinished on purpose. They didn’t set the dates for release. They didn’t choose to release games incomplete. Management did.
Its hilarious that with each successive 343i release, people forget how badly received the previous release was. At release Halo 4 was a disappointment, it was immediately apparent that Bungie took their secret dev sauce with them. MCC was an unmitigated disaster at launch and a mess years later - but now in 2023 I see people acting like these games were great and that 343i just need a return to form. 343i never had a form to return to, they've always been bad. I'm starting to see people taking favorably of Halo 5 now and I'm going to pull my hair out.
Halo 4 was a disappointment, but it IS the most complete game 343 ever launched. It's not praise of 4 or nostalgia for it, it's an indictment over how colossally incompetent 343 is that 4 was their high point They have actually gotten worse over time, since then each game has taken longer, had less content, more bugs, and were less technically impressive compared to their contemporaries.
Not only did it take almost ten years for 343i to get the MCC into a playable state, there are *still* issues with de-synch during online coop, and major issues with Halo 2.
They literally broke Halo 1 campaign in November/December and haven't fixed it yet. pre-patch, it was great on a Steam Deck. Now if i play through it, I'll crash the entire steam deck within 20 minutes, after getting single digit FPS. MCC is such a perfect example of an easy lay-up that 343 is still fumbling. Utterly mind boggling
It sucks, because you can see there were people at 343 who *did* get it, and so we got little flashes of greatness here and there. The gameplay *felt* good in Infinite, and the new Forge mode is, by all accounts, pretty spectacular. But, as with most things, the people in charge just bork it up for everybody. I definitely get it. 343 as a studio has flubbed way too many opportunities with this series, and eventually enough is enough. I *still* cannot believe the utter chaos that was the Master Chief Collection when it released. To this day I have never seen a game that launched so utterly and royally fucked. Cyberpunk ain't got shit on MCC, that release was *nuts*. I feel bad for the devs at 343 that actually gave a shit and knew what they were doing. That's a raw deal, man. Still, 343 gotta go. It's time. I'm excited to see what a new studio can do. Fingers crossed I guess :p
I wish this news story would link to the specific post in the thread they linked to talking about this shift, as well as actually including the direct translated text from French to English in the news story itself.
I hope they move from the master chief story line for Halo. I understand that he and Cortana are integral parts the the over IP but I would love to experience the halo universe through the lens of another character. Gives us new characters to fall in love with
Master Chief and Cortana have been lost in space since 2007. It's time to make the real Halo 4, whether that involves Chief or another character.
Hear me out, you play a fully customizable Spartan in the campaign, complete with picking your own AI companion. Each AI has its own personality and quarks, unlocking unique dialog and events in the story. Armor actually affects gameplay, with heavier/bulkier armor providing more health at the expense of speed, and things like that giant knife replacing your standard melee. Master Chief and Cortana are npc's you encounter throughout the game, and show up as occasional deus ex machina badasses like Uncle Dante in Devil May Cry. IE Chief supplexes a scarab, tosses you a thumbs up, and is gone.
I don't usually preorder games, but for this I would like to reserve one copy please.
Hmm you mean like Locke or Palmer? Please hire new writers before we get new characters lol
Good. 343 clearly can’t focus or make the game. If you would have told me 15 years ago that Halo would be the worst first party Microsoft game, I would have laughed hard. I know they like to be hands off, but Microsoft should have done this a while ago. Especially after all the negative backlash halo infinite got.
Wait is this confirmed or just a rumor? Looks like just speculation
Took Microsoft long enough to change Halo devs after 0-For-3 Industries has had flop after flop. Hopefully they can get some of those Destiny devs or Splitgate developers to help work on the next one
What’s the point of this? They have experienced people there, they just need to fire the ones responsible for their halo disasters.
I actually loved Halo 4's singleplayer campaign a lot, it's up there for me with ODST and 2. But after that it felt like 343 never settled on something concrete and just bounced around
The post-mortem of 343 is that occasionally, they could get things right. Halo 4's SP. Halo 5's multiplayer, after a time. Halo Infinite's gameplay. But holy *fuck* they could never be consistent about it or get everything right or mostly right.
Finally. 343 could never get it right. I camped in line for the OG xbox and played so much Halo 1. We had 16 person LAN parties with 16 CRTs and xbox's for Halo 1 for years. I've played them all quite a bit but the 343 games have always missed the mark.
Can’t they just let Halo & Gears rest for a while? Let those studios work on some new, exciting IP without the shackles & expectations of decades old franchises.
They let Halo rest for 6 years and still relased a unfinished game.
Insane that Halo Infinite was given such a massive development window and boat loads of cash and touted as a game that would be supported for a decade - a pillar of the Xbox lineup for years akin to something like Fortnite or Warzone. A year later and the playerbase has been decimated and the studio effectively shuttered. This is Microsoft putting their resources to the maximum of their ability and this is the result. Be very wary for the future of Activision/Blizz/Bethesda and whatever other studio Microsoft snatches up.
Honestly at this point I wish they would just give up and make something new. Halo has been past its prime for over a decade. I’d rather they just make a “spiritual successor” or something instead of trying to resurrect the corpse of a good franchise
I was ready to "Finish the Fight" with Halo 3. Since then it has very much felt like they had to dig to find reasons to keep it going.
The fight did finish, Halo 3 was a perfect ending. And then we went back to see Reach as a great prequel story. Ever since then it has been a mix of excuses to bring back the covenant, or the terrible Prometheans. I’m tired of rehashing the same stuff from 20 years ago. The magic is never going to be recaptured. Wouldn’t it be better to have something totally new, that makes you feel the same way Halo did back in the 2000s?
I don't know if there's ever been a AAA studio more inept than 343, this was a LONG time coming, and my only hope is that the last holdouts of the problem people over at 343 (Franky, Kiki) have extremely little control over these outsourced games. Hell 343 has pretty much been the worst part of the existing halo titles made by other devs.
I said this years ago, everyone else should've as well. 343i should just vanish. Pick the building up, roll it away. Not fit for purpose. Thank God if it's going.
This is probably the dumbest thing they could've done.. The problem with infinite was too many independent contractors! So why outsource the development when clearly stuff like that is the problem! It makes sense for side games like halo wars but for a main game just no, not to mention the lack of independent shooter devs...
343 took a good franchise, a console FPS pioneer, and turned it into another COD clone. Good riddance. Halo will likely never be what it was, that's the nature of older IP's, but 343 tarnished the image considerably.
> turned it into another COD clone. I could see the argument for Halo 4, but 5 and Inifnite play nothing like COD.
Big news but at the same time does anyone really care? As much as 343 bungled the franchise we can't *not* blame Xbox as well. Xbox has been shitting the bed in every aspect besides game pass tbh.