I have long since uninstalled Halo Infinite as I think 343 is a disgusting and incompetent studio, and Halo Infinite was lazily made with little effort and has an unforgivable lack of content for how long we waited for the release. Not to mention the blatant false advertising and lies on the part of 343 about the game leading up to launch about customization etc.
I gave the game a chance and only spent the 10 dollars for the game pass to find out there was next to no customization in the game that was free. But I’m not here to talk about all that I have said it multiple times in other posts and comments.
This post is to hopefully open some peoples eyes about the scheming 343 has been up to to take advantage of the player base and milk as much money out of them as possible.
343 is a truly dispicable developer and many of us already know this and no longer support or buy into their “games”.
Let’s start with the obvious, Halo Infinite was intentionally designed to be lacking content, be aggregously overpriced with the store items, and intentionally grindy to try and force players to buy Battle Pass levels.
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The lack of content is apart of the F2P mentality that a game can release unfinished and the content can be added later. This keeps the cash cow alive by perpetually bringing players back to see the fixes and changes. For example when Co-op campaign releases (No excuse to not have this at launch) people will return after being done with the game because for many this was a major feature they wanted at launch. Then they might be compelled to look in the store and maybe play some Multiplayer and use the skins they just bought. This isn’t even mentioning the fact that color customization was stripped from the game and sold back to us with the inferior coating system. Which also sold colors seperately for each core…
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The items in the store are ridiculously priced, has anyone noticed at launch the daily bundles costed 500 credits? Then they went up to 700…then 800… The 800 dollar bundle being a samurai helmet and the color blue for the yokai core… Might I add the color blue is free on the other cores… As it should be. That is just scratching the surface of the predatory monitization in the game. The multiplayer going free to play was little more than an excuse to make Halo a glorified skin market.
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When Halo Infinite released there was no progression system whatsoever. Of course aside from the paid progression of the Battle Pass. Now look at this system, almost no noticeable free cosmetics in the nonpaid version (first helmet being at level 81) in a cosmetic focused multiplayer. But if you paid for the Battle Pass the o ly way to progress was through challenges, making the grind insufferable due to no per match XP. 343 “fixed” this quickly adding a per match challenge of 50xp. Basically nothing and still a grind. Many people would at this point say “They listened to feedback from the fans.”
Don’t be fooled this was a problem that was engineered intentionally for that purpose. If you notice each update, each “fix”, have only been small consessions. Little changes to test the waters and inch you towards being ok with a fundamentally flawed system. Notice how from the moment the game launched BP levels were purchasable for 200 credits each? It also follows the same F2P model as many other games in recent history that only allow you to buy coins in certain incriments causing you to always have some left over and I ticking you to buy more. Everything about it is predatory.
I hear a lot of the same arguments so I will address them here.
“Game companies need micro transactions to pay for the game and pay the developers!”
No they don’t. Game companies make their money back and more with most game releases Halo being no exception if anything a major franchise like Halo is the last game that needs micro transactions to thrive. Take into account that Halo’s direct competition isn’t doing things this way. Games coming out now with MUCH less content and a lower price aren’t doing this. For example Rainbow 6 Extraction, it just came out; it isn’t a 60$ game, the cosmetics you can buy are much more reasonably priced, and the “Battle Pass” (if you want to call it that) is completely free and purely progression based. You cannot buy BP levels for money.
“The game will get better with time just be happy we got a game at all.”
I already touched on this but you really need to ask yourself. Are you OK with games getting worse and worse every passing year? The more you condone these activities and buy into these schemes the worse games are going to get. We cannot sit here and allow game companies to screw us over as customers or ruin the franchises we hold dear.
“What are we supposed to do about it? We don’t make the games. If we want Halo we just have to take what they give us.”
I will touch on this at the end and give an answer to this question as a closing statement. I urge you to read on and hear me out.
Now, I will seed 343 a few things. The multiplayer itself is well balanced at least at first glance. The guns feel good etc etc. To be expected from a AAA title. The campaign was good but not great. I liked it but if u look at it closely it is open sure but there are no biomes, everything essentially looks the same, the side missions are copy pasted and it is basically Farcry: Halo Edition, but it was fun and played smooth.
But the game was intentionally designed to be missing this content and to ride that line of a good halo game but not great. Different things ripped out to be spoon fed back to us with a price tag attached.