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[VGC] 343 Industries has delayed providing an update on its Halo Infinite seasonal, co-op and Forge plans, saying it needs more time

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Link to data to back up these claims?

I have a hard time believing kids dropped Fortnite, Minecraft and Roblox to play Halo infinite.

I would imagine most of the people still playing Halo infinite were fans of the older games like Halo 3 and Reach. I fit into this category including all of the people I have played the game with.

You want data to show that 16 year old boys and men in their 30s have different priorities in life?

Everyone dropped Fortnite, Roblox, and Minecraft to play Halo Infinite. Did you see the concurrent player numbers it got at release? It was arguably the biggest game in the world for a day or two. The 3 games you listed do amazing with teens. You don't think todays teenagers checked f2p Halo Infinite out?

Then people got bored, and went back to other games. See: Halo Infinites precipitous drop on the Steam and XBox charts.

I would also agree with you that most of the people playing Halo Infinite today (which is a relatively small amount) are indeed the Halo purists who loved previous Halo games.

The problem is the Halo gameplay loop now resembles the Goldeneye N64 gameplay loop. Awesome in its heyday, but aged pretty poorly at this point.
 
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You can also check out Halo’s placement on pc windows game store as well; it’s ranked 28th. It’s currently being outpaced by Destiny 2 (15) and Sea of Thieves(27). So no… the drop off isn’t just on steam

 
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Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Oh it’s obvious that halo is nowhere near as popular as the biggest games nowadays. I never claimed other wise.

Well funded or not doesn’t mean anything.

It's also not as popular as basically any of the previous Halo games.

Keep in mind, we're 3 months in and Halo Infinite player population hasn't normalized yet. We're still in the "losing players" phase.

When you're the Yankees, with the highest payroll in baseball, certain expectations are assumed.
 
Halo infinite is good game that has room to improve. I don't get why people are throwing numbers out there or comparing it to battlefield.

We don't get paid off the success of any of these games, but we do get the enjoyment of playing good games and both of these games have got to improve to keep our attention.
 
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FireFly

Member
I mean why is not drawing a conclusion from a simialir circumstance in the recent past not valid? It's how people forecast things, there's entire teams who jobs are pretty much doing nothing but that. Most of the forum is essentially this, sometimes it's wrong other times it's right, but low Halo numbers on PC should at least have people asking why is it despite being free not top of the pile?
Well BF2042 dropped out of the top 50 games on Xbox while Halo Infinite is still in the top 10, but is currently sitting in the 138th place for concurrent Steam users. So there is already a huge difference between how the game is doing on Xbox compared with PC.

There are many possible reasons for Infinite's performance on PC such as a lack of content, autoaim disadvantages vs controllers, competition from other titles, a lack of a strong Halo community on PC etc. But how do we use these (and other) factors to come up with a number for the player base on Xbox, given the vast disparity in how well the game is doing on Xbox vs. PC?
 
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mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
It's on life support.

ozoXA8g.png


MS needs to step in quick as 343 is a joke.

What number of average players would you consider good?
 

Leyasu

Banned
It's also not as popular as basically any of the previous Halo games.

Keep in mind, we're 3 months in and Halo Infinite player population hasn't normalized yet. We're still in the "losing players" phase.

When you're the Yankees, with the highest payroll in baseball, certain expectations are assumed.

Yeah it could well be less popular than the other halos. Without hard numbers, gamepass and ftp muddying the waters, it is hard to say definitively though.

Expectation doesn’t equal reality though.


Had a big laugh when someone said:

Hahaha those who play through the Microsoft Store.
I wrote that. How low are the numbers on the Microsoft store?
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Y'all would have boiled 343 alive if they'd tried to make Halo MP primarily a BR game.

If I had a time machine and brainwashing superpowers, I would have put all 600 343i employees on Halo Battle Royale back in 2017. I would have cancelled the single player portion.

NeoGAF would've hated it. I, as well as the wider market, would have loved it.

Btw, in the lead up to Halo Infinites release, I was much more optimistic about the multiplayer portion. Warzone from Halo 5 was somewhat interesting and rumors of a Warzone 2.0 mode for Halo Infinite were going around. Once I saw that it was a basic arena shooter, I knew what was going to happen.
 
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Ozriel

M$FT
You can also check out Halo’s placement on pc windows game store as well; it’s ranked 28th. It’s currently being outpaced by Destiny 2 (15) and Sea of Thieves(27). So no… the drop off isn’t just on steam


The Halo MP is free on Windows Store and Steam. So of course, most PC players will choose to download and play from Steam. Do you have historical snapshots to support you claims that there's a significant drop off?

Sea of Thieves and the previous Destiny 2 DLC are on Gamepass, with the Steam release certainly not F2P.

If I had a time machine and brainwashing superpowers, I would have put all 600 343i employees on Halo Battle Royale back in 2017. I would have cancelled the single player portion.

NeoGAF would've hated it. I, as well as the wider market, would have loved it.

But you forget it's this vocal minority that's been shaping general online Halo discourse for YEARS.

r/Halo would have been incandescent with rage. You forget we had a whole half decade of 343 being accused of ruining Halo by chasing popular trends. You forget the meltdowns about Sprint.

Personally, I think they really need to get their heads out of their asses and start working on a BR mode.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
The Halo MP is free on Windows Store and Steam. So of course, most PC players will choose to download and play from Steam. Do you have historical snapshots to support you claims that there's a significant drop off?

Sea of Thieves and the previous Destiny 2 DLC are on Gamepass, with the Steam release certainly not F2P.



But you forget it's this vocal minority that's been shaping general online Halo discourse for YEARS.

r/Halo would have been incandescent with rage. You forget we had a whole half decade of 343 being accused of ruining Halo by chasing popular trends. You forget the meltdowns about Sprint.

Personally, I think they really need to get their heads out of their asses and start working on a BR mode.

I'm probably a bit more cynical than you.

I don't think developers really place any value in what's said on message boards.

I think 343i was probably making an open world multiplayer mode (those first two trailers suggested something pretty big) and at a certain point leadership realized their studio was basically this...

anigif_sub-buzz-3024-1617914730-10.gif


At which point Joseph Staten was like "Everyone calm down. Let's just put together a basic arena shooter. I'll market it like we care about the fans. Games media + message boards will heap praise on us, and we can at least get it out the door."

I don't think Microsoft had any expectation the game would keep a sizeable player base for very long. Arena shooters have struggled commercially for a while now.
 
First off let me be clear, I think Halo infinite is a fun game. The game play feels like classic halo but with a modern twist.

All I am saying is the content especially the MP is lackluster at the moment and I think that’s the issue most people have with the game right now.
And with Halo 5 people didn't seem to care about its brilliant multiplayer modes, it was all about the campaign. Now people aren't happy with the Multiplayer?
The team can't win.

You watch if the next Halo features both a brilliant campaign and multiplayer mode all in one. The debate will then be for 343 to make something new instead, we're bored of HALO
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
And with Halo 5 people didn't seem to care about its brilliant multiplayer modes, it was all about the campaign. Now people aren't happy with the Multiplayer?
The team can't win.

You watch if the next Halo features both a brilliant campaign and multiplayer mode all in one. The debate will then be for 343 to make something new instead, we're bored of HALO
If you want to generically talk about attitudes, outside of this specific instance maybe (then again when they first showed it the game must have been so so incomplete and kept together by strings and that is why it was delayed, it was not Craig, that was a convenient help), they cannot win or they cannot lose, problems with a current product are only relevant when a newer product replacing it comes out ;).
 
If you want to generically talk about attitudes, outside of this specific instance maybe (then again when they first showed it the game must have been so so incomplete and kept together by strings and that is why it was delayed, it was not Craig, that was a convenient help), they cannot win or they cannot lose, problems with a current product are only relevant when a newer product replacing it comes out ;).
It's hardly generic. Apparently, people didn't like the co-op mode and the singleplayer in HALO 5, never mind it had a brilliant multiplayer mode, Yes cross-gen is bad, unless you're Fromsoftware or SONY;)
Now that Halo Infinite got a great singleplayer mode, it's all about Co-op and multiplayer?
 

Riky

$MSFT
It's hardly generic. Apparently, people didn't like the co-op mode and the singleplayer in HALO 5, never mind it had a brilliant multiplayer mode, Yes cross-gen is bad, unless you're Fromsoftware or SONY;)
Now that Halo Infinite got a great singleplayer mode, it's all about Co-op and multiplayer?

They pretty much reached Bungie levels in both multiplayer and Campaign this time unlike Halo 4 and 5. The other features will come and yes it needs more content, but the game will have massive legs and if it's an 87% Metacritic game now it is bound to improve over time.
I think 343 finally made the franchise their own.
 
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And with Halo 5 people didn't seem to care about its brilliant multiplayer modes, it was all about the campaign. Now people aren't happy with the Multiplayer?
The team can't win.

You watch if the next Halo features both a brilliant campaign and multiplayer mode all in one. The debate will then be for 343 to make something new instead, we're bored of HALO
What? So people should be happy if only one mode is good? I seem to remember all of Bungies Halos having excellent campaigns and multiplayers. I wouldn't even consider Infinites campaign good either. It plays well and does a few things good but the lack of variety to thr environments, the enemy encounters playing out the same way over and over as well as how unfinished the game feels. That's not a great Halo. The story is super shallow too and Master chiefs constant one liners became cringey af.
 
What? So people should be happy if only one mode is good? I seem to remember all of Bungies Halos having excellent campaigns and multiplayers. I wouldn't even consider Infinites campaign good either. It plays well and does a few things good but the lack of variety to thr environments, the enemy encounters playing out the same way over and over as well as how unfinished the game feels. That's not a great Halo. The story is super shallow too and Master chiefs constant one liners became cringey af.
Its the double standards and please HALO 2 single play mode was poor, with tons of content taken out, the game in development hell and the worst ending to a game, this side of Shenmue
Its not even like Halo Infinite MP is bad either
 
They pretty much reached Bungie levels in both multiplayer and Campaign this time unlike Halo 4 and 5. The other features will come and yes it needs more content, but the game will have massive legs and if it's an 87% Metacritic game now it is bound to improve over time.
I think 343 finally made the franchise their own.
Can we just leave Metacritic for the birds?. I hate it when people need to bring up review scores or reviews. Its not meant at you btw, but I learnt from reviews of The THING, BladeRunner how they mean nothing

Halo Infinite features the best single player mode in a Halo game I've played. I'm not really too bothered with co-op, but it will be fun.
I'm more disappointed you can't replay missions at the moment.
 

FireFly

Member
And with Halo 5 people didn't seem to care about its brilliant multiplayer modes, it was all about the campaign. Now people aren't happy with the Multiplayer?
The team can't win.

You watch if the next Halo features both a brilliant campaign and multiplayer mode all in one. The debate will then be for 343 to make something new instead, we're bored of HALO
If I remember right, Halo 5 did receive a positive reception for its multiplayer, especially Warzone, but series fans were not keen on the additional mechanics such as boost and sprint, because they allowed players to disengage from combat encounters too easily.

Halo Infinite's problem is basically the opposite. Almost everyone agrees that the core combat is great, but there is no crowd pleasing Warzone-type mode to bring in new players. Given that arena style shooters have been in decline for a while, it makes sense that Infinite's numbers would start to drop. I enjoy playing B2B but it doesn't have the same expansive feel as Warzone or back and forth battles. And the B2B matchmaking issues certainly didn't help matters.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
It's by far Xbox's biggest franchise.
It's not in the top 5 anywhere if I'm not mistaken?

Houston we have a problem.
I don’t think Sony or MS have ever sold over 30m copies of a single game like Bethesda did with Skyrim, so I’d probably say that TES is their biggest franchise.

As to the current state of the game; I got to level 100 legitimately around 4 weeks ago. There’s nothing pulling me back in at present because, despite the solid game play, there isn’t enough map variety.

This game will end up being amazing in 2 or 3 years time when it’s dripping with maps/forge/custom game browser, but it’s missed its opportunity to have a large player base due to its bare bones launch.

It’s a shame they didn’t just launch with 5 or 6 classic remastered maps from Halo 2 and 3, as that would have given the game plenty more life prior to season 2.

Contrary to popular opinion as well I think diluting the player base by introducing the extra 6 playlists was a fatal error.

I’m so disappointed with the state of the FPS market at present. The genre is dying in terms of quality.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
If I remember right, Halo 5 did receive a positive reception for its multiplayer, especially Warzone, but series fans were not keen on the additional mechanics such as boost and sprint, because they allowed players to disengage from combat encounters too easily.

Halo Infinite's problem is basically the opposite. Almost everyone agrees that the core combat is great, but there is no crowd pleasing Warzone-type mode to bring in new players. Given that arena style shooters have been in decline for a while, it makes sense that Infinite's numbers would start to drop. I enjoy playing B2B but it doesn't have the same expansive feel as Warzone or back and forth battles. And the B2B matchmaking issues certainly didn't help matters.
The omission of Firefight is borderline criminal. Such a fun game mode in Reach and especially Halo 5.
 

RAIDEN1

Member
.....Would there by any DLC missions/stories, or is co-op through the main campaign is good as it will get till the next Halo in 4-5 years?
 
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If I remember right, Halo 5 did receive a positive reception for its multiplayer, especially Warzone, but series fans were not keen on the additional mechanics such as boost and sprint, because they allowed players to disengage from combat encounters too easily.

Halo Infinite's problem is basically the opposite. Almost everyone agrees that the core combat is great, but there is no crowd pleasing Warzone-type mode to bring in new players. Given that arena style shooters have been in decline for a while, it makes sense that Infinite's numbers would start to drop. I enjoy playing B2B but it doesn't have the same expansive feel as Warzone or back and forth battles. And the B2B matchmaking issues certainly didn't help matters.
If I remembered right most labelled it has the worst Halo game ever, and it didn't matter one bit, if Halo 5 had co-op or some of the best multiplayer modes
Now that Halo Infinite got one of the best single player mode, it of course stands to reason, its all about the Multiplayer now.

How silly 343 were to listen to feedback and focus on singleplayer
 

RAIDEN1

Member
The next 10 years if you're lucky. This is the Gamepass model. They want your MTX money consistently over 10+ years. Not making an expensive 6 hour campaign that people will play and quickly move on.
So Halo is more of a "Fire and Forget" title really....once you been through the story not much point going back unless you are interested in the skulls collection..
 

FireFly

Member
If I remembered right most labelled it has the worst Halo game ever, and it didn't matter one bit, if Halo 5 had co-op or some of the best multiplayer modes
Now that Halo Infinite got one of the best single player mode, it of course stands to reason, its all about the Multiplayer now.

How silly 343 were to listen to feedback and focus on singleplayer
Feedback for the both the single player and multiplayer has been positive, where as Halo 5's campaign was badly received, which is where the "worst in the series" came from. Do you see people calling Infinite the worst in the series? Or do you see praise for the single player and multiplayer, but disappointment about the lack of multiplayer content?
 
Feedback for the both the single player and multiplayer has been positive, where as Halo 5's campaign was badly received, which is where the "worst in the series" came from. Do you see people calling Infinite the worst in the series? Or do you see praise for the single player and multiplayer, but disappointment about the lack of multiplayer content?
Halo 5 multiplayer was hardly the worst in the series, it was one of the best. Then of course it was the singleplayer that matter, now of course, its multiplayer
 

FireFly

Member
Halo 5 multiplayer was hardly the worst in the series, it was one of the best. Then of course it was the singleplayer that matter, now of course, its multiplayer
But the point is that Halo series have had consistently great multiplayer *and* single player modes, so if the multiplayer of Halo 5 was considered great, but the single player was considered terrible, it could be enough to make it the worst entry in the series in some peoples' eyes.

Halo Infinite is already better received than Halo 5 was, so clearly addressing this balance was the right thing for 343 to do. If 343 had shipped Infinite with Forge, co-op and Warzone 2/Firefight, I think we would have seen unanimous praise, and maybe consensus about it being the best entry in the series. But when you ship a sequel with large chunks of content missing, you are going to get criticism.
 
But the point is that Halo series have had consistently great multiplayer *and* single player modes, so if the multiplayer of Halo 5 was considered great, but the single player was considered terrible, it could be enough to make it the worst entry in the series in some peoples' eyes.

Halo Infinite is already better received than Halo 5 was, so clearly addressing this balance was the right thing for 343 to do. If 343 had shipped Infinite with Forge, co-op and Warzone 2/Firefight, I think we would have seen unanimous praise, and maybe consensus about it being the best entry in the series. But when you ship a sequel with large chunks of content missing, you are going to get criticism.
Sadly Halo 2 put pay to that Its single-player mode wasn't great, even BUNGiE said so, it was saved by multiplayer and hype, never mind what was promised in 2003 E3, was cut to bits.
 

FireFly

Member
Sadly Halo 2 put pay to that Its single-player mode wasn't great, even BUNGiE said so, it was saved by multiplayer and hype, never mind what was promised in 2003 E3, was cut to bits.
I am thinking about Halo 3, Halo 1, ODST (w/Firefight). But though I personally was disappointed by Halo 2's single player, it was well received at the time, as you can see if you check the reviews. I have seen lots of people say that the Arbiter storyline was their favourite part of the series.

Certainly it was far more resonant than anything in Halo 5, with the Chief/Locke story arc being universally panned. And I will take the Prophet of Regret or Tartarus boss fights over those horrendous Warden Eternal boss fights.
 

Corndog

Banned
I still don't get this mess. After MCC how do they find themselves in the same mess again? It boggles my mind. The one saving grace is 343 absolutely nailed the core gameplay loop with Infinite campaign and multi. A heck of a lot around that is either missing or incomplete or poor choices from above which royally screw the game over. I'll say it again, shake up the decision makers at 343.

This game is going to be pushing 7.5-9 years of development before it hits full potential in gamers hands. Fuck that. Long road to go for getting maps, modes, forge, coop, content drops, firefight, campaign expansions, fixes, netcode. It's a loooooooooooooooooooooooooong way off still.
Ya. Why did they take so long for an average game.
 

tygertrip

Member
You want data to show that 16 year old boys and men in their 30s have different priorities in life?

Everyone dropped Fortnite, Roblox, and Minecraft to play Halo Infinite. Did you see the concurrent player numbers it got at release? It was arguably the biggest game in the world for a day or two. The 3 games you listed do amazing with teens. You don't think todays teenagers checked f2p Halo Infinite out?

Then people got bored, and went back to other games. See: Halo Infinites precipitous drop on the Steam and XBox charts.

I would also agree with you that most of the people playing Halo Infinite today (which is a relatively small amount) are indeed the Halo purists who loved previous Halo games.

The problem is the Halo gameplay loop now resembles the Goldeneye N64 gameplay loop. Awesome in its heyday, but aged pretty poorly at this point.
It didn't age poorly at all. Unless you define "aging poorly" as not appealing to kiddies, lol.
 

TheShocker

Member
Completed the battle pass weeks ago. Completed all the timed events they’ve put out. Reached Onyx in ranked mode. And the weekly challenges are pointless because: 1. I’ve completed the battle pass. 2. It’s a lot to grind for a stupid logo.

The live service aspect of this game is non-existent. There is no new content. The store is lacking. The content within the store is lacking even more. The coatings, while cool, cannot always be applied to every spartan core.

343i cannot provide any updates to these issues and that should be concerning. It seems like they made the MP in a rush to get the game back circulating through pro esports and that seems to be their focus right now. They’re ignoring their overall consumer base and there are no new modes, maps, or even weapons at this point.

I love halo, infinites campaign was amazing. The gameplay loops themselves are the best halo has ever been, but it just seems like the complaints are falling on deaf ears. It took them how long to even acknowledge the desync/server issues?
 

Kerotan

Member
So Halo is more of a "Fire and Forget" title really....once you been through the story not much point going back unless you are interested in the skulls collection..
Exactly. Sadly this the new world we live in. The worst case is GTA. We could be looking at 12+ years between GTA V and VI.
 

oldergamer

Member
I'm probably a bit more cynical than you.

I don't think developers really place any value in what's said on message boards.

I think 343i was probably making an open world multiplayer mode (those first two trailers suggested something pretty big) and at a certain point leadership realized their studio was basically this...

anigif_sub-buzz-3024-1617914730-10.gif


At which point Joseph Staten was like "Everyone calm down. Let's just put together a basic arena shooter. I'll market it like we care about the fans. Games media + message boards will heap praise on us, and we can at least get it out the door."

I don't think Microsoft had any expectation the game would keep a sizeable player base for very long. Arena shooters have struggled commercially for a while now.
I agree that most developers ignore the vitrol of message boards. 343 was attempting to make a game that was too large. Staten (whom I believe was already leading the multiplayer development) was moved in to help the game ship. He cut a number of features and content, worked out the new schedule, and they went from there. They did spend a lot of time polishing the game. Fixing bugs and what not.

However what you stated, "I'll market it like we care about the fans"? I'm certain that isn't what happened.
 

isoRhythm

Banned
This is getting old too. You act like it never happened in the old days.
Sonic 3 was released with half its content cut, Clockwork Knight had half its levels cut Shenmue had half the game cut and let's remember Halo 2 had massive cuts to its content half the game scrapped and one of the worst endings ever and yet that's held up as a classic
"Here's one example to counteract your argument about a recent industry-wide trend"
 
"Here's one example to counteract your argument about a recent industry-wide trend"
How does showing games, that even in the so-called golden era of video games being released unfinished or with huge cuts to planned content, counteract the mistaken belief, that's this is a modern trend?

There's plenty more I could list too, Head Hunter had a ton of content cut and all its planned Online mode cut, Phantasy Star IV had huge cuts. Let's also remember that a lot like with Halo Infinite games like Halo 2 RE2 and even RE 4 case were redeveloped with RE2 having 70% of the world already done cut, to start again and Capcom restarting RE 4 times. That's even before you move on the stuff cut from Fable and well any Peter Molyneux game ;)

It's not a modern thing or exclusive to likes of 343
 
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I am thinking about Halo 3, Halo 1, ODST (w/Firefight). But though I personally was disappointed by Halo 2's single player, it was well received at the time, as you can see if you check the reviews. I have seen lots of people say that the Arbiter storyline was their favourite part of the series.

Certainly it was far more resonant than anything in Halo 5, with the Chief/Locke story arc being universally panned. And I will take the Prophet of Regret or Tartarus boss fights over those horrendous Warden Eternal boss fights.
Halo 2 singleplayer mode wasn't good and a massive set backwards from the 1st game and BUNGiE had themselves came out and said so and how huge parts of the game world that was developed, had to be scrapped and started again and the ending of the game, was the worst this side of Shenmue. It was saved by hype (some times a delay can build up ever more hype) looking really good and also its utterly amazing and awesome multiplayer mode, a little like Perfect Dark 64 IMO

Halo 2 singleplayer mode was like Halo 5 for me, I didn't like the focus on the story or switching characters and the gameplay felt like a step backwards from what happened before, but both had awesome multiplayer modes
 
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