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Halo Infinite | Update – September 2022 | Season 3 and new Roadmap Revealed

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Fucking flush this like the turd it is.
My god that campaign was even worse then 5 🤣
There's just nothing to it. Infinites campaign is just a shell of a game. It's more of a tech demo than a real game. No npcs, no side activities, no settlements, not much of a story.

Just mini camps with the same encounter in a single biome. Even though the core gameplay is fun it was the biggest disappointment for me in years.
 

FUBARx89

Member
Wow. 343 going for lowest playercount with BF2042.

But seriously, I've just got a series x and gamepass. This shit is embarrassing.

343i needs a good clearout and start from scratch without this multi year plan or whatever for infinite. Cause it ain't working. Even campaign is a piss poor excuse for a halo.

It feels like they thought they had a GTA V, then realised they have True Crime - Streets Of LA now they can't get out of the plan they made for infinite.
 
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TheShocker

Member
Halo infinite is the biggest let down in my 30+ years of gaming. 343i is a joke and has no business managing that series.
 

sol_bad

Member
Is anyone really surprised by this? Microsoft don't seem to give a flying fuck that it's chaos at 343 and are really letting them do whatever they do.
This is either a good or bad thing for Bethesda and Activision. As much shit as those 2 companies get, the higher ups might be keeping these studios in line behind the scenes. Pretty scary thought if Bethesda and Activision are plagued with delays with their new ownerships. And when I say delays, worse than what we currently get.
 
Is anyone really surprised by this? Microsoft don't seem to give a flying fuck that it's chaos at 343 and are really letting them do whatever they do.
This is either a good or bad thing for Bethesda and Activision. As much shit as those 2 companies get, the higher ups might be keeping these studios in line behind the scenes. Pretty scary thought if Bethesda and Activision are plagued with delays with their new ownerships. And when I say delays, worse than what we currently get.
I would bet $100 that it was MS choice to make Halo a F2P game.
 
Lost. 343 are lost. Can we just lose the studio management forever. Set them free.

Fuck 343. 5-6 years of development and a 10 year plan? Fuck off. You have nothing, you squandered 5 years, you've fucked the next 2. You've literally shagged Halo for a decade, without a clear plan. I'm not even adding in MCC into that statement.

I could write up a better story, vision statement and a management bible in a month. What the fuck are 500-750 employees and probably double that in outsourcing doing for all these years?
 

Naked Lunch

Member
A major point they get completely wrong in todays video is they said "Halo is mainly a competitive game, first and foremost".
Halo can and should be both competitive but also social and fun. This explains all the focus on esports from the events, to the no-radar ranked playlists, on down to the way the maps play. They are designing it incorrectly from the ground roots. Halo 2/3 were fun for people of all skill types - the series keeps moving away from that.

Infinite has shed so many players since launch - all thats left playing today in Sept 2022 are hyper geeks who all communicate and know all call outs at all times. Seriously, just go try playing a match today not using those tactics. You will get butt raped beyond belief. The Halo super nerds have already ruined and overtaken the game.

Another thing - the new guy with the glasses in charge of player experience or whatever. Everything that guy talks about should have been planned out and implemented from day one. He took up the majority of the 30 minute video - just talking about basic UI and under the hood type stuff. We're talking stuff as simple as reporting players, earning xp. It says to me they are basically just rebuilding the game from the ground up - and we have to wait another year just for the bare minimum basic backend to be implemented. Unreal...
 
A major point they get completely wrong in todays video is they said "Halo is mainly a competitive game, first and foremost".
Halo can and should be both competitive but also social and fun. This explains all the focus on esports from the events, to the no-radar ranked playlists, on down to the way the maps play. They are designing it incorrectly from the ground roots. Halo 2/3 were fun for people of all skill types - the series keeps moving away from that.

Infinite has shed so many players since launch - all thats left playing today in Sept 2022 are hyper geeks who all communicate and know all call outs at all times. Seriously, just go try playing a match today not using those tactics. You will get butt raped beyond belief. The Halo super nerds have already ruined and overtaken the game.

Another thing - the new guy with the glasses in charge of player experience or whatever. Everything that guy talks about should have been planned out and implemented from day one. He took up the majority of the 30 minute video - just talking about basic UI and under the hood type stuff. We're talking stuff as simple as reporting players, earning xp. It says to me they are basically just rebuilding the game from the ground up - and we have to wait another year just for the bare minimum basic backend to be implemented. Unreal...

Fuck yes. You get it. 343 are lost. Split down the middle. esports has all the core playlists of 4v4. Social has been pushed into BTB chaos. I've been saying it since Halo 5. They literally have alienated the largest player base in all the history of Halo games. Default social 4v4 light vehicles.

Here's a simple case in point. MCC Halo 3 has Valhalla as a map in its social playlist and it only has slayer in the gametypes available. There is NO 1 flag, 2 flag, 1 bomb or 2 bomb at all. Those core gametypes are not even in the map pool selection. You cannot play those gametypes. Flip that to Infinite and you see that exact mantra on show, just as your post points out in a broader sense. The entire lifecycle of Infinite is built on this premise, as Halo 5 was.

343 are fucking clueless what to do with Halo and didn't learn their lesson with Halo 5 splitting the development focus and player experiences. They doubled down on that split with Infinite. Twats.

At its core this is the largest ongoing fuck up with Halo management, bigger than MCC fucked for years.

The next largest fuck up with not having PvE. No esports, lots of streaming/community involvement like Destiny and raids etc all without the crappy networking, cheaters, ranks and pitfalls of PvP Halo should be breaking out of. Pure shite management to not have that planned from the get go.

EDIT: I turned off the video a couple of minutes in. Sean (glasses guy) doesn't get what Halo was all about, just like MLG/HCS/esports have been trying to dictate Halo is their flavour for all these games and years. Competing in a fun environment where you didn't need a team to show up for their jobs and work as an Olympic coached and trained team together. It was always about the crazy shit you pulled off e.g. a hail mary warthog run to counter cap and win 3v2. A solo bomb stealth arm FTW as your base was being overrun and you're about to lose the game. You and your buddies bunkered down in a base with a full sandbox equipped enemy team pushing. Sean doesn't look like he's old enough to have even played Halo CE at LAN parties or Halo 2 XBL when it launched. FFS.

Passion isn't enough by itself, especially when that passion is misplaced or out of step with the core of your fans wants. Get your head out of your metrics, you've got it wrong.
 
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ZehDon

Gold Member
This whole update really reads like an admission: they're re-starting development. Nearly a year after launch, they're basically at square zero, still in the planning phase for most of the core issues. They're aiming to have the core, fundamental, player-forward experience online and available, with consistent seasons, by the end of 2023.

Game's done. Ship Forge, ship custom game browser, leave a skeleton crew on solving the network issues, pull the rest of the resources, and move on. Use Unreal, swallow your pride, and make a game worthy of the name on the box.
 
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This whole update really reads like an admission: they're re-starting development. Nearly a year after launch, they're basically at square zero, still in the planning phase for most of the core issues. They're aiming to have the core, fundamental, player-forward experience online and available, with consistent seasons, by the end of 2023.

Game's done. Ship Forge, ship custom game browser, leave a skeleton crew on solving the network issues, pull the rest of the resources, and move on. Use Unreal, swallow your pride, and make a game worthy of the name on the box.

Yep, it was clear as day after that first campaign demo and then what Infinite launched with. After MCC why would Xbox think 343 were capable of creating an industry leading game engine? Let alone the delivery chops for a GaaS on a monthly/quarterly schedule. Phil should have taken the studio heads from 343 to Rare for a week.

Respawn got a sleeper hit with Apex Legends and they cranked that game up to eleven only 6-12 months post initial launch date. The first 1-2 years of Apex Legends was pretty fucking sweet. Destiny 1 & 2 have similar stories and timeline.
 

Belthazar

Member
Are they really trying to push a 9 month season? That's really a mess, especially considering how barren of content that season actually is.

So much for Infinite becoming the platform for Halo for the next decade.
 
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Jinzo Prime

Member
I can't believe I'm saying this but...

Sonic might be less mismanaged than Halo is right now.

Just let that sink in.
 
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What an absolute dogshit studio, this is literally a guidebook 101 of how to destroy a franchise , halo will never recover from this.
Fuck off 343 fuck off
 
Halo 4 releases: it’s their first game it can’t get much worse.

Halo MCC releases: Damn, somehow they made it worse.

Halo 5 releases: It literally can’t get any worse.

Halo Infinite release: Step aside, I’m the worst of them all!

Dear lord in gaming heaven, how have Xbox let Halo fall so far from what it once was? It’s so bad. Infinite from a game mechanics perspective is solid, but it’s a soulless, empty experience and 343 have monumentally fucked it up.

In my mind Halo should just be shelved, it’s reputation carries very little weight now and I think it would take an insane effort and miracle to get it back to where it once was, and I don’t think that’s even possible.
 

MrMephistoX

Member
This is absolutely a joke at this point. I'm a huge fan. There's a good game in there but I'm not defending 343i

Painful, what a joke.

I don’t know why anyone trusted them with a game this ambitious when they couldn’t even get 10-20 year old games working properly with the Master Chief Collection for literally years. I mean it wasn’t just a bad launch they literally let it sit with broken matchmaking for years until finally fixing it with a patch out of the blue.
 
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Spaceman292

Banned
Yep and apparently the performance is OK on VCR Xbox One. 343i is going to get a lot more serious stick if the code for it is in the game.
How bad must the management be to cancel something that's already been made? Do you think they accidentally put it in without noticing?
 
How bad must the management be to cancel something that's already been made? Do you think they accidentally put it in without noticing?
Nope. They were going to put it in until the higher up asked "Will this make us money?" until someone said "No" and then they said "Well scrap it and expand it further as a live service game!!"
 

Esca

Member
I think we need to start a drinking game with Halo and 343.
I really wanted to try infinite once couch coop was in. Ms had worked so hard to turn things around but they have this anchor just staring them down. Things need to change but until they do i guess enjoy the show
 

Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
I would be okay with defunding 343 until they can prove they can manage a project. I would also scrap any SP content and season pass crap and just have them focus on Forge and MP maps/modes.
 

FireFly

Member
Nope. They were going to put it in until the higher up asked "Will this make us money?" until someone said "No" and then they said "Well scrap it and expand it further as a live service game!!"
If it was already in development we would expect it to exist in the game in some form. That doesn't mean it was in a shippable state. Apparently the split screen exploit can wipe saves and cause desync issues and soft locks.

Edit: Also as far as I can tell 343 didn't say it was never coming back. Given that MCC is now going to bring back even unreleased alpha content, I have hope that 343 will eventually add split screen to Infinite, given its importance to the franchise.
 
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SegaManAU

Gold Member
Beyond a joke.

Stopped playing a few days after season 2 was dropped as there wasn't enough content to keep me interested.

At this stage, I can't see myself returning anytime soon. The campaign was nice, but they have seriously fucked up the rest of it.
 
What does 343 actually do. How does a studio so big produce so few maps.

I stopped playing months ago because I got sick of playing the same 5 maps in multiplayer, and since then they've only added, what, 2 maps? It's honestly pathetic how little content the multiplayer has, and by the time it has content people will have all left. Personally I loved the campaign so I'm not totally anti-343 but something drastic has to change with regards to multiplayer because this is the least content I've seen in a AAA multiplayer game in a long time
 
I played the hell out of Destiny 2 and would not go back to that grindfest even for free.
They are very different games and would say D2 PvE is great, but doesn't hold a candle to Halo Infinite multiplayer
Lol. D2's sandbox is straight better. Everything is viable. Infinite plays well in terms of weapon feel but Halo 5 had it right. A starting weapon that gives a nearly even playing field. The BR is so OP in Infinite because the pistol is meh. Also, speaking as a long abused pvp D2 main, it's startlingly bad on the Infinite side as well. Lack of maps/bad maps, no support, no modes at launch (and now irrelevant because of dwindling population), etc...At least Destiny has the incentive of bringing your fun Pve weapons into pvp to experiment with. That is, at least until they went and made the casual fun of the main pvp playlist nonexistent. They sold out to the Fortnite crowd (not a coincidence the skill based matchmaking introduced at the same time as Epic games promotion went live--protect the noobs)
 
Lol. D2's sandbox is straight better. Everything is viable. Infinite plays well in terms of weapon feel but Halo 5 had it right. A starting weapon that gives a nearly even playing field. The BR is so OP in Infinite because the pistol is meh. Also, speaking as a long abused pvp D2 main, it's startlingly bad on the Infinite side as well. Lack of maps/bad maps, no support, no modes at launch (and now irrelevant because of dwindling population), etc...At least Destiny has the incentive of bringing your fun Pve weapons into pvp to experiment with. That is, at least until they went and made the casual fun of the main pvp playlist nonexistent. They sold out to the Fortnite crowd (not a coincidence the skill based matchmaking introduced at the same time as Epic games promotion went live--protect the noobs)
Hmmm, that must be why we constantly get nerfs to both abilities and weapons in the PvP mode because everything is so viable. Good players with subpar weapons can beat bad players with op weapons, but a good player with a subpar weapon vs a good player with an op weapon almost always loses. Look at modes like Iron Banner where power level matters and tell me that you are always viable. Look at trials and tell me again that everything is viable and that the players dont pursue whatever is meta atm.


At least in Halo pvp, there is no grinding required to get the op weapons that everyone that isn't you murders with. In Halo, a new player is just as "viable" right out of the sandbox as a vet player. Their BR hits just as hard as your BR. Their pistol hits just as hard as yours. And BR is a great starting weapon, but pistols up close will beat the BR as intended. So call it a meh weapon and watch people pick it up and wreck you in certain areas of the smaller maps. Non-power weapons in Halo have their uses and BR isn't better in every situation, but is a great base weapon.

I agree that Halo maps and modes are lacklaster and that they definitely need to step it up, but pvp, I'd take Halo over D2 any day from a gameplay perspective.
 
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Hmmm, that must be why we constantly get nerfs to both abilities and weapons in the PvP mode because everything is so viable. Good players with subpar weapons can beat bad players with op weapons, but a good player with a subpar weapon vs a good player with an op weapon almost always loses. Look at modes like Iron Banner where power level matters and tell me that you are always viable. Look at trials and tell me again that everything is viable and that the players dont pursue whatever is meta atm.


At least in Halo pvp, there is no grinding required to get the op weapons that everyone that isn't you murders with. In Halo, a new player is just as "viable" right out of the sandbox as a vet player. Their BR hits just as hard as your BR. Their pistol hits just as hard as yours. And BR is a great starting weapon, but pistols up close will beat the BR as intended. So call it a meh weapon and watch people pick it up and wreck you in certain areas of the smaller maps. Non-power weapons in Halo have their uses and BR isn't better in every situation, but is a great base weapon.

I agree that Halo maps and modes are lacklaster and that they definitely need to step it up, but pvp, I'd take Halo over D2 any day from a gameplay perspective.
Viable does not equal meta or even more than 'baseline competitive'. There are guns in the halo sandbox that are essentially useless is the point I was getting at. More variety of play style with everything playing well as long as there is a sufficiently diverse, thriving population is IMO the best. That's what D2 COULD have if they supported pvp properly with modes, maps and rewards. You ignored the second half of my statement which was a huge qualifier. SBMM in control is a bandaid on a problem that just means that a large part of that creativity is now done for the dedicated pvp fanbase. Also LL doesn't matter in IB any longer and because of the larger population vs normal control, has always been easier than control for me as a top 1%er (my avg kd and performance is higher across multiple seasons in IB) Lobby balancing was rough as the population declines later in the season but slap SBMM on top and it's high impossible to enjoy the game the way I used to-- playing solo and trying new, varied loadouts while still having fun and doing well
 
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Viable does not equal meta or even more than 'baseline competitive'. There are guns in the halo sandbox that are essentially useless is the point I was getting at. More variety of play style with everything playing well as long as there is a sufficiently diverse, thriving population is IMO the best. That's what D2 COULD have if they supported pvp properly with modes, maps and rewards. You ignored the second half of my statement which was a huge qualifier. SBMM in control is a bandaid on a problem that just means that a large part of that creativity is now done for the dedicated pvp fanbase. Also LL doesn't matter in IB any longer and because of the larger population vs normal control, has always been easier than control for me as a top 1%er (my avg kd and performance is higher across multiple seasons in IB) Lobby balancing was rough as the population declines later in the season but slap SBMM on top and it's high impossible to enjoy the game the way I used to-- playing solo and trying new, varied loadouts while still having fun and doing well
Going to just disagree with you there. Halo PvP is just better than D2 PvP for me. The guns that you think are non-viable are in situations better than the BR. Up close, pistols, Commando, AR have faster TTKs. Disruptors are good for denying areas in land grab by shooting at the AI box because it sends out a diruptive electrical charge. Plasma pistol strips overshields. None of those are starting weapons in ranked, so all sides start equally which is what I like about Halo PvP. Anything other than starting weapons, you need to obtain to make use of. I'm not saying all the weapons are in a perfect place right now, but overall I think it's pretty good and most of the complaints with some of the non-starting weapons is that they either spawn too often or have too much ammo for how good the weapon is.

I loved the PvE of D2 until the grind was just too much time wasted than was worth it for me. I haven't played D2 in a bit because I do have a love/hate relationship with that game. Loved the dungeons and Raids, but hated the continual sunsetting of content and money grubbing of paying for the expansions + seasons + Eververse BS. And now also still having to pay for dungeons on top of seaons.

For SBMM, I don't think dev has figured that out well. It's one of those things that I don't think they'll ever have a perfect solution for. Even D2 has that problem.
 

Max_Po

Banned
I played a few matches ...at 120 fps... the core game is great. I couldn't not stand the single player. It's brain dead...
 

Havoc2049

Member
I honestly don't mind that Season 3 is delayed, because I'm not a big fan of many of the Season Challenges in Infinite to begin with and feel the whole system needs a revamp (which they have been doing over time and with the per-match XP in the November update 😀👍).

Ya, the no couch co-op, while not that big of a deal, comes at a time when the last thing Halo needs is negative news. But overall, I'm actually a little amped for this November update. Adding online/network campaign co-op (way better experience than crappy split screen), Forge and per match XP is Infinite's biggest update yet. Then there are two new maps, one new multiplayer mode and a free mini-season. As a big fan of Spies vs Mercs from Splinter Cell, I'm looking forward to Covert One Flag.
 
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Some of the challenges were counter to good teamplay too so seeing that go away is a positive.

With Forge almost being done, hopefully some of the members on that team can be moved towards more content as that seems to be the biggest complaint right now.
Split screen co-op hasn't been a thing for me since Xbox Live first came out, but prior to that it was a lot of fun with friends. Nowadays, online co-op is a much bigger deal and it felt pretty good sans some bugs during the beta.

I really hope their gamble of slower content now to build the backend systems for faster content down the line isn't just some BS PR spreak. Because right now they are getting some deservedly negative backlash for delays after delays.
I never played Mercs in Splinter Cell so I'm probably going to get murdered a lot when it first comes out til I can figure out how to properly play that mode.
 
Just like IwD trying to tell people that Bungies "vaulting" of content was an awful thing to do to the fans, I knew that 343 helping Infinite as a "free to play" game was going to be a disaster. Once again very few people listened and instead bought into the BS that it was a positive change for the game.

How did I know? Because 343 is the same company that broke the MCC in an update for Xb1X owners, of which I was part of, which made Halo 1 and 2 campaigns unplayable due to stuttering. They never cared to even fix that and have ignored that segment of their fanbase who now can't even play the campaigns for the two most important games in the history of the Xbox brand.

When you have a company this incompetent and who simply doesn't give a shit about their customers (in fact I think they have a disdain for us as shown with various drama that's played out) there's no hope that they'll be competent with a live service. That same anti gamer attitude and lack of transparency just guarantees this. What's more bizarre at this point is where the fuck is MS to not step in and allow something like Halo 1 and 2 campaigns to remain broken and unplayable for 2 years? Where's MS to let 343 treat Halo like this? I really think Halo Infinite is the biggest disaster in gaming now. Halo was such a great, important franchise and Infinite has pretty much ruined it.

It's not gonna get fixed with 343 at the helm. Even Joeseph Stratton isn't going to save it, nor has he shown the type of real transparency to explain to people exactly what went wrong and what they plan to do to fix this mess. Only getting 2 more maps through to March 23 and they're FORGE maps, not even real developer made maps. With how slow this is being worked on imagine how long it will take to add content to the PVE part of Infinite lol.
 

Raonak

Banned
Do they only have 5 developers working on this thing?

Halo is MS's biggest IP. It's baffling that 343 keep dropping the ball every time.
 

gatti-man

Member
This is pathetic. At this point anyone that bought it deserves a partial refund for basic features promised and missing now for a year. I wish I worked at 343 so I could get paid for doing bullshit nothing.
 
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