This is what I mean. We can’t know what Hook’s departure really means or the nature of what his influence even was before he left.
This isn’t at all like when Lee bailed after the E3 '20 showcase. 343i can certainly look like a turbulent workplace from the outside for many reasons, but it isn’t always a bellwether for disaster when there’s a high profile departure. As others have said here, Hook has been involved with Xbox and Halo for basically the past 20 years. Nobody should begrudge him deciding it’s time to move on, and pretending that it means that “Infinite’s in BIG trouble AGAIN” is just baseless sensationalism.
Until they come out and announce different plans, the only reasonable assumption is that they’ll be moving ahead on the core unlocking and store restructuring that Jerry promoted during the past few community streams. It’s possible that they won’t, and it’s possible that friction over these issues is what led to his departure. But there are no smoking guns to suggest that either of these scenarios is especially likely. As fans, we should take Jerry’s own explanation at face value until we see anything to the contrary.
I don’t want to say anything bad about Joe and I don’t know how good he is as a manager, executive, but I see him more as a talking head from the beginning . Yeah he was involved in production of some MS post bungie titles, Crackdown 3 for example that has some troubles too if you remember, maybe he is really good, but still I don’t know his role in Inf production after he came.
One thing I’m sure about Joe is definitely a best choice because he is not a stranger to Halo.
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I just want the Halo CE-Reach glory days back. But not the “glory days” most people talk about. It’s not mass popularity that I want, I want the feel of the games themselves. The grandiose, intriguing atmosphere when you:
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Come out the bottom of the wall in Quarantine Zone and see The Library and the Sentinel Factory falling out of the sky.
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Overlook the city of High Charity and the Forerunner Keyship in Gravemind.
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First leave the cave on Tsavo Highway to see the Space Elevator all over the savannah.
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See The Forerunner Keyship in the Portal to The Ark.
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Overlook New Mombasa at the beginning and end of ODST.
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Look towards the burning ONI building at night.
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Watch the Space Elevator collapsing while crossing the bridge in Uplift Reserve
Big world events that make a difference in-game, that often happen as you play. And if not necessarily an event, they give a sense of scale. This dynamic, large, varied, living world that 343 games miss. Things that happen, or that you can see, when you play, that show you you’re part of a bigger conflict.
Could you imagine how cool it would have been, if you came out of a poorly guarded canyon to see a Banished ship (A CCS class ship to introduce more environment variety) crash out of the sky and onto another island, while hearing Lasky calling for help on the radio? On the way to his rescue, you could meet up with a Pelican full of ODSTs. This could have been an amazing way to reintroduce Lasky and ODSTs all at once. It would be a highlight of the campaign as a callback to The Truth and Reconciliation.
But open worlds don’t really allow for this kind of player-controlled “naturalistic” storytelling without dragging control and the camera out of a player’s hands mid-gameplay (mini cutscene spam throughout the game in unsuspecting places). It would be very obtrusive.
And that’s before we talk about what level design is like with an open world.
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Who’s Jerry Hook? And why are there so many 343 devs leaving? This is like the 6th guy to leave since the game came out
343 devs leaves all the time since H4, nothing new here. Corrine Yu and her husband(Kenneth Scott?) , Josh Holmes, Chris Schlerf, Kevin Grace, etc, etc.
That’s actually the problem Infinite had, everyone leaving. The game lacks focus because of how often staff, especially contract workers, were cyclled in and out over it’s development cycle.
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Ya I dont get how peoples dont grasp this is literally the biggest issue the franchise has as a whole right now.
Sure i wasnt a fan of many creative or design leads but in the end inconsistency in any management roll causes serious issues for a project.
Regardless of how one feels about the direction of the creative in question strong leadership os a must in making a good product or peice of art
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Sorry, do you mean the problem is every 343 game was made by different people?
If so I agree, I said it many times too.
Jerry Hook was the Head of Design at 343. If you read the OP’s thread, he made a lot of promises that turned out to be lies.
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I said it’s before, it’s Bob the security guard and Pebbles the morale gerbal holding the fort down
God bless you Bob and Pebbles!!
I dont think anyone made that arguement from what ive read.
Precisely!
Intruging and beautiful mystery with a massive dose of potentially galaxy-altering threat.
I wont even touch on the fact that they essentially abandoned Halo 6 and effectively made a spin-off instead of actually making the game we all wanted. That’s 10 years of plot and suspense, just utterly abandoned.
I was so disappointed with the campaign. Too repetitive, too generic (it felt like I was figghting the cabal half the time) too disjointed, not enough memorable moments and enemies I didnt feel at all in awe of.
I literally feel like I’m still waiting for the new game to come out. This just didn’t feel like Halo enough.
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People forgot about his sarcastic comment on the last playdate when they showed the seasoj 2 battle pass that dude helped ruin halo … i hope they get some one that actually know what his doing…
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Yeah I feel Jerry didn’t leave, he was shown the door. Probably respectfully mind you, but 6 months in, infinite isn’t what it needed to be both hype wise and monetary wise, so I’d say they’re cleaning house. Season 2 wasn’t what it needed to save his job.
That’s probably why you haven’t heard from Bonnie. It probably falls on her shoulders to hold people accountable before she gets canned too.
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Rats jumping from the sinking ship.
There will be more. They’ll be replaced. A big article will drop about how they will “do better.” Some players will eat it up. Most will be gone.
It’s from the playbook from most all poorly developed games.
Yeah, its why after a decade infinite feels like “baby’s first halo game”.
Its really quite weird how 343 has to keep relearning how to make the game they were made to make…
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Like many industries the gaming industry has a shortage of people which has led to a very competitive recruitment strategy. It’s not uncommon at all to see people within the tech/gaming industry leave for other projects. Even the corporate giant Microsoft sometimes can’t compete with pay/benefits. Or another Microsoft owned studio has offered higher pay on an upcoming project. Don’t let people leaving studios surprise you. It’s normal.
For now let’s just wish Jerry the best on his new adventures.
I guess you could say that given the events that occured 4 days ago.
A lot happened these last few days. Is this a case where you can’t be specific, if so then I understand.
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