This is my first post on Waypoint but don’t let that put you off. I started this post about a point I have been thinking about over the past couple of days. In relation, to the latest titles of both Halo developers Bungie and 343 industries and how certain splits in their respective communities were created through the release of these titles.
Starting off in November 2012, 343i released Halo 4 to an expectant crowd of long-time Halo fans and new players, but the game’s population dropped by up to 87% after the first six months of Halo 4’s life. As we know by now, the game left many fans disappointed and those fans removed their faith of the continuation of the Halo series from 343i and many moved back to Bungie’s ‘side of the court’ in anticipation of Destiny - a work in progress at the time (akin to a child going back to their biological mother after being with a foster/stepfamily). And as Bungie gave birth to the Halo franchise, the fans that felt their trust be betrayed by 343i through Halo 4 placed their faith in the original creators.
However, upon Destiny’s release a couple of weeks back, it was found that the game was not all that the fans expected (sound familiar?) and so the Bungie and/or Halo communities split again. There were those fans who WERE satisfied with Destiny, and those that WEREN’T. Now here is where the tennis metaphor really takes affect, as 343i were given the advantage to regain the fans they lost from Halo 4 as well as introduce fans from the Destiny and even further afield communities. 343 industries had Halo 2:Anniversary as their secret weapon and used the announcement of the Master Chief Collection to make sure they got the point.
I know that there will still be a constant back and forth in fanbases between the release of new Destiny DLC, games and patches and new Halo titles in the not-so-distant future, but I feel that 343 industries has made the best move it possibly could. With the late 2015 release of Halo 5:Guardians (aka 343’s chance for redemption), the fans they will have collected from this year’s TMCC will stick around to see their winning point.
Game, Set and Match.
Happy First Post!
343 seems to be on the right track now. I’m really hoping Halo can get back to its former glory.
I don’t really see a need to make it a competition between the two developers. Bungie is making the Destiny franchise now and 343i is continuing the Halo franchise. There is no tennis match between them, if one company is successful with their franchise or both companies are successful that doesn’t mean either of them is “winning” or “losing”.
> I don’t really see a need to make it a competition between the two developers. Bungie is making the Destiny franchise now and 343i is continuing the Halo franchise. There is no tennis match between them, if one company is successful with their franchise or both companies are successful that doesn’t mean either of them is “winning” or “losing”.
Amen to this.
Honestly, I’m not too worried about Destiny coming together. I’m much more worried about h5. It had best be amazing.
I don’t think the two companies look at each other as rivals quite like the fans do. I enjoy Destiny for now and for what it is but I don’t think either franchise will hurt the other like CoD has done to every other fps franchise. I am stoked for The MCC and H5 though!
I don’t agree with those saying that there isn’t any competition between 343 Industries and Bungie. It’s not as though they aren’t competing against each other.
Just like any other developer, they have to ensure that they can keep up in the game industry with other games on the market. And Bungie have been firmly protective of people handling their content. Just look at how they treat Ensemble when there were developing Halo Wars.
If I had to pick a favourite, I’d pick Halo 4 because I felt really immersed in its story (I’m really big on stories in games). But it’s hard to compare them so I’ll just share some opinions.
Innovation, Gameplay and Controls: I think Bungie created a game that is slicker with elements from more modern FPS than 343 Industries did with Halo 4. Destiny’s gameplay is quite smooth and feels at home with iron sights, loadouts and perks. But these gameplay features were never meant to be included in Halo and simply don’t fit. I’m 343i have listened and will be removing them.
So I’d say Bungie wins in this regard.
Storytelling: However, when it comes to crafting a story, I think Halo 4 is far superior to Destiny. Destiny’s universe feels desolate and its hard to immerse yourself into the universe when there’s little going on. While 343i did make you go to Waypoint to access the terminal, the story is still understandable and quite enjoyable. Halo 4 has far greater character development than any previous Halo game.
So 343 Industries is leaps and bounds ahead of Bungie in this department.
It is not surprising that Halo 2 Anniversary has the most votes.
As much as Bungie did good with Halo back then, let’s not forget that they made Reach. The only reason Halo 4 sucked was because of Reach. Halo 4 used Reach as a model. In my opinion, if Halo Reach never existed, Halo 4 would’ve used Halo 3 as its main model.
(Also, I think Bungie did Halo Reach the way it is cause they wanted to use it as a testing ground for Destiny)
As for storytelling, I have to go with 343. I mean c’mon, Bungie has three games to work with it and casuals still have a hard time following it.
343’s Halo 4 explained way more than the trilogy. Don’t get me wrong, I still hold Halo CE as one of the best, but 343 clearly has a deep dedication and appreciation for the lore.
> As much as Bungie did good with Halo back then, let’s not forget that they made Reach. The only reason Halo 4 sucked was because of Reach. Halo 4 used Reach as a model. In my opinion, if Halo Reach never existed, Halo 4 would’ve used Halo 3 as its main model.
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> (Also, I think Bungie did Halo Reach the way it is cause they wanted to use it as a testing ground for Destiny)
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> As for storytelling, I have to go with 343. I mean c’mon, Bungie has three games to work with it and casuals still have a hard time following it.
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> 343’s Halo 4 explained way more than the trilogy. Don’t get me wrong, I still hold Halo CE as one of the best, but 343 clearly has a deep dedication and appreciation for the lore.
Bungie was never good at telling stories they are way better at creating a universe then actually filling it with substance Destiny is a perfect example of this. But I prefer 343 over Bungie by leaps and bounds and I think they are doing alot more good to the universe then bad people seem to hold 343 to some high standard that nobody held Bungie to. It’s purerly hypocrtical though evryone acts like because 343 made a game with bad multiplayer that they are -Yoink- devs who need to stop making halo its ridiculous Reach and therefore Bungie is what caused the decline in halo as of late.
Most of Halo 4’s problems stemmed from it’s development timeline. The game actually started its early stages of development before Reach launched and was built on Bungie’s final iteration of the Halo engine. From the sounds of things Halo 4 started with a ridiculously small team and as new people were brought in they had to hit the ground running at full steam. It was basically a group of people from very different development backgrounds being thrown together and told “4 years, get it done”.
They had a number of factors to try and consider before the data was even there, they had the higher ups making demands and they had a hard deadline to get it done. Microsoft have committed themselves to a strange sort of annual release with the Halo series, one which doesn’t have a major release every year, but still has to have something (Wars>ODST>Reach>CEA>4>Spartan Assault>MCC>5).
Many people say it shouldn’t be hard for them to build on what was there, but when you look at Bungie’s work it’s not hard to see why there could be some confusion. You have the addition and removal of dual wielding, you have new elements being thrown in with each game and receiving mixed receptions, and you have the story aspects of things. Halo 4 was their first attempt and they seem to be learning how to read fan feedback now that they’re at the helm. At the start of Halo 5’s development they knew how people felt about loadouts and AAs. They knew how people felt about Spartan Ops and storytelling elements. They knew their strengths and weaknesses, and that’s a huge advantage that they didn’t have before.
You make some great points Ebon. I think that now 343 has had time to step back and look at the future of Halo at a distance, they can now be more organised and put more stuff into Halo 5 that the community want. In all respects, Halo 4 was really just a testing ground for Guardians and they will get their largest amount of feedback from the Beta coming with the MCC. This time around 343i know what they have to do and how long they have to do it in, which was one of the major problems with Halo 2’s development cycle. Thanks for the feedback on the post everyone!
> <mark>Most of Halo 4’s problems stemmed from it’s development timeline. The game actually started its early stages of development before Reach launched and was built on Bungie’s final iteration of the Halo engine. From the sounds of things Halo 4 started with a ridiculously small team and as new people were brought in they had to hit the ground running at full steam. It was basically a group of people from very different development backgrounds being thrown together and told “4 years, get it done”.</mark>
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> They had a number of factors to try and consider before the data was even there, they had the higher ups making demands and they had a hard deadline to get it done. Microsoft have committed themselves to a strange sort of annual release with the Halo series, one which doesn’t have a major release every year, but still has to have something (Wars>ODST>Reach>CEA>4>Spartan Assault>MCC>5).
>
> Many people say it shouldn’t be hard for them to build on what was there, but when you look at Bungie’s work it’s not hard to see why there could be some confusion. You have the addition and removal of dual wielding, you have new elements being thrown in with each game and receiving mixed receptions, and you have the story aspects of things. <mark>Halo 4 was their first attempt and they seem to be learning how to read fan feedback now that they’re at the helm. At the start of Halo 5’s development they knew how people felt about loadouts and AAs. They knew how people felt about Spartan Ops and storytelling elements. They knew their strengths and weaknesses, and that’s a huge advantage that they didn’t have before.</mark>
This person gets it.
343 has proven that they can make one hell of a campaign. They’ve also shown that they can develop a multiplayer that plays damn near identical to Halo 2.
So now that they know what everyone wants, and we’ve all seen that they can deliver on both the campaign and multiplayer level, I don’t think we should worry.
As for Bungie, I’m still on the fence about Destiny, which is probably not a good thing at this point, since I got it at launch.
“343i vs. Bungie”? Oh you’re just asking for a flamewar!
That said, this is my opinion, Bungie did the best job at Halo games but Destiny is a far cry from being a “Halo killer”. Not a fan of 343i but I’m going to wait until Halo 5 to see if my opinion changes at all (not very hopeful though).
Destiny let me down…A LOT.
I am looking forward to the mcc but especially to halo 5
> I don’t agree with those saying that there isn’t any competition between 343 Industries and Bungie. It’s not as though they aren’t competing against each other.
>
> Just like any other developer, they have to ensure that they can keep up in the game industry with other games on the market. And Bungie have been firmly protective of people handling their content. Just look at how they treat Ensemble when there were developing Halo Wars.
>
> If I had to pick a favourite, I’d pick Halo 4 because I felt really immersed in its story (I’m really big on stories in games). But it’s hard to compare them so I’ll just share some opinions.
>
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> Innovation, Gameplay and Controls: I think Bungie created a game that is slicker with elements from more modern FPS than 343 Industries did with Halo 4. Destiny’s gameplay is quite smooth and feels at home with iron sights, loadouts and perks. But these gameplay features were never meant to be included in Halo and simply don’t fit. I’m 343i have listened and will be removing them.
>
> So I’d say Bungie wins in this regard.
>
> Storytelling: However, when it comes to crafting a story, I think Halo 4 is far superior to Destiny. Destiny’s universe feels desolate and its hard to immerse yourself into the universe when there’s little going on. While 343i did make you go to Waypoint to access the terminal, the story is still understandable and quite enjoyable. Halo 4 has far greater character development than any previous Halo game.
>
> So 343 Industries is leaps and bounds ahead of Bungie in this department.
point is…Destiny is an rpg hybrid…halo is not. If you ask me while mechanically excellent in a nutshell Destiny gets a lot of things wrong starting with poor weapon variety…AWFUL vehicular combat and Skinner box model that affects the gameplay itself as opposed to just cosmetic aspects which feeds into the MMO elitism mentality.
And the game lacks a story and proper character interaction
Sorry…343 all the way for me. As far as I am concerned actually Spartan Ops was more fun than Destiny and had a better and deeper story TYVM
Oh…and let’s not forget the misleading PR. that Bungie did leading people to believe this game would have a Halo-like campaign and be entirely solo friendly…yeah…right