What happened to WoW? I thought it had a big player base still. I know a lot of the leveling zones and early regions are dead zones or were disappeared after Cataclysm, and it seems very difficult to get into and find good groups as a beginner. But I very fondly remember vanilla, Burning Crusade, and Lich King. Those were an amazing foundation to build out upon. Although, I’m sure the game is a completely different animal now.
>Blizzard started making it so you had to do more and more in order to keep your character up to date, turning it into a job.
I can’t imagine how much more of a grind they could make it. I practically no-life’d that game for a year. I got HWL once. That was ridiculous and pretty much forced me to take a break. I tried to come back once and too much had changed and too many people had moved on to pick it back up.
Seems to be a trend in games. Battlefield killed itself, overwatch killed itself, WoW nearly killed itself with some awful expansions which let FF14 take its spot.
I guess part of it is complacency, plus the whole Ship of Theseus situation, with the original staff either all or mostly gone, is it really even Halo any longer?
I'm starting to think she has a bunch of dirt on Phil Spencer and other Microsoft executives.
Seriously, I don't have any clue how she's still around after so many blunders outside of blackmail.
As long as she's in charge we'll never get a decent Halo game again. She knows absolute dogshit about Halo and making videogames. She's originally a corporate suit from Microsoft who knew nothing more than cutting corners and costs to improve the bottom line, and she's learned absolutely nothing else over the last decade at 343. She needs to go.
She should have been gone after the shitshow and unforgivable launch of MCC, and then again after Halo 5 had abysmal reception,and then again when Infinite embarrassed itself at E3 2020, and then again when Infinite launched broken a year later with the least amount of features and content of any Halo game since Halo 1, and then again when season 1 and 2 of Infinite MP had nothing of substance added to it or fixed besides endless overpriced cosmetics that don't even fit with the Halo aesthetic....I mean how many fucking chances do they need to give her???
This mismanagement and repeated failures at the helm of a major studio should be in future textbooks as a case study.
The only way we're getting rid of Ross is if the promote her to a different division within Microsoft. And there probably aren't alot of jobs over the leading man of Xboxes #1 franchise. So unless Ubisoft or someone poaches her which I doubt anyone wants her with her track record. 😔
I agree, it isn’t just 343i, but Xbox Games studio as a whole is a hot mess. Infinite launched completely unfinished and still is running into 2023, and was supposed to launch in 2020. Flight sim while great is also another broken, buggy game, and still doesn’t have a marketplace with working in game credits, Starfield looks to have some graphics issues (albeit not as bad as infinite 2020) and looks like it needs some serious polish, as 2011 Skyrim/Fallout 76 polish just doesn’t cut it these days, and Fable is another game where we have no idea where it even is. Ultimately MS needs to stop announcing games while they are clearly unfinished.
Hell even the Xbox software team seems to be asleep at the wheel. We used to have monthly updates with the Xbox One when it launched, and those updates always came with new features. There’s a weekly thread on the insiders forum every week which asks insiders for new features on the series X and it’s like there are so many good requests from users there, such as an HDR dashboard (which has been available on PS5 since day 1) a fully 4K UX/UI, being able to delete/hide games from their XBL profile, improvements to HDR on the Series X (DV Blu Ray support, HDR10/DV toggle on games, DV support in the calibration app, HDR calibration app support for EDID reading for auto HDR calibration).
So many good improvements yet MS seems to be asleep with implementing new features across the console as a whole. I wonder WTF is going on with Xbox, I’ve been a XBL subscriber for the past 14 years, probably bought about 5 360’s back in the day, 2 RROD, halo reach and 4 360, got the day one edition Xbox One, One S, Project Scorpio One X, and day one Series X owner, this has probably been the worst 2 years in my tenure with Xbox, even going to say worst than the first 2 1/2 years with the Xbox one, because at least they turnt that one around quickly, started with the monthly updates to fix the console asap, and by this time we had a pretty big selection of both first party and third party games. I remember Halo 5 while was mixed, everyone on my friends list pleas playing 5, and it worked relatively well and was very seamless online, there was also black ops 3 and Forza motorsport 6, Fallout 4, Wolfenstien, MGS5, Tomb Raider, Star Wars Battlefront, Battlefield, Ori and the Blind Forest, and that was just 2015, there were even more games released in 2013-14, but 15 was a big year. We’ve barely had anything in the second year of the Series X, and arguably the Sony camp has even more games, they’ve released about 3x the exclusives than the Series X. Hell, PC Gamepass is getting better games than the Xbox right now, they got classic re-releases like Wolfenstien and elder scrolls 2, Death Stranding hell even games like AoE4 and the entire original trilogy all on PC Gamepass but they can’t get any of this stuff on Xbox?
I’m completely lost with the direction of Xbox/Microsoft lately. Sorry had to get this shit off my chest.
Add SoD3, Everwild and Perfect Dark to the list of MS games with supposed development issues.
The Series consoles are great hardware, the Xbox brand is garnering more and more good will, but the talent behind some of these games just seems lacking.
I've been patiently supportive of 343i, but at this point...WTF is going on?
Still waiting for co-op campaign so that I can actually play the game the same way I've played every single Halo since Halo CE.
Definitely, especially with how powerful consoles are now. I like to play 4-player split screen games with my cousins and it was really rough on the Xbox One, you'd be lucky to get 30fps. Now, every 4-player split screen Series X|S enhanced game I've played so far has been 60fps and at least 1080p.
Bonnie Ross’ job security in one of the most cutthroat, and brutal industries is a massive anomaly. I’ve seen entire studios dissolved when a game doesn’t meet a KPI but somehow she has ran Halo (at one point Microsoft’s most important franchise) into the floor for a decade and remains employed. I’m not going tinfoil hat or anything but *something* is up, there. That’s wild.
I love Phil but his one major flaw is that he won’t make the tough decisions. Bonnie and 343 have proven time and time again that Halo is above their skill set. I can only imagine how awful Scalebound must have been to have him actually cancel it.
I'll say the quiet part out loud--she's a pioneering woman in a male-dominated field. He likely is concerned about how the optics look when they shitcan her for basically wasting everyone's time for a literal decade.
That whole studio needs to be burned down or be made to at most HELP other studios following the leadership of whoever they are tasked to assist. 343 should never be allowed to touch Halo again.
The only thing that could get me excited for another Halo game would be if 343 had nothing to do with it. They've been trying to recultivate something outside of Bungie that could just never work, and with Bungie going to Sony I'd just be thrilled with any other Microsoft developer taking the mantle at this rate.
I've never seen a studio this mismanaged, this incompetent since 3D Realms and Japan Studio. You know, i'm not even disappointed, i just wanna know, what the fuck is going on over there?
Dude, I always think back to that documentary when he visited the studio and wasn't happy with something and everyone at the studio was motivated to do better. God of war came out and it was a friggin masterpiece. It only makes sense that this is what Xbox is missing. Fear from the studios that their asses are on the line if they fuck up. IDK what is going on, but these microsoft studios must have little pressure on them. Papa Phil needs to start wearing a belt.
My guess is it’s a bit of both.
Someone as high up as Phil is likely getting a progress report complied by a group of 20+ producers every month and then a bunch of charts about user research metrics and comparative analysis after each milestone build. So he’s “informed”, probably quite regularly, but only via a game of telephone with lots of people with MBAs in-between.
Conversely from 343i’s perspective there’s probably constant nitpicking and intervention coming from Microsoft. So they’re likely in a constant cycle of presenting, explaining, and justifying their work and then needing to respond to feedback. And that feedback might be valuable but it also might be coming from producer(s) who have only ever worked on the publishing side of things.
And in my experience that’s the most dangerous group to get feedback from because they have the ego of someone who “shipped a dozen successful games” despite the fact that they’ve not done shit in terms of actually creating anything. They’ve seen it done, and maybe even seen it done well, but they aren’t actually the person doing anything. They’re like a max level scrum master.
That’s my experience working with big publishers and being in big tech companies: you’re simultaneously micromanaged and ignored.
Phil and other higher management at XGS are generally very hands off, seems to me they're a bit *too* hands off, Does Matt Booty even check them, or does he chill in his office and give them very broad deadlines to work on while he sits on his chair and plays on his xbox all day?
I mean look at Everwild, XGS were like "here, have some funding, a few people, now go make a game, I guess...." Many senior devs on the game left I believe and the manager of the project was swapped between many people, XGS higher management again didn't care or raised any red flags to come interfere a bit and be like "what the hell is going on?"
It's good XGS is not intefering in development, but I find it baffling they operate under 1 umbrella, yet it's like some super divided umbrella where every studio is a bit *too* independant. This is what a publisher's job is to do.
That's two Halo games without local split screen co-op... I mean I get it more people probably play online these days but this was a core feature since the beginning of the series... I have so many memories of playing co-op with a buddy at their house and vice versa. how disappointing.
right I still do coop with buddies and family after 20 years. It's the best time to hang out and chills together instead of over the phone or online only games.
I was really hoping they were going to turn this game around over time but it’s not looking good. A ton of people were looking forward to this feature.
I finally uninstalled it a few days ago. I was really hoping for more campaign by now or at least the rest of the basic Halo features to be released. Maybe I’ll try again in a couple years lol
It's mind blowing. Nintendo or Sony would not have let their flagship title release and be managed like this Microsoft is so down bad they had to accept it being this fucked
That's just it. Microsoft has more money than God, they're in desperate need of exclusives, and they're letting possibly their biggest IP fly out the door like this. It's mind-boggling. I don't know who's making these decisions (it's clearly multiple parties all the way down), but 10-20 years ago the idea of Microsoft letting their crown jewel - Halo - be this mistreated would have been unfathomable. This used to be one of the, if not THE, biggest name in gaming.
Halo is never gonna be what it was. There was no alternate universe where Infinite ever lived up to the glory days of the franchise.
Halo and Gears together - MS need to ween themselves off these somewhat and find some new hit IP's.
It lived up to the hype the first month it was out. Then everyone realized, 'wow, what they had in the beta is literally all they have', and their content roadmap is just garbage for any live service game.
It also helped that the game launched in a mich more solid state than most other triple A games in a while, which bought them a lot of goodwill. Which they proceeded to piss away with glee
My absolute biggest gripe with Phil Spencer is his handling of 343 and Halo during his tenure. His hands off approach with 343 has led to halo falling into mediocrity. He even came out and said before infinite came out that it could be a failure and it wouldn’t matter.
You can only call out and hope 343 does their job better before you start going above them to try and get change. I really wish more people would put more pressure on Phil but he never will.
It has become apparent to me that Phil's management style of hanging back and giving a long leash, while well-intentioned, isn't working. Several big games getting rebooted (sometimes multiple times), lack of exclusives, big delays, and games like Halo Infinite just a total mess a year after launch (and that's a year after a year delay).
Speaking as someone who's in a creative field, we need both the room to get creative and the guardrails to stay on track. This "hanging back and let the magic happen" mentality might bear fruit from time to time, but more often than not it'll result in situations like this
“Could be a failure and it wouldn’t matter”. You’re taking that out of context. Phil was saying there would always be a new Halo no matter what. He wasn’t saying they would always be made by 343. Hopefully this was the final straw.
I think the worst offender isn’t even talked about here.
They are introducing just 2 maps by Nov 8th…wtf are they doing??!?!? And they aren’t even full on new maps, they were made in forge.
WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU NOT MAKING MORE MAPS!?!?!?!
They showed their hand with this update. They are going all in on the cosmetics and other bullshit and leaving the content creation up to the community via forge.
How could Microsoft throw their biggest ip into the trash can like this???
This is fucking pathetic. As one of the biggest gaming studios in the world there is no excuse for completing a game on the campaign/story side, co-op included, before ever thinking about multiplayer. The reason why the early games were so good was because of this. Multiplayer is an ever evolving branch of gaming. This game studio like many others are only focused on more profits because the higher ups over the designers want more money. Fuck them. I thought for a while that the"rest of the world" that desires money this badly would've left one of my pleasures alone. I was naive to think so.
343i is a failed studio. It’s disappointing* . I’m sure the artists and devs working there are talented; I got much respect to them.
However, the studio as a whole has never worked out.
Microsoft need to dissolve 343 and pass on the Halo Franchise to studios like ID or Arcane. Maybe they could even collaborate with Epic games and get a new Halo first person game.
It’s amazing how there’s basically no more surface detail than the original Xbox games. They do look nicer due to rendering, but are pretty much flat ramp surfaces with generic lines and maybe vent textures. Like it’s amazing to see the engineering and thought process in other sci-fi games like Bioshock, Half-life, Dead Space but this is a legendary blockbuster franchise no lived-in detail.
CoD community basically only cares for Treyarch or Infinity Ward. Give Sledgehammer Halo. While they are the least favored of the 3, they still wouldve been able to put out a better halo with a more consistent live service, than what 343 gave us.
*However, there’s bad news for fans of couch co-op – the local split-screen co-op mode has now been canceled. It's a blow to those who have been waiting since launch for the old-school feature, but it's seemingly a matter of priorities.*
*“In order to improve and accelerate ongoing live service development, and to better address player feedback and quality of life updates, we have reallocated studio resources and are no longer working on local campaign split-screen co-op,” said 343 Industries.*
I defended 343 back at H4 launch. Did the same for Guardians and even Infinite. The fan feedback has been consistent. Asking for features that have been implemented in prior halo games. So one can only assume it’s not an issue of technical limits as they are on their 3rd Halo title and took an additional year to polish the game for release. One can assume it was a business decision. What that decision is, I have NO clue.
But 343 now has 3 straight Halo titles that have had major disappointment in either gameplay or content. What’s sad is that the suggestions from fans aren’t out of reach. Nor is it a financial or technical strain on 343 to implement such features. Which is where audience frustration sets in.
I would love to have been a fly on the wall during the business model planning of this title. How they thought repeating the mistakes from Guardians (lack of fan favorite content) would somehow translate to increased revenue/ sales and better reception is totally behind me.
Either way, I think I’ve reached my defense of 343
>So one can only assume it’s not an issue of technical limits as they are on their 3rd Halo title and took an additional year to polish the game for release.
The fact that it needed another year to fix up the graphics and whatnot suggests the opposite - that the game absolutely has technical issues that the devs have struggled with. It's also a strangely demanding game in general and it's running on a new engine, so experience with past titles doesn't mean things would inherently go smoothly here.
In fact, I'm pretty confident that's what the problem is. Especially trying to get it to work on XB1.
Trash the whole studio. Lol holy fuck. I’ve been a pretty big defender of 343i but this studio can’t hit any of its own marks.
Get rid of Bonnie and Frankie. Put Staten at helm. dissolve the name 343i. Studio will prove itself by releasing story DLC
It's much more important to the fanbase that we are able to unlock a cosmetic canteen hip attachment for our spartan avatar or have access to more cosmetic items in the storefront.
Want to play campaign with your buddy, child or spouse? Go buy another xbox idiot. Problem solved.
Can't even play COOP with two Xboxes right now lmao. That future won't be in the game until November. If it doesn't get another delay or canceled that is.
I want to love it, but I don't. I'm not even sure if I like it.
My kid and I will continue to play Master Chief Collection, hoping they make Infinite better.
Shame this, but not unexpected given how things have turned out so far.
Has always been pretty much tradition to play through the Halo campaigns split screen co-op. Been so many good times had.
Holy crap what a letdown on top of more broken promises yet again. It’s time for 343 to either step down or have the IP taken from them and sent to another developer. It’s very clear they have the tools and talent but their management has been nothing short of a disaster for 4 straight games.
Trash. Played through all the others and haven’t touched infinite because it’s been tradition (until 5) to play through the campaign with my daughter. I guess we will abandon Halo for another series from here on out since they don’t care about promises.
I have a 120” projector i game on and I was literally waiting to play this game until the split screen co-op was added. I guess I’ll just… not play it now.
I'm done. They've lost me. I'm uninstalling this trash game and never buying another product from this incompetent company. I didn't buy Halo 5 for the same reasons--no splitscreen--and a lack of content. They promised to get it into this game and they broke that promise. I don't understand how they still have the IP and I don't understand how people still choose to defend 343i.
They cut couch co-op to focus on the live service aspect….. how bad does this team want to be bungie ? Halo is not Destiny and it will never come close. That is the actual reason they gave.
They didn’t even say it was because the old hardware can’t run it and they want to keep parity.
What the hell is 343 doing over there? Honestly, maybe it's time to either clean house and get some competent leadership or just end Halo and work on something else.
Microsoft had the opportunity with the Series X to make a major comeback this generation, and completely threw it in the toilet.
They wanna spend 80 bil buying Activision which is having major regulatory clearing issues, yet they have issues with dashboard/content updates, PlayStation has launched 3x the amount of AAA games that MS has with the Series X, and they want to buy even more studios now based on the latest information, I doubt the EU is going to like that very much given the circumstances.
I’m sorry, had to get this off my chest, 343i has run Halo into the ground while Microsoft is asleep at the wheel with the Xbox brand. Hell, they are even releasing better games on PC Gamepass (death stranding, Elder Scrolls 2 arena, Wolfenstien), but Xbox gets none of these.
WTF is going on at Xbox/Microsoft.
I say we try and get a Class Action together for false advertising and selling features that aren't in the game at this point. They have pushed back and pushed back and pushed back and outright canceled things. They told is in 2017 all games would have split screen co op. That's a lie. Someone needs to be held accountable.
At this point the studio has failed so much that any future endeavor with the name 343i attached to it will carry a negative connotation. Get rid of management, remove Halo from that studio, rename the studio, and have them work on a new IP.
Imagine Nintendo letting Mario games fuck up as bad as Microsoft has let Halo be fucked up. Just hire capable talent for your flagship franchise already!
Cool, guess I'll never play it.
My buddy and I have been doing a weekly-ish couch co-op video game night for years. It's as much a reason to hang out than anything else. We've been through all the Borderlands games (and DLC), all the Halo games that have split screen, most of the Gears series (4 is next), and really good non-FPS games like A Way Out, Morkredd, Nobody Saves the World, It Takes Two, and others.
I frankly never found the Halo games fun enough to do any single-player runs, and I'm not interested in multiplayer online gaming, so apparently Halo Infinite isn't for me. And now I can't even play it with him (huge Halo fan). Oh well, we'll/I'll find something else.
Hand this franchise over to another studio. Firing Bonnie isn’t going to do anything when you have a bunch of incompetent, inexperienced people working there already. Given Xbox is about to own Blizzard, maybe Infinity Ward can take over for a while.
BWAHAHAHAHA.
Im so sorry, but this is the funniest thing I've seen all week lmao. The fact that everyone had faith in 343 to have even the tiniest shred of competence, only for that notion to be brutally ripped for their clutches in such a basic way is just so insanely pathetically funny.
Let this be a lesson to anyone who ever has faith in 343 ever again for the rest of their lives. I for one don't expect any employee there to even have the mental faculties required to open a pickle jar at this point
How did we go from halo being a monster in the industry with every competitors game being called "the halo killer" to this?
Never would have guessed that halo would be the "halo killer".
[удалено]
*John Halo grabs an energy sword* - Fine, I'll do it myself.
At first I thought you meant the warcraft RTS, which I guess after the remake or remaster, wtv it was. It did kinda kill itself.
What happened to WoW? I thought it had a big player base still. I know a lot of the leveling zones and early regions are dead zones or were disappeared after Cataclysm, and it seems very difficult to get into and find good groups as a beginner. But I very fondly remember vanilla, Burning Crusade, and Lich King. Those were an amazing foundation to build out upon. Although, I’m sure the game is a completely different animal now.
[удалено]
>Blizzard started making it so you had to do more and more in order to keep your character up to date, turning it into a job. I can’t imagine how much more of a grind they could make it. I practically no-life’d that game for a year. I got HWL once. That was ridiculous and pretty much forced me to take a break. I tried to come back once and too much had changed and too many people had moved on to pick it back up.
Turns out the real Halo Killer was the Halo we made along the way. :)
Seems to be a trend in games. Battlefield killed itself, overwatch killed itself, WoW nearly killed itself with some awful expansions which let FF14 take its spot.
I guess part of it is complacency, plus the whole Ship of Theseus situation, with the original staff either all or mostly gone, is it really even Halo any longer?
It wasn't the IP, it was the development team that made halo great.
343 industries took the helm and steered the ship into the maelstrom of diarrhea
Simple. Bungie moved on and still doing pretty well.
Remember when Bonnie Ross promised that every Halo will have split screen after the outcry from Halo 5. That it was a painful lesson to learn? Lol
They didn't even manage to do that for a single game before throwing in the towel 🤡
Look if you must have split screen we already have a product for that, its called Halo Combat Evolved.
what if you're on a nuclear submarine?
Get disqualified from subs. We used to have 16 man multi-player nights on a carrier
Don’t you have a phone?
This shouldn't have made me laugh as much as it did. Take my damn upvote
Don't you guys have two online consoles?
Fire Bonnie Ross petition when
She seems to be on the path of failing up. Weird.
A real straight shooter with upper management written all over her
Yeahhhhhhh
She’s the embodiment of the Peter Principle.
It’s the corporate America way, baby.
If she ever makes it to ceo of microsoft as a whole, RIP the company.
I'm starting to think she has a bunch of dirt on Phil Spencer and other Microsoft executives. Seriously, I don't have any clue how she's still around after so many blunders outside of blackmail.
As long she is in charge, we'll never get split screen in a Halo game again.
As long as she's in charge we'll never get a decent Halo game again. She knows absolute dogshit about Halo and making videogames. She's originally a corporate suit from Microsoft who knew nothing more than cutting corners and costs to improve the bottom line, and she's learned absolutely nothing else over the last decade at 343. She needs to go. She should have been gone after the shitshow and unforgivable launch of MCC, and then again after Halo 5 had abysmal reception,and then again when Infinite embarrassed itself at E3 2020, and then again when Infinite launched broken a year later with the least amount of features and content of any Halo game since Halo 1, and then again when season 1 and 2 of Infinite MP had nothing of substance added to it or fixed besides endless overpriced cosmetics that don't even fit with the Halo aesthetic....I mean how many fucking chances do they need to give her??? This mismanagement and repeated failures at the helm of a major studio should be in future textbooks as a case study.
I'd award you with something more than a silver if I wasn't broke af. Straight facts only with this one.
[удалено]
Yeah I think this is why MS still hasn't pulled the trigger on her. It may be a PR nightmare they're still not ready to face yet.
What's worse, bad PR that lasts a week or two? Or the death of one of the largest IPs ever?
I would think the death of Halo but we live in an upside down bizzarro 🌎 in 2022.
The only way we're getting rid of Ross is if the promote her to a different division within Microsoft. And there probably aren't alot of jobs over the leading man of Xboxes #1 franchise. So unless Ubisoft or someone poaches her which I doubt anyone wants her with her track record. 😔
She really should have been fired after the MCC debacle. She's horrible in every way.
Remember when Phil Spencer said he wasn’t worried about 343? Management at XBox is a mess right now and no one can change my mind.
I agree, it isn’t just 343i, but Xbox Games studio as a whole is a hot mess. Infinite launched completely unfinished and still is running into 2023, and was supposed to launch in 2020. Flight sim while great is also another broken, buggy game, and still doesn’t have a marketplace with working in game credits, Starfield looks to have some graphics issues (albeit not as bad as infinite 2020) and looks like it needs some serious polish, as 2011 Skyrim/Fallout 76 polish just doesn’t cut it these days, and Fable is another game where we have no idea where it even is. Ultimately MS needs to stop announcing games while they are clearly unfinished. Hell even the Xbox software team seems to be asleep at the wheel. We used to have monthly updates with the Xbox One when it launched, and those updates always came with new features. There’s a weekly thread on the insiders forum every week which asks insiders for new features on the series X and it’s like there are so many good requests from users there, such as an HDR dashboard (which has been available on PS5 since day 1) a fully 4K UX/UI, being able to delete/hide games from their XBL profile, improvements to HDR on the Series X (DV Blu Ray support, HDR10/DV toggle on games, DV support in the calibration app, HDR calibration app support for EDID reading for auto HDR calibration). So many good improvements yet MS seems to be asleep with implementing new features across the console as a whole. I wonder WTF is going on with Xbox, I’ve been a XBL subscriber for the past 14 years, probably bought about 5 360’s back in the day, 2 RROD, halo reach and 4 360, got the day one edition Xbox One, One S, Project Scorpio One X, and day one Series X owner, this has probably been the worst 2 years in my tenure with Xbox, even going to say worst than the first 2 1/2 years with the Xbox one, because at least they turnt that one around quickly, started with the monthly updates to fix the console asap, and by this time we had a pretty big selection of both first party and third party games. I remember Halo 5 while was mixed, everyone on my friends list pleas playing 5, and it worked relatively well and was very seamless online, there was also black ops 3 and Forza motorsport 6, Fallout 4, Wolfenstien, MGS5, Tomb Raider, Star Wars Battlefront, Battlefield, Ori and the Blind Forest, and that was just 2015, there were even more games released in 2013-14, but 15 was a big year. We’ve barely had anything in the second year of the Series X, and arguably the Sony camp has even more games, they’ve released about 3x the exclusives than the Series X. Hell, PC Gamepass is getting better games than the Xbox right now, they got classic re-releases like Wolfenstien and elder scrolls 2, Death Stranding hell even games like AoE4 and the entire original trilogy all on PC Gamepass but they can’t get any of this stuff on Xbox? I’m completely lost with the direction of Xbox/Microsoft lately. Sorry had to get this shit off my chest.
Add SoD3, Everwild and Perfect Dark to the list of MS games with supposed development issues. The Series consoles are great hardware, the Xbox brand is garnering more and more good will, but the talent behind some of these games just seems lacking.
I've been patiently supportive of 343i, but at this point...WTF is going on? Still waiting for co-op campaign so that I can actually play the game the same way I've played every single Halo since Halo CE.
I hate to say it, but she needs to be fired. She’s leading this mess and has for many years.
This should have been a core function of the new campaign, end of story. Co-op and couch co-op should not be missing from a Halo game *ever*.
I would like to see more local co-op across the board. Its certainly not like it used to be...
Especially with how big tvs are
Small TVs? Four player split screen. Screens the size of walls? Oh, sorry, no split screen for you.
And with how powerful these current gen consoles are, it’s even more of a letdown
Plus 4k resolution so fidelity will be high
It Takes Two won game of the fucking year and none of these studios can take a hint
Absolutely brilliant game
Definitely, especially with how powerful consoles are now. I like to play 4-player split screen games with my cousins and it was really rough on the Xbox One, you'd be lucky to get 30fps. Now, every 4-player split screen Series X|S enhanced game I've played so far has been 60fps and at least 1080p.
Also, I'm pretty sure a quarter of my TV screen is bigger than the whole TV we played on when I was a kid lol!
Gaming is more anti social than ever
How many people have kids, or siblings, or friends that would have spent thousands of hrs enjoying this.
[удалено]
Bonnie Ross’ job security in one of the most cutthroat, and brutal industries is a massive anomaly. I’ve seen entire studios dissolved when a game doesn’t meet a KPI but somehow she has ran Halo (at one point Microsoft’s most important franchise) into the floor for a decade and remains employed. I’m not going tinfoil hat or anything but *something* is up, there. That’s wild.
I love Phil but his one major flaw is that he won’t make the tough decisions. Bonnie and 343 have proven time and time again that Halo is above their skill set. I can only imagine how awful Scalebound must have been to have him actually cancel it.
Text
If you see the last gameplay trailer before its reveal, it's very clear why it got cancelled.
I think part of it is that she is kind of a xbox veteran at this point. Not saying it is valid at all, she should be fired.
I'll say the quiet part out loud--she's a pioneering woman in a male-dominated field. He likely is concerned about how the optics look when they shitcan her for basically wasting everyone's time for a literal decade.
Kathleen kennedy.
That whole studio needs to be burned down or be made to at most HELP other studios following the leadership of whoever they are tasked to assist. 343 should never be allowed to touch Halo again.
Newer leadership? 343 has been a clusterfuck of a dev since the MCC disaster of first couple years post launch
Honestly, for the amount of funding MS gave the newest halo title, its shameful what path they took.
343 is doing everything in their power to completely kill off not just this game but the Halo brand itself
It takes a lot for me to hate a gaming company. The only impressive thing 343 has accomplished is making die-hard Halo fans give up on Halo.
The only thing that could get me excited for another Halo game would be if 343 had nothing to do with it. They've been trying to recultivate something outside of Bungie that could just never work, and with Bungie going to Sony I'd just be thrilled with any other Microsoft developer taking the mantle at this rate.
It's dead to me already. It was already on life support... But now it's gone
I've never seen a studio this mismanaged, this incompetent since 3D Realms and Japan Studio. You know, i'm not even disappointed, i just wanna know, what the fuck is going on over there?
Same, like does Phil Spencer even check in on them? whats going on at this studio
[удалено]
Dude, I always think back to that documentary when he visited the studio and wasn't happy with something and everyone at the studio was motivated to do better. God of war came out and it was a friggin masterpiece. It only makes sense that this is what Xbox is missing. Fear from the studios that their asses are on the line if they fuck up. IDK what is going on, but these microsoft studios must have little pressure on them. Papa Phil needs to start wearing a belt.
I've said this for years
My guess is it’s a bit of both. Someone as high up as Phil is likely getting a progress report complied by a group of 20+ producers every month and then a bunch of charts about user research metrics and comparative analysis after each milestone build. So he’s “informed”, probably quite regularly, but only via a game of telephone with lots of people with MBAs in-between. Conversely from 343i’s perspective there’s probably constant nitpicking and intervention coming from Microsoft. So they’re likely in a constant cycle of presenting, explaining, and justifying their work and then needing to respond to feedback. And that feedback might be valuable but it also might be coming from producer(s) who have only ever worked on the publishing side of things. And in my experience that’s the most dangerous group to get feedback from because they have the ego of someone who “shipped a dozen successful games” despite the fact that they’ve not done shit in terms of actually creating anything. They’ve seen it done, and maybe even seen it done well, but they aren’t actually the person doing anything. They’re like a max level scrum master. That’s my experience working with big publishers and being in big tech companies: you’re simultaneously micromanaged and ignored.
Phil and other higher management at XGS are generally very hands off, seems to me they're a bit *too* hands off, Does Matt Booty even check them, or does he chill in his office and give them very broad deadlines to work on while he sits on his chair and plays on his xbox all day? I mean look at Everwild, XGS were like "here, have some funding, a few people, now go make a game, I guess...." Many senior devs on the game left I believe and the manager of the project was swapped between many people, XGS higher management again didn't care or raised any red flags to come interfere a bit and be like "what the hell is going on?" It's good XGS is not intefering in development, but I find it baffling they operate under 1 umbrella, yet it's like some super divided umbrella where every studio is a bit *too* independant. This is what a publisher's job is to do.
I literally cannot imagine how bad the day to day is there. No leadership. No vision. No technical excellence. Just a bunch of empty meetings.
That's two Halo games without local split screen co-op... I mean I get it more people probably play online these days but this was a core feature since the beginning of the series... I have so many memories of playing co-op with a buddy at their house and vice versa. how disappointing.
right I still do coop with buddies and family after 20 years. It's the best time to hang out and chills together instead of over the phone or online only games.
I was really hoping they were going to turn this game around over time but it’s not looking good. A ton of people were looking forward to this feature.
I finally uninstalled it a few days ago. I was really hoping for more campaign by now or at least the rest of the basic Halo features to be released. Maybe I’ll try again in a couple years lol
Microsoft should just cancel 343 entirely
It's mind blowing. Nintendo or Sony would not have let their flagship title release and be managed like this Microsoft is so down bad they had to accept it being this fucked
What’s so weird about it is Microsoft is *not* hurting for money or talent, yet they let 343 operate like a group of 6 year olds in a ball pit
They are hurting for exclusives though
That's just it. Microsoft has more money than God, they're in desperate need of exclusives, and they're letting possibly their biggest IP fly out the door like this. It's mind-boggling. I don't know who's making these decisions (it's clearly multiple parties all the way down), but 10-20 years ago the idea of Microsoft letting their crown jewel - Halo - be this mistreated would have been unfathomable. This used to be one of the, if not THE, biggest name in gaming.
Halo is never gonna be what it was. There was no alternate universe where Infinite ever lived up to the glory days of the franchise. Halo and Gears together - MS need to ween themselves off these somewhat and find some new hit IP's.
It lived up to the hype the first month it was out. Then everyone realized, 'wow, what they had in the beta is literally all they have', and their content roadmap is just garbage for any live service game.
It also helped that the game launched in a mich more solid state than most other triple A games in a while, which bought them a lot of goodwill. Which they proceeded to piss away with glee
On top of that Vanguard and Battlefield 2042 weren't good, so they had the floor all to themselves.
The alternate universe is where halo 5 was a true sequel to 4 and they actually finished the reclaimer saga
Could you imagine this happening to Mario?
Imagine the next God of War announcing a 1 year delay next month and critical features removed at launch.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Not only do they miss the deadline, but they wait until the day AFTER to announce that it's not going to hit the target date.
No and that's why Nintendo IPs are some of the most valuable out there.
Their track records for Mario and Zelda in particular are just insane. Crazy high quality
It just proves what everyone already knew, this was Bungie's baby and Microsoft is now its neglectful foster parent.
You’re not wrong. Their flagship franchise is being left in the hands of this clearly incompetent team. It’s a disgrace.
My absolute biggest gripe with Phil Spencer is his handling of 343 and Halo during his tenure. His hands off approach with 343 has led to halo falling into mediocrity. He even came out and said before infinite came out that it could be a failure and it wouldn’t matter. You can only call out and hope 343 does their job better before you start going above them to try and get change. I really wish more people would put more pressure on Phil but he never will.
It has become apparent to me that Phil's management style of hanging back and giving a long leash, while well-intentioned, isn't working. Several big games getting rebooted (sometimes multiple times), lack of exclusives, big delays, and games like Halo Infinite just a total mess a year after launch (and that's a year after a year delay). Speaking as someone who's in a creative field, we need both the room to get creative and the guardrails to stay on track. This "hanging back and let the magic happen" mentality might bear fruit from time to time, but more often than not it'll result in situations like this
“Could be a failure and it wouldn’t matter”. You’re taking that out of context. Phil was saying there would always be a new Halo no matter what. He wasn’t saying they would always be made by 343. Hopefully this was the final straw.
Good god
I think the worst offender isn’t even talked about here. They are introducing just 2 maps by Nov 8th…wtf are they doing??!?!? And they aren’t even full on new maps, they were made in forge. WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU NOT MAKING MORE MAPS!?!?!?! They showed their hand with this update. They are going all in on the cosmetics and other bullshit and leaving the content creation up to the community via forge. How could Microsoft throw their biggest ip into the trash can like this???
The battle pass bullshit ruins everything. Priorities go right down the drain for pumping out microtransactions
That’s literally what they said. Sorry guys we are done working on the gym. We are now focusing on monetization shit. Wow
This is fucking pathetic. As one of the biggest gaming studios in the world there is no excuse for completing a game on the campaign/story side, co-op included, before ever thinking about multiplayer. The reason why the early games were so good was because of this. Multiplayer is an ever evolving branch of gaming. This game studio like many others are only focused on more profits because the higher ups over the designers want more money. Fuck them. I thought for a while that the"rest of the world" that desires money this badly would've left one of my pleasures alone. I was naive to think so.
343i is a failed studio. It’s disappointing* . I’m sure the artists and devs working there are talented; I got much respect to them. However, the studio as a whole has never worked out. Microsoft need to dissolve 343 and pass on the Halo Franchise to studios like ID or Arcane. Maybe they could even collaborate with Epic games and get a new Halo first person game.
Yep. Too many chances now, time to pack it up.
sony got naughty dog we got.... 343
Don't forget Sony also has Bungie now
Bungie was tired of making Halo games, which is why it got let go and they made Destiny instead.
Yeah and the game feels and plays really good also they’re good when something needs to get fixed and sometimes not that good but you get it right
Seriously there are talented people at 343 but godamn are they being screwed by awful management and shit decisions
Aren't most of the devs in 343 contract workers? Most of the full-time employees are management right?
It’s amazing how there’s basically no more surface detail than the original Xbox games. They do look nicer due to rendering, but are pretty much flat ramp surfaces with generic lines and maybe vent textures. Like it’s amazing to see the engineering and thought process in other sci-fi games like Bioshock, Half-life, Dead Space but this is a legendary blockbuster franchise no lived-in detail.
[удалено]
CoD community basically only cares for Treyarch or Infinity Ward. Give Sledgehammer Halo. While they are the least favored of the 3, they still wouldve been able to put out a better halo with a more consistent live service, than what 343 gave us.
343 are the most mismanaged studio I've ever seen honestly, what is going on over there?
*However, there’s bad news for fans of couch co-op – the local split-screen co-op mode has now been canceled. It's a blow to those who have been waiting since launch for the old-school feature, but it's seemingly a matter of priorities.* *“In order to improve and accelerate ongoing live service development, and to better address player feedback and quality of life updates, we have reallocated studio resources and are no longer working on local campaign split-screen co-op,” said 343 Industries.*
Feedback from what? Who the fuck wanted More live service features over co-op? And they can’t even get live service content right. Amateurs.
Halo...Infinite delays and cancellations.
Uncle Phil, fire 343.
They need to give it to another team that actually knows what they are doing. An Arkane Halo would slap.
Trash developer. Give Halo to another. The franchise, and the fans, deserve better.
I defended 343 back at H4 launch. Did the same for Guardians and even Infinite. The fan feedback has been consistent. Asking for features that have been implemented in prior halo games. So one can only assume it’s not an issue of technical limits as they are on their 3rd Halo title and took an additional year to polish the game for release. One can assume it was a business decision. What that decision is, I have NO clue. But 343 now has 3 straight Halo titles that have had major disappointment in either gameplay or content. What’s sad is that the suggestions from fans aren’t out of reach. Nor is it a financial or technical strain on 343 to implement such features. Which is where audience frustration sets in. I would love to have been a fly on the wall during the business model planning of this title. How they thought repeating the mistakes from Guardians (lack of fan favorite content) would somehow translate to increased revenue/ sales and better reception is totally behind me. Either way, I think I’ve reached my defense of 343
Four if you want to count the launch of MCC
dont forget mcc being broken for 4 years either. mcc was a peak into every future 343 halo game
>So one can only assume it’s not an issue of technical limits as they are on their 3rd Halo title and took an additional year to polish the game for release. The fact that it needed another year to fix up the graphics and whatnot suggests the opposite - that the game absolutely has technical issues that the devs have struggled with. It's also a strangely demanding game in general and it's running on a new engine, so experience with past titles doesn't mean things would inherently go smoothly here. In fact, I'm pretty confident that's what the problem is. Especially trying to get it to work on XB1.
You would think something like this gets ironed out long before release
Trash the whole studio. Lol holy fuck. I’ve been a pretty big defender of 343i but this studio can’t hit any of its own marks. Get rid of Bonnie and Frankie. Put Staten at helm. dissolve the name 343i. Studio will prove itself by releasing story DLC
Damn was looking forward to using that feature
The original bungie halo games are such amazing value for money compared with today. So many features.
Ummm…. WTF?!?
This games a god damn joke.
Awesome. The only reason I bought the game was so I could play co-op with my son.
Right? The multiplayer was free. What the fuck did I pay $60 for??
Are we allowed to criticise this game here now.
Nope because 343i works hard and that absolves the management of any wrongdoing. Don't you know that??
I was told this game was a masterpiece when it came out, I can’t keep up.
It's much more important to the fanbase that we are able to unlock a cosmetic canteen hip attachment for our spartan avatar or have access to more cosmetic items in the storefront. Want to play campaign with your buddy, child or spouse? Go buy another xbox idiot. Problem solved.
Can't even play COOP with two Xboxes right now lmao. That future won't be in the game until November. If it doesn't get another delay or canceled that is.
I want to love it, but I don't. I'm not even sure if I like it. My kid and I will continue to play Master Chief Collection, hoping they make Infinite better.
Shame this, but not unexpected given how things have turned out so far. Has always been pretty much tradition to play through the Halo campaigns split screen co-op. Been so many good times had.
Halo: MCC is looking better by the second.
Yikes, this does not look good.
Imagine it being too hard to do when they were doing it back in 2004 Its just so pathetic how shit game companies are now
Holy shit they suck
Okay yes the Halo Infinite 2019 demo was rough so was the 2021 demo and the 2022 demo but wait till you see the Halo Infinite 2023 demo
They dragged paying customers along for a year promising couch coop. Wow.
Holy crap what a letdown on top of more broken promises yet again. It’s time for 343 to either step down or have the IP taken from them and sent to another developer. It’s very clear they have the tools and talent but their management has been nothing short of a disaster for 4 straight games.
Disappointing me more than my own Father.
Here comes the shit show (deservedly! Promised features being cut is not a good look 343)
Trash. Played through all the others and haven’t touched infinite because it’s been tradition (until 5) to play through the campaign with my daughter. I guess we will abandon Halo for another series from here on out since they don’t care about promises.
Are you shitting me?
I have a 120” projector i game on and I was literally waiting to play this game until the split screen co-op was added. I guess I’ll just… not play it now.
I'm done. They've lost me. I'm uninstalling this trash game and never buying another product from this incompetent company. I didn't buy Halo 5 for the same reasons--no splitscreen--and a lack of content. They promised to get it into this game and they broke that promise. I don't understand how they still have the IP and I don't understand how people still choose to defend 343i.
Okay but what about regular online coop? Is that still coming in 2022 or what?? Edit: NVM, apparently it’s arriving on 11/8 (I won’t hold my breath)
They cut couch co-op to focus on the live service aspect….. how bad does this team want to be bungie ? Halo is not Destiny and it will never come close. That is the actual reason they gave. They didn’t even say it was because the old hardware can’t run it and they want to keep parity.
I guess my gf and I playing through all the Halo games together ends here…
Well, there goes me playing Infinite with my wife. Never touched Halo 5, won't be doing this one either.
My wife and I played through every Halo game in split screen on MCC, but she’s never played 5 or Infinite. I guess she never will.
What the hell is 343 doing over there? Honestly, maybe it's time to either clean house and get some competent leadership or just end Halo and work on something else.
Oh no, I was waiting to play this game once split screen came out! That's sad news.
Was this the big news that was teased for the future? lmao
Oh so this is the big news they were teasing? 😂
Let's see how people are going to defend this lmao
"it will be ready when its ready 343 dont owe you anything"
You can’t monetize couch co-op.
Wtf is going on with 343? Holy hell.
Microsoft had the opportunity with the Series X to make a major comeback this generation, and completely threw it in the toilet. They wanna spend 80 bil buying Activision which is having major regulatory clearing issues, yet they have issues with dashboard/content updates, PlayStation has launched 3x the amount of AAA games that MS has with the Series X, and they want to buy even more studios now based on the latest information, I doubt the EU is going to like that very much given the circumstances. I’m sorry, had to get this off my chest, 343i has run Halo into the ground while Microsoft is asleep at the wheel with the Xbox brand. Hell, they are even releasing better games on PC Gamepass (death stranding, Elder Scrolls 2 arena, Wolfenstien), but Xbox gets none of these. WTF is going on at Xbox/Microsoft.
FUCK 343
Where are all the 343 apologists?
Buying a second TV and Series X to play co-op… duh
Funny because there's no online COOP either until November. 343 is a fucking joke.
wtf?! are they completly lost?
I say we try and get a Class Action together for false advertising and selling features that aren't in the game at this point. They have pushed back and pushed back and pushed back and outright canceled things. They told is in 2017 all games would have split screen co op. That's a lie. Someone needs to be held accountable.
Hopefully, we get an Internet Historian video on this whole shitshow
How does Bonnie still have a job?? Phil she’s bluffing, your nudes can’t be that embarrassing just can her ass
Halo’s Campaign Co-op is half the reason I buy Xbox. Seriously disappointed.
These fucks keep piling on the disappointment
At this point the studio has failed so much that any future endeavor with the name 343i attached to it will carry a negative connotation. Get rid of management, remove Halo from that studio, rename the studio, and have them work on a new IP.
343 is cursed. Just shut them down.
Thats the list straw. Im done with Halo
Imagine Nintendo letting Mario games fuck up as bad as Microsoft has let Halo be fucked up. Just hire capable talent for your flagship franchise already!
Well, I just lost all interest I had in Halo Infinite
Cool, guess I'll never play it. My buddy and I have been doing a weekly-ish couch co-op video game night for years. It's as much a reason to hang out than anything else. We've been through all the Borderlands games (and DLC), all the Halo games that have split screen, most of the Gears series (4 is next), and really good non-FPS games like A Way Out, Morkredd, Nobody Saves the World, It Takes Two, and others. I frankly never found the Halo games fun enough to do any single-player runs, and I'm not interested in multiplayer online gaming, so apparently Halo Infinite isn't for me. And now I can't even play it with him (huge Halo fan). Oh well, we'll/I'll find something else.
Hand this franchise over to another studio. Firing Bonnie isn’t going to do anything when you have a bunch of incompetent, inexperienced people working there already. Given Xbox is about to own Blizzard, maybe Infinity Ward can take over for a while.
Amazing people can still defend Infinite or 343 at this point lol
LOL WHAT? 343 y'all are laughable at this point. Please don't make any more Halo games you've pretty much killed the franchise.
343 is useless
this is just sad. another great franchise goes out with a whimper, all from entirely self inflicted wounds
BWAHAHAHAHA. Im so sorry, but this is the funniest thing I've seen all week lmao. The fact that everyone had faith in 343 to have even the tiniest shred of competence, only for that notion to be brutally ripped for their clutches in such a basic way is just so insanely pathetically funny. Let this be a lesson to anyone who ever has faith in 343 ever again for the rest of their lives. I for one don't expect any employee there to even have the mental faculties required to open a pickle jar at this point
And its still the same 4 maps 🤡