Halo Infinite has ruined my love for Halo

Games Halo Infinite
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Sadly, it would seem my prediction is coming true:

"…when Dec 08, 2021 comes around there will be a huge spike in the Halo player base. But this surge will probably drop-off relatively quickly as players return back to games that feel more contemporary. Again, leaving Halo only to a select few. "

Six years in development after the mistakes in Halo 5, I expected much, much better. I wanted, we needed 343 to hit this out of the park… But the current state of Halo Infinite is overwhelmingly disappointing.

P.S. Let me say the not so quiet part out loud: PC + (free-to-play) = cheating, #DisableCrossplay

[Edit]

“… then maybe you never loved Halo in the first place.”

FYI: I have over 200+ Diamond Achievement in the MCC and have played every version of all the Halo games.

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Not to sound mean here, but it isn’t exactly prophetic to predict a drop off in players. It happens in virtually every single game ever released. As new stuff comes out, people try it (especially if it’s free). When they’ve had their fill, good or bad, they will return to what they were playing before. Often what their friends are playing.

The notion that popularity (and other such metrics like Twitch viewership) determines quality is one that needs to be put to rest in the gaming world.

I am NOT saying the game doesn’t need improvements and fixes. It most certainly does.

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“Well yes, this game is having some trouble according to most available metrics, but that doesn’t mean there are any big problems, and even if there were, they’ll ne fixed soon, anecdotally it’s fun to play, and hypothetically it could be fine later”

Do you stretch and limber up beforehand? I feel like I’d mess up my back if I tried that level of contortionism :sweat_smile:

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The gentleman who distorts the words of someone else, puts words in their mouth, and makes up a fictitious argument in his head is going to accuse me of stretching the truth? Interesting.

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Re-read twice, I don’t believe I accused you of stretching the truth. Perhaps people in glasshouses shouldn’t throw “putting words in my mouth” stones.

But that’s none of my business

sips tea with Kermit

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I mean this is all true. But also plenty of games grow over time as well or the drop off eventually plateaus and stabilizes.

Neither of those things have happened with any of 343s halo releases. All of them have seen massive drop off in less than a year with only a niche player base left over.

You’re also right that popularity does not equal quality, but I would also argue infinite isn’t a quality product either so…

When is enough failure enough? 4 releases in the span of 11-12 years and not one banger.

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The point I was making in my original post is that pretty much every single game has a massive drop off. That this isn’t unique to Halo. The few exceptions are the heavy hitters like Apex, CSGO, League, and CoD (though lately that seems to be wavering). And of course some games will appear randomly and disappear as soon as they showed up (Among Us, Fall Guys).

The reality of the current market isn’t necessarily to grab all of the players and keep them, though it’d be nice. It’s more that you just want them to at least come back periodically.

The rest is subjective. So I can only respect your view that 343 hasn’t released a solid title.

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That’s only somewhat true. Most successful games do not have this level of a drop off.

I would call games with similar drop offs failures as well. Especially relative to the expectations Halo has. It’s not an obscure or niche IP.

Also relative to Halo, you really can’t disregard past success of the IP either. The expectations of both fans and most likely Microsoft as well would not find modest success acceptable for what was once, without hyperbole the biggest franchise in gaming.

I would argue that it’s too late for Halo ever be big again, but I’m also against lowering expectations. I’m sure Microsoft hasn’t either. They probably thought infinite would return halo to the upper echelon of popularity.

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The past success of the IP is also an interesting topic. Halo 5, for example, made more opening week than any other Halo before it. So I think it’s fair to point out that the gaming market of 2022 is not the same market of 2007.

For reasons that are largely outside of 343’s control (and there are many), Halo simply isn’t the most dominant game right now. That’s not me being an apologist, I’m trying to be as objective as possible.

Even completely and totally botched launches do well (Star Wars BF II). So I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that even if every issue in the game was fixed, and even if Season 2 started on time, and even if the game launched with co-op and Forge, I don’t think retention would be markedly higher. Higher? Sure. But not by a lot. Perhaps for longer, but ultimately people are going to go back to what they were doing before.

That’s my opinion, at least.

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Yes the market is different. It is massively larger than it was in 2007. Far more people play videogames now than then. However, there is plenty of IP as old and even older than halo still thriving and generating huge hype on new releases. Halo somehow hasn’t been able to do that post halo 4.

It that doesn’t matter too much. This is the crux of the disagreement. Is 343/MS directly at fault or was it outside of their control?

I’d say it’s completely their fault and the current situation would have been avoidable if they made the right decisions post halo 4.

But yeah it’s far too late and connects to one of my original points, 343 has been at the helm for more than a decade now. The time to make corrections was 6-7 years ago.

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True, true. Pretty clear-cut case of agree to disagree. Good discussion, brother.

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We were definitely spoiled by games like Halo 3 and reach that launched with tons of content, including functional community features.

Lots of us were hoping for a resurrection of those days, getting the band back together for one last show. Sadly, we’ve got a single player campaign, and some watered-down matchmaking at the moment.

I think its fair to be disappointed. But, with modern gaming being the way it is, we can only enjoy what we have right now, hope things get better, and provide feedback.

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Even if the game launched with co-op and Forge, I don’t think retention would be markedly higher.

Going to have the disagree with this.

In the original trilogy. We had Gametypes such as:

Tremors
Cops N robbers
Zombies.
Tower of power
Troy
Fat Kid
Hide N Seek

I am not casual by any means. I have played up to 200 hours of Infinite thus far and that is miniscule comparatively to the disgusting amount of time spent on the original trilogy.

What Infinite does so terribly is the alienation of the casual player base. In current form i can’t create a single one of the game types mentioned above in the Custom Games browser.
I actually can’t even meet casual players not only because they don’t exist but because in the current system i can only match against my CSR (even in social).

The massive surge in population was because Infinite was supposed to be a return to former glory for the series and while yes the climate has changed from 2007. The massive outcry on this forum/reddit/youtube for these types of social content is deafening.

The people WANT halo to succeed.,
I’m just not sure 343i are capable of making that happen.

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You are right that these things would bring people back. Especially Infection. All of these custom games are awesome to have. But if MCC custom game browser is anything to go by, it’s not THAT popular. I feel nostalgia may be clouding our collective perception. These things ARE fun and would bring people back, but certainly not enough to sit comfortably in the top 3 or top 5 games currently played.

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Ugh yeah, I feel the same way. The thing is, other than just the very foundational core gameplay loop, damn near everything in Halo Infinite is just plain old worse than the majority of past games.

Vehicles: barely spawn, many dead on arrival when they do, some way too dominant ala wasp, some seemingly useless ala banshee, despite those two supposed to be roughly equivalent for unsc vs banished respectively. Many other vehicles and weapons also suffer from this.

Playlist variety: there is very little. Just the basic modes, with a single ranked playlist, lackluster btb and only fiesta for the action sack playlists, which is probably one of the least fun (compared to infection, grifball, action sack etc. ). Plus no team snipers etc.

Gamemode variety: also very little. There is no multiplayer pve mode whatsoever. There is no forge. Customs are broken and has very few gametypes to build off of.

Campaign: No coop, no mission replay, not particularly longer or more in depth than any other Halo. There’s a big world space, but with no incentive to use it and no mission replays it ends up feeling like a Ubisoft game which I cba go 100%, and if I did I’d never return to it.

Customization: no colour select. Huge potential completely wasted. Very little to earn through gameplay.

Stats & progression: No service record, no Spartan ranks. Only progression is battlepass which is mostly empty unless additional money is spent. If you’re a free player great but most halo fans either bought the campaign or are gamepass subscribers so it makes no difference if it is free or payed.

Overall, once you’ve played it for a while, completed the campaign & dabbled in multiplayer this game offers nothing new and virtually no improvements over prior titles. Gunplay isn’t enough to save it. It seriously needs a huge overhaul cause as it stands I’ve no interest in returning to it.

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People keep talking about these issues and massive drop off…. If I recall the exodus of Halo was when Reach was released. A lot of Halo fans left the franchise their and in the near months after. A lot returned in H4 but again it wained and then fewer returned in H5, but like Infinite it just keeps getting thinner.

The online golden age was between 2004 and 2008. The birth of Xbox Live - which put halo so far into the stratosphere that it would never hit the floor.

It’s okay that we won’t reach those heights again just be glad that you lived it and was apart of it.

Not taking nothing off CE those lans with friends were great but they were never hyped as much as the four years that followed.

You just can’t expect new gamers to understand and that’s cool they’re living their own golden age else where.

The heart of Halo was with Bungie and no company will ever replay those moments. Even Bungie wont. They grew old too.

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I fear that is the case of short term gains, while great are consequential if the game that is treated like a service is left to languish, or put in a direction that alienates consumers to a degree where its just not fun to engage in, a good service is one that has to tango with the player and visa versa, otherwise it will either fade away or become a headache to deal with.

playerbases are obsessed over for a reason nowadays, and in a market thats frankly saturated with them, one wrong move for a first impression will result in those short term gains becoming the only thing of notoriety of success financially.

if a player base is healthy then that means they’re happy with coming back.

In Halo’s case its in an interesting state, for 5 while it was faster in its updates, the bad first impression resulted in people simply not wanting to return, even if it had made great strides forward, that bad first impression combined with the price ensured that.

for Infinite, this is where being free-is can play to its advantage for when the necessary expected features do arrived/return. it means anyone can pop in and see whats going on if they’re curious. but I fear that people could potentially loose patience, especially in a age where its oftenly the norm for a service to release barebones, this kinda works for upcoming IPs, legacy ones however…it causes problems.

am I making sense?

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The actual Halo games are still here on MCC. Still somewhat tainted by 343i but it’s the best we’re ever going to get given that they refuse to make a Halo game :+1:

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Yup! Makes sense. Going free to play definitely has its own assortment of risks and I hope in the end it works out for 343. The way I see it is that if it works out for them, it works out for us. They make a good product that attracts people and we get to enjoy it. That’s the goal, anyway.

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I feel they should look to influence from FFXIV, an odd suggestion/comparison, but one I suspect needs to be learned as to why that game has kinda risen through success, not just due to the failings of other titans in its genre, but the good will its taken a long time to cultivate and is resulting in the game suffering for its success. which while bad, is preferable to languishing in misery.

I also feel they should learn from others in the FTP genre, to help improve their experiences they have for offer.

least this is my hope, that they learn from the best & what works, striving to make Infinite the best it can be. and if that results in world domination, then nice, thats a bonus at this rate xD

so long as they focus on that while having a vision, learning from others that have succeeded. then were good to go for the future, it won’t be easy of course, never is, but that plays into what makes entertainment for many so enthralling, the effort to bring all this into realisation and people being able to experience whats been created.