So most of this chain will sound like a rant but I truly believe the feedback is needed (Not sure 343 will listen even if they did read it).
Halo Infinite from a technical preview side has underwhelmed in my opinion and it all stems from one major issue… the game going free to play (Shock). Now there are two sides to this coin and I completely understand this. On one side Halo isn’t exactly as widely as popular as say CoD so going free to play give this game a higher chance of being slightly successful but then the flip side of that is the money making from going free to play.
Now I have 0 issues with F2P games where the system is implemented in such away that it is a purely cosmetic reward system and there are a few I feel that do monetization quite well. Smite, Fortnite, Even that Haloish Splitgate game seems to understand how to do this without impeding on its players.
The issue’s I have seen and mostly from the community seem to all stem from issues that have not been present in previous titles… Such as EXP system, Colour Scheme and outlines and my least favorite thing Skill based match making in Social. All of these issues were not present in previous titles and the worse thing here is they were some of the best things about Halo. Skill based in Social for me is an absolute no… not because I want to curb stop people every game but because I want to load up Halo and enjoy my games in social, maybe try new weapons, have a laugh with friends ect. Now it feels like I will have to “Really” try every game all the time. That coupled with the “Challenge” system means even trying to do some challenges becomes and issues. Like even if its just sniper kills, if you are in a lobby with all good players, people are always going to rush power weapons ect and it becomes frustrating to try and complete these challenges.
Now on to the EXP system that was such a great thing in Reach and even MCC isnt bad at implementing it so again it just feels like the wheel is being changed to cater to their monetization needs. They are breaking systems here that were not broken and it shows.
And I think we all know the reason for the outlines being that they wouldnt want to dare make the colours normal like previous halo games and risk losing money on cosmetics. And this is all just from the tech preview… no idea what they are showing off, like other monetization ect, I mean look at CoD… someone cant tell me they are going to try and milk people dry for skins ect.
The truth is 343 does not care about the people like us who actively want this game to be worth the wait because we in fact the minority and those who are on their 10th CoD Battle pass are the target audience here and it really shows. No game should be sacrificing game play to make money and this game has done that. They can change it by taking on the end user feedback but they have already made comments on the EXP system and dont see that changing… If they keep SBMM social of course I will be playing day one because I am halo fan, but I wont be giving them a single dime to play. I have never bought a battle pass in any game and I thought to myself orginally you know I might buy Halo’s but after this preview I shall not be doing that sorry 343… listen to the feedback or this will be the last Halo game.