Don't buy the campaign - lessons learned from Destiny 2

Games Halo Infinite
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Tl;dr, Play Halo’s campaign on game pass. Don’t pay full price.

Shortly before Halo Infinite went live, 343’s supposed “10 year” halo game (I have an entire rant about why that’s a stupid statement and launching a “10 year game” as cross platform is also dumb, as is a game with a new untested engine that 100% will need updates and overhauls, but I’ll save it lol), Destiny’s expansions were pulled from Xbox Game Pass.

For those not acquainted with Destiny and it’s current business model, let me explain it. Destiny’s base game is free to play, including both multiplayer & an early selection of story & core PvE content. However the meat of Destiny’s PvE content is doled out yearly through it’s full AAA priced expansions (As well as the smaller season passes which usually accompany them). This is mega expensive to keep up with, basically making Destiny a subscription based MMOFPS with a free tier. But, for a while on Xbox there was a silver lining to this, which was that these expansions were offered as part of the game pass subscription, making it a far more attractive value proposition than just paying £35 - £50 on a single game (which also features real money microtransactions, deluxe edition bundles, you name it).

Sound familiar? Ah yes. Today we have a Halo game which is free to play multiplayer, with a season pass and a money shop, but a full priced campaign. And that campaign has been noted to be a live service offering, and is clearly hinting at further stories to come. It also had 2/3 of it’s content cut from it, including cutscenes from the trailers that are not present in game, such as the 3x red eyes reflected in Chief’s visor. There will be campaign expansions, this is a certainty. Hopefully they’ll be fairly regular and fairly large like Destiny’s are, especially if there is so much content left on the cutting room floor to pull from. However, despite very vague mentions of the campaign’s games as a service aspect, the fact is we’ve been given zero promises, roadmaps or even hints that any real live service content is coming to the campaign, certainly not from the initial purchase price.

From this evidence I hypothesise the following. Halo is Microsoft’s replacement for Destiny in it’s game pass offering and it’s business model is largely going to follow suit. It is clear that many of the systems are already in place for this (albeit, offering much less content overall than Destiny’s currently does). With this in mind, the campaign’s “games as a service” model is probably just going to rely on further expansions and paid content, until we hear otherwise. Personally this doesn’t sound like GaaS at all, neither does gradually releasing modes for multiplayer cause that’s just launching incomplete in early access, but again that’s an entire other rant I won’t go into. The main takeaway is this:

The value proposition for Halo’s campaign is incredibly slim. Chances are what’s there now is what you’re getting for your money and nothing more will come of it. But, Xbox has a precedent in Destiny for adding major franchise’ game expansions to game pass. For this reason, I’d strongly advise any and all Halo players interested in campaign not to waste your money buying the campaign, and just play it on game pass instead. It’s way cheaper that way if e.g. you’re only gonna sub for 1 month to play it, and even if you pay yearly like I do the service as a whole is just way better value than buying a full priced AAA game is.

Also, a common argument against this is people preferring to own games instead of renting them. Trouble is, Infinite’s campaign requires online access to begin playing and when those servers go down so will the campaign. Permanent physical ownership is kinda impossible now (which sucks btw). At this point may as well just focus on paying the lowest amount / getting the most value for your money.

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They want you on game pass tho. They don’t care if you don’t buy it. As long as your in the ecosystem they got you

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I’ve already said I’d quite happily buy campaign DLC (not a big fan of gamepass, I’d rather own my games) but I won’t buy season passes. I see this as my way of supporting Halo Infinite and 343i instead of buying pointless cosmetics.

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I mean fine? That’s good for MS / Xbox and props to them because it’s a good service that allows you to play a huge variety of games both on PC and console. I’m not trying to starve Microsoft of funding, but I am gonna put my money where there is value to be had and that’s not in this game as a single product.

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The problem is they don’t want you owning games. Sooner or latter everything will become a service and you’ll no longer be able to pay without paying a monthly fee. Trust me. That’s not a good thing

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I agree it isn’t worth I’ll price, I mean, you technically get less than half a game. I do think it is worth it at half price though if you like the overworld stuff.

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I’ve got the physical disc, but got it from a similar program as Xbox Rewards, and the same goes for the battlepass. More so out of protest over the store, and some other irrelevant issues.

Microsoft has been pretty good with keeping the Halo Series playable even when retiring the old servers, so I do trust them to keep it playable in an MCC style nature.

When it comes to DLC I wouldn’t be opposed to buying, but the quality must be there. A good example is Skyrim’s Dragonborn DLC. Frankly speaking if 343i makes a Flood DLC that pulls zero punches on their grotesque horror aspects such as breakable limbs like Halo 3 had then I’ll throw money at the screen.

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We ain’t getting flood. That’s bring it to an M rating and it’s currently at T.

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True and I accept that which is why I mentioned it but in that case get out of the fps / games as a service market and go buy some PC games from GOG. Halo has DRM so it’s a lost cause, it’s impossible to own permanently. So if you have to play Halo (which I assume is a given for most people on these forums lol), the next best thing is to pay as little money for it as possible which is what I’m advocating. Like I truly get your point but you need to approach it logically cause otherwise all you’ll end up doing is paying more for less, and still not be able to play the game in 20 years when the servers are dead.

Edit: I suppose there’s a niche use case where you predominantly play f2p titles, but really love Halo and no other major full price games, where purchasing will ensure you can always play it without incurring charges years later, but in practice most gamers I know play all sorts of games any given year or at least prefer to, so it’s much better off for them to use game pass for the same reason people use netflix or spotify etc.

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So basically the whole point of this thread is to encourage people to just use Gamepass to play the Campaign instead of buying Campaign/DLC?

Now in the short term that is definitely the superior deal, but over the course of many months/years it definitely becomes more expensive to be subscribed to Gamepass. So if you and your friends just love the Campaign it might still be better to just purchase all of it long term.

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The T rating has me incredibly concerned. Granted the audio that modders have extracted may mean that they will make it into the game, but whether they will be dulled down we don’t know.

Assuming what some have said is true, DLCs can be rated separately which would create some wiggle room for 343i to work their magic.

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Yeah, that relies on this campaign being able to hold a group’s attention long term though. Personally I don’t see that being the case beyond a couple months without some major changes to it’s replayability. So even if that’s your situation which is totally valid, I’d say wait until coop is live, wait until bugs have been ironed out, wait until literally any information on potential post launch content for the campaign is announced and what business model that will follow, and then make that decision. Right now, a full price purchase is speculatively valued at best given you can throw £5 at the pass and complete pretty much everything available. So I’d absolutely still say as it stands, don’t buy it.

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And it’s a da mn good service.

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I’m wondering if 343 is going to pull a Bungie and start using their engine as an excuse later down the line saying there is "too much content’ so they started removing content never to be seen again. meaning expansions, etc…

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Has nothing to do with flood. Halo 4 didn’t have flood and it was rated M

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I doubt they would do that and I hope they don’t

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It was quite easy to get an M rating back then. The only Halo game (imho) that really deserves an M is Reach maybe, that is a pretty dark game but even then, it is a soft M

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At this point seeing how they handled things so far, I wouldn’t put it past them.

It’s like going through D2 launch all over again, and look at how D2 turned out 7 years later.

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I really don’t think it will be that way but time will tell. Reason is they promoted infinite to be like MCC 2.0. it’s a 10 year platform. I believe it will be multiple dlc but each campaign will be standalone like MCC

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That’s the problem I hate live service games, and halo infinites campaign is playable with out a fee or even a connection it’s just they made it’s so you have to connect first then you can go offline