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Certain Affinity announces deepening their relationship with 343 and have been entrusted to further evolve Halo Infinite in new and exciting ways.
- Thread starter SenjutsuSage
- Start date
Mephisto40
Member
Annnnnnnnd single player campaigns in Halo are no more
You all are crazy and don't see the gaming landscape that's GaaS now. Shuttering of a studio that's probably making shitloads of money off idiots buying cat ears for $10? 343i survived the bad releases, the delays, the 6 years without a game because it had mtxs in Halo 5. It's not going to get shuttered. Rare had the same lack of content on a release and no new games for upwards of 6yrs. They survive on mtxs and won't get shuttered or suffer a shakeup just because it's not a good game or the game people want it to be.
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Microsoft should just buy CA
They are working on Halo Infinite, Perfect Dark and they are developing new "Monster Hunter like" IP for Xbox. They are first-party studio in everything but owner status.
Tencent owns only 20% so it shouldn't be that hard or that expansive.
They let slip all support studios like Splash Damage and Valkyrie, so i hope they won't do same mistake again.
They are working on Halo Infinite, Perfect Dark and they are developing new "Monster Hunter like" IP for Xbox. They are first-party studio in everything but owner status.
Tencent owns only 20% so it shouldn't be that hard or that expansive.
They let slip all support studios like Splash Damage and Valkyrie, so i hope they won't do same mistake again.
clarky
Gold Member
LOL. Congratulations you've just won the most stupid post of the day award.
As usual some of the takes are wild.
The campaign is great, the multiplayer also great just lacking content. Winner of multiple GOTY's and a 87 on metacritic. we are at the tail end of a very long, content lacking season and the game is still in the xbox top ten, pulling anywhere between 50k-100k CCU's.
New season in a couple of weeks, co-op and expecting forge maps to start showing up soon plus what ever else might be in the horizon.
Could they be faster? Absolutely but just play something else. Personally im back on Warzone and yet to start Elden Ring. Not played for a month or so but will return for season 2.
But lets shutter 343i, fire everyone, dead game etc etc.
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Leyasu
Banned
Certain affinity are not 1st party.
Nonsense. It’s an upgrade of the engine Bungie created for Halo. There’s also no indication from anywhere that they don’t know what to do with the engine, or their tools are broken.
Good thing none of you are in any decision making capacity, because ‘clearing out’ and gutting the very experienced developers in charge of one of their premier franchises, then starting over again with a new engine would make absolutely no sense.
II_JumPeR_I
Member
Ah I see, Senj is still defending 343incompetence
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
Wow well, uh, at least if you play the other Halo games you have nowhere to go but up?
You might be okay waiting years for Infinite to have content parity with older Halos (and even Halo 5) which had 35 maps within a year of launch, but a lot of other people won't be. They'll just go play one of the other shooters with more & better content, and more consistent content delivery & bigger communities of players.
There's way more competition for Halo Infinite in the shooter space, especially the F2P GaaS one, than there were for previous Halo games where the most they had to worry about was COD and maybe Battlefield. Welp, now there's still COD via Warzone (Battlefield is doing even worst than Halo Infinite right now), and also VALORANT, Apex Legends, PUBG, Destiny 2, Fortnite etc.
All of those are games getting better & better with each new update and are already quite better off than Halo Infinite, so their Season 2 content update isn't going to be enough to close the gap between it and those other games. If anything, with a pacing of updates like that I expect the gap to grow, not shrink. And all of that means lower populated lobbies for yourself.
Again, I'm happy for you, the game seems to suit your tastes. But it's not just about you; unless you're going to become a super-whale and spend millions of dollars on the game a season, dwindling player count means less revenue means budget cutbacks means less content means dwindling player base and the cycle just feeding on itself.
And that ultimately will impact you, as well, so you should probably care a bit more about those things?
The game isn't even in Top 10 on Xbox. Halo. Xbox's marquee IP. Brand new entry. Not even charting in the Top 10 on its home turf. That's bad.
Maybe you just happen to have a cluster of friends who are still active in the game and that could explain why you aren't having issues finding matches. But also the game can populate matches with bots if actual players drop out, so that's something to keep in mind.
I mean again, look at the current state of Halo Infinite. It invited this commentary on its own. Also I haven't seen any outright horrid, super console warring takes.
Just having good gameplay (as in the gunplay and movement) isn't good enough. We've seen this happen before, with some of Sega's arcade ports on the Saturn. Games like VF2 that had excellent gameplay, but very little content compared to Tekken 2 and Tekken 3. Games like Daytona USA, that had objectively better driving physics, but again less content and worst visuals than Ridge Racer. And they lost out in the long-term due to that.
Having polished gameplay/game mechanics alone isn't enough when you're in a market with gameplay quality roughly around that same level, but with more content, better content or more consistent content updates. Gameplay alone wasn't enough in 1995 and it's definitely not enough in 2022. You need a lot of content to go along with that polished gameplay so players don't run out of stuff to do, especially if they aren't necessarily focused on becoming absolute masters of the game mechanics skill-wise.
The issue with Halo Infinite, or at least one of the chief issues, is lack of content and content update consistency. Two maps in half a year is terrible no matter how you cut it, for a F2P live-service shooter.
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Despiralman69
Member
It took 343 to create infinite in 6 years, the game isnt complete, theres been numerous vids of 343 talking about the game engine, you dont need to talk shit about the engine to get the idea that its complicated, adding split screen coop to the game should of been pretty straight forward for to release at launch, yet it hasnt released
Despiralman69
Member
Something at 343 aint right with how much support they have had, maybe mis management is whats wrong i dont know but 6 years fpr a barebones launch is pretty dire imo, do i think infinte is a great game? Absolutely its probs the best halo since reach but even the coalition is better set up then 343, also numerous people have left the company before the game released, whatevers going on it aint good, probably why they planned on supporting infinte for 10 years to figure out what to do with the studio
The_Mike
I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
clarky
Gold Member
Seeing the in development screenshots this week from 2019 theres no way this version of game was in active development for 6 years. Whatever they had was scrapped and rebooted probably around the time of the e3 2018 announce trailer. The Staten came in after that e32020 showing and made major changes to get where we are now.
If its in a similar spot in 12 months then yeah big issues, but personally not expecting that.
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The game wasn’t designed to be ‘complete’ since it’s a live service game, but aside from the coop mode, the campaign is complete.
Adding coop to an open world game where you can wander around and tackle objectives in the order you want is anything but straightforward. It’s a whole lot more complex than adding it in a relatively linear game.
Razvedka
Banned
Even if Infinite has turned a profit, what about their long term projections of its performance? Surely that has imploded. Worse, what is the shape of the Halo brand since it's been in the hands of 343 (in particular post-Infinite)?
I'd have to imagine by most metrics Microsoft must concede that 343 does not have what it takes to helm this flagship franchise. This stands in stark contrast to, say, The Coalition and the work they've managed with Gears of War.
Microsoft surely knows change has to happen.
I'd have to imagine by most metrics Microsoft must concede that 343 does not have what it takes to helm this flagship franchise. This stands in stark contrast to, say, The Coalition and the work they've managed with Gears of War.
Microsoft surely knows change has to happen.
None of that justifies you leaping in to defend clowns that say initial slow content rollout is a sign of incompetence and reason enough for the studio to be closed or gutted.
It’s funny you mention Apex Legends. Where were you in 2019 when they were getting assailed for ‘lack of content’?
Apex Legends dev responds to complaints about lack of updates, teases upcoming content - Dexerto
Respawn Entertainment developer gives a much sought after update to where the team is on with development.
www.dexerto.com
Why was it possible for Apex to turn it around despite fierce competition, but you seem to think that fresh content won’t help Halo?
adding split screen multiplayer to an open world fps isn’t just pushing a button and it done. They’ve already said they have co-op working but it’s the open world wirh checkpoints (there is a shit ton already) and other things that they have trouble with.
Plus, forge and maps are just leaps and bounds more important than campaign co-op. I highly doubt when it happens it’s not going to change much population wise but when forge and season 2/3 come out it will. They just need co-op In before they have campaign dlc.
Can’t see where the ‘incompetence’ you cite is. They’ve made a solid game, and they’re just pivoting to provide post launch content, albeit slower than many would like.
Attacking him isn’t going to erase Infinite’s Metacritic score and 19 GOTY awards
SenjutsuSage
Banned
Then you haven't paid attention, but let's see where Halo is when the content and new features that were planned come in. It's silly to write off such a strong game designed to evolve and grow with time. It's not like they launched trash, they launched one of the best multiplayer and fps campaigns in years.
Die Namek Ability
Member
Insomniac one studio producing 2 or more games per cycle.
Halo a game taking 2 or more studios per cycle.
Halo a game taking 2 or more studios per cycle.
clarky
Gold Member
By that reckoning Bethesda are the worst developers of all time, closely followed by Guerrilla games.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
None of that justifies you leaping in to defend clowns that say initial slow content rollout is a sign of incompetence and reason enough for the studio to be closed or gutted.
It’s funny you mention Apex Legends. Where were you in 2019 when they were getting assailed for ‘lack of content’?
Apex Legends dev responds to complaints about lack of updates, teases upcoming content - Dexerto
Respawn Entertainment developer gives a much sought after update to where the team is on with development.
Why was it possible for Apex to turn it around despite fierce competition, but you seem to think that fresh content won’t help Halo?
There are big differences here. Apex Legends was a brand new IP, so it didn't have any pre-existing legacy to live up to. There was also generally less competition in the live-service shooter space at the time compared to today. Also it wasn't from a studio that had a history of disappointing its fanbase for several years prior, so that also counts for something.
I'm not saying Halo Infinite can't turn itself around, but it IS going to be much harder for it to do so comparatively speaking next to an Apex Legends. Those other games are only going to keep getting better, and there will be yet more live-service shooters launching in the meantime, some of which might become viral successes.
Halo Infinite's gotta do a lot more than two new maps per Season to rejuvenate the majority on the game (or even the IP).
The problem is it's lacking content that prior Halo games had Day 1. And by the time it reaches content parity, that simply may not be enough when other live-service shooters on the market are also getting new content, more content, potentially better content, and are already working with healthier playerbases on top of all that.
Halo Infinite doesn't exist in a vacuum; it's got a lot of fierce competition and needs to do more than the bare minimum to compete. Having solid gunplay and movement doesn't blow away expectations, that's what you need to even begin begin competitive in this space these days. So Halo Infinite meets the minimum requirements...now what?
Pretty sure insomniac would be pulling in support if they were to make a game with both Campaign and MP.
Hard to believe this was the same forum where people were cheering the Bungie acquisition with claims that they’d support live service game development across Sony.
But that is Sony
The mechanics of game development doesn’t change just because an IP is new or has ‘pre-existing legacy’.
The learning point here is that new live service games can have initial periods of inertia where content comes in slowly, but there’s a ramp up period that WILL come. We already see this in Halo Infinite where 343i have announced that the six month wait for Season one is a one-off and subsequent seasons will come at a 3 month interval.
So if I hear you correctly, it will be nearly impossible for Halo Infinite to ‘turn things around’ even when they get their content pipeline sorted, but you’re also expecting new live service games to launch that you feel could be viral
Successes ?
Where’s the consistency? You can’t claim the market is saturated for shooters and Halo’s lost its chance, then still claim yet more new shooters would launch and have a ready market.
clarky
Gold Member
Agreed, but brace yourself for a delay to season 3.
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thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
Huh? I don't see what the game dev process has to do with this. 343i has a very different dev workplace culture and pipeline than the Apex Legends team, that much is sure. And they've had that same pipeline for the past several years, so it's never really changed outside of some recent hires & departures.
I mean, it COULD come, or it could not. I'm sure Bleeding Edge, Lawbreakers and Anthem would've loved for that period to come, but it never did. Nothing inherently prevents this from playing out for Halo Infinite either, though they do have a backer with a lot more money and possibly branding/image reasons to make it work regardless how much money has to be pumped in to make it so.
And I get what you're saying about peaks and falls for other live-service games. The difference is for the more successful ones, they maintain a steady average of players in between the peaks, that's pretty high, and aren't experiencing 50% month-on-month declines. That can't be said about Halo Infinite, so there's absolutely a difference there.
I'm saying that it'll be a lot harder for Halo Infinite to turn things around at the current pace of their new content updates, when entrenched live-service shooters are having better consistency in updates, have more content already, and healthier playerbase sizes. And that's even besides the fact that the content they drop may end up being better content too (tho that is mostly subjective).
I didn't say anything about the market being saturated; to me oversaturation is only a problem when too many games in a market are being ignored, or too many are objectively mediocre. Both of those can result in crashes that affect the few good entries, as well. Hasn't happened with live-service shooters because out of the big ones, it's mainly only Halo Infinite and Battlefield 2042 that are struggling, and we can clearly trace back the reasons as to why for both games that are the result of circumstances of their own making.
So even as Halo Infinite continues to do its updates, if they aren't enough as entrenched games are getting big updates, or new live-service shooters come out that make a splash taking away from those updates, then yes it'll be close to impossible for Halo Infinite to recover. But that's just speculation on a worst-case scenario, which unfortunately has at least as good a chance of happening as a best-case scenario for that game. If Season 3's updates are similarly shallow, then that worst-case scenario is going to be the most likely IMHO.
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You know why many here have been keen to stress that the fundamental gameplay of Halo Infinite is extremely solid? its so that people don’t come here to compare the game to Anthem, Bleeding Edge and Lawbreakers.
Not sure what you were thinking with that, to be honest.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
So are you saying the gameplay in those games isn't solid? Maybe not (tho I remember Bleeding Edge had pretty favorable early beta tests). But that isn't why I brought those games up; I'm sure there were players of those games who considered their gameplay solid. They were also ambitious live-service games that never got a chance to really establish themselves, for one reason or another.
That's why I mentioned them; solid core gameplay could still not be enough depending on other factors, including proximity of certain updates next to other big games in the same market.
II_JumPeR_I
Member
Link to this Screenshots?
Negotiator101
Member
I felt the campaign was half baked to be honest. Like there was a much bigger more ambitious game planned but it was never realised. Enjoyed it mind but certainly not the campaign I was hoping for.
Negotiator101
Member
Seems that's in the pipeline anyway.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
All 4 of the games you listed had "solid gameplay", whatever that means. All 4 games you listed became ghost towns soon after release.
Solid gameplay is no longer an accomplishment and no longer a predictor for success in the market.
I mean, you can always check review scores for these games at launch.
The complaint about content for Halo Infinite pretty much pick up steam after people had played the MP for weeks.
And none of the 4 games you cited are anywhere near as big an IP as Halo.
I think once they get into their stride, we should see content come out at a steady clip.
For season one, they had to deal with burnout from a year of crunch, significant launch bugs and modification to the much criticized progression system.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Reviews don't correlate strongly with multiplayer performance. Highly reviewed games often bomb and poorly reviewed games often do great.
Take Halo Infinite for example, none of the reviews knocked the game harshly (or at all?) for a lack of content. Two weeks later it was a dumpster fire.
The "Halo has great gameplay" statement that gets bandied about means next to nothing. Multiplayer is now about in game progression, interesting worlds, and community. Three areas 343 flopped on. Three areas hopefully Certain Infinity corrects.
Wow another person who conveniently isn't seeing the
That's clearly posted to show sarcasm.
Did you just pull the "I'm not a fanboy I have all the systems!!11" card, and do it with a suspiciously cropped picture of a purchase history?
LOL
clarky
Gold Member
Right at the end of this vid, on my phone just now cant find the original images, but it was on reddit somewhere.
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clarky
Gold Member
Bullshit, not saying you dont need those things but you need a solid game before any of that crap. Everything you mentioned helps but if your game isnt fun to play, your fucked.
Every single successful game around today has great gameplay, period.
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REDRZA MWS
Member
They’ve made HW 1&2 and 1 remaster. Halo Infinite is using the main antagonist as HW2. MS is trying to buy them as we speak. They are closely in twined with MS. They are pretty much 1st party already.
clarky
Gold Member
Link to this purchase of CA? Nothing but one liked tweet, which means nothing as far as i know.
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ComboBongo
Neo Member
Ensemble made Halo Wars 1 and Creative Assembly made Halo Wars 2 …….
ComboBongo
Neo Member
Ensemble made Halo Wars 1 and Creative Assembly made Halo Wars 2
ComboBongo
Neo Member
Ensemble made Halo Wars 1 and Creative Assembly made Halo Wars 2 ……
REDRZA MWS
Member
Where did I say they were purchased? I said they were trying to purchase them. Reading and comprehension .
REDRZA MWS
Member
You are correct my friend, I stand corrected.
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