Been saying this since launch. If Halo Infinite had just released as a standard full priced game that was content complete with no microtransactions in sight the entire community would be singing their praise.
Even if that meant the game would get delayed even further it should have happened.
Live service is a disease on modern AAA gaming. And last but not least: FREE TO PLAY WAS A MISTAKE
Now hang on i will still say elden ring was a bit buggy at launch (usually to comic relief though not a lot of frustrating bugs) now if youre a pve player you wont expereince much bs but if youre a pvp player well ima say theres been a good few bugs that are rather frustrating and annoying same with some key game features. But as far as full release titles elden ring is polished silver from software has always stayed away from micro transactions theyll still drop dlc but usually that dlc will take you to entirely new areas not just a redone old area. Everything can be found after the mid point of the game. And while i put only 40 hours into halo ive already put 200+ hours into elden ring
I do think there’s an element of comparing apples and oranges here: Elden Ring is mostly a pve game with some limited pvp built onto that but fundamentally it’s only really worth comparison with Halo Infinite’s campaign mode or something like Jedi: Fallen Order.
Halo Infinite being F2P was an attempt to improve the game’s longevity by drawing on the GaaS approach and looking at the success of Fortnite, Apex, Warzone etc. My feeling is this may have been misjudged and the strategy should have been to drive Game Pass subscriptions instead for longevity of support that way