Halo 4 is many things but Lazy is not one of them, if anything it was short on time as 4 was made in just two years! that is the least time any full halo game had and with CEA caught in the middle. i think this really shows how 343 is slipping now, when their first game had very little time to make yet was at least delivered complete but their newest one with triple that time and a year later is still sorely lacking.
343 Industries made the mistake of yearly releases, which forces them to sacrifice quality for quantity.
Halo CEA was developed by Saber Interactive with only some minor assistance from 343i.
Halo 4 being developed in just 2 years is 343 shooting themselves in the foot with their immediate promise of annual releases.
Compounded further by all the development of the new enemy faction.
The redesigning of the gameplay, visuals, and soundtrack.
And the fact that they were developing two stories at once with Halo 4 and Spartan-Ops being co-released.
None of their games have delivered complete.
They have always been slipping.
Halo 4 released without Ranked and needed a weapons tuning update to make the sandbox even somewhat enjoyable to those who liked the new loadout system. Said tuning update didnāt release until six months after the game launched.
Halo 5 released without Forge mode and with a slew of other complications.
Halo Infinite is just the worst one yet because they actually tried to make a Halo game BE a Halo game, only to ultimately screw up because of constant staffing issues, a pandemic slowing production even further, and creative leads shuffling even further during development.
Sure, Halo 4 and Halo 5 didnāt release in Alpha state. But they also did not release as complete packages.
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that and they tried to make a new engine for an open world game when halo didnāt seem to have problem before with large open campaign levels and making mp free to play. really either way theyāre not lazy but put too much focus on certain things.
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That would be amazing! What info do you have on the original script of 5?
Frankly, if it was done well, I could actually see a full reboot including the original games.
Donāt get me wrong, they are very dear to my heart, but could use some small updates. Like damn I would love to cut the āTo warā line from Halo 3ā¦
What new engine?
The Slipspace Engine is just another major update on the Blam! Engine that Halo has been using since Combat Evolved.
This is hardly the first time that the game had suffered due to the engine updates.
Halo 2 for example has a terrible version of the engine that, while it allowed for greater things to be done, also had the caveat of changing one small variable could destroy an entire sequence or map.
Because of time constraints and development hurdles, Halo 2 had to scrap some missions in Act I and Act II of the story, had to entirely cut off with a cliffhanger instead of going into Act III, and they even had to have a multiplayer map that was supposed to be unlockable have to be unlocked via purchasing a DLC to update a patch to get the code to work properly for the unlock to happen.
Unfortunately, we do not have the physical copy available for everyone to read.
What we do have is the interviews from staff members and the marketing being set up.
You see, Halo 5 changed creative leads during development, not to mention had a mass exodus of employees during the development period that needed to be replaced.
Nicholas Buver replaced Kenneth Scott as Senior Art Director
Josh Holmes replaced Tim Longo as the Creative Director
Brian Reed replaced Christopher Schlurf as the Lead Writer AND was promoted to Narrative Director of the Franchise.
The result of these changes caused the story to be altered mid-development of Halo 5.
So while Halo 4 ended with a desired direction to set-up the return of the Didact, Brian Reed decided to kill him off in a comic book.
While Jul 'Mdama was being set up as a major threat to Humanity.
And then Brian Reed got bored of his own character and had him killed off immediately at the start of Halo 5.
While we do not know the exact details of the major story that we were supposed to receive, we can infer a lot of what was intended; seeing as the marketing teams were working off of the original script and not the new story.
For example, Hunt The Truth was supposed to have events that directly tied-into the campaign of Halo 5.
And nothing mentioned in all 6 hours had described a mission event in Halo 5 Guardiansā campaign.
The only thing that the H5G and HTT have in common is the eventual awakening of the Guardians and that Chief is being rogue.
Nothing in Halo 5 Guardians mentions that ONI wants Chief to die and remain a martyr that they could use as a symbol or an icon, a legend rather than a reality.
I honestly want to request the original script of Halo 5 and give it a read over myself to see what was originally planned and compare it to what the rewrite became as the final product.
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i know which is why i said ātriedā they showed it off like it was gonna be some big new thing and gave it a new name, shouldve just called it blam 2.0, the real problem is infinite promised too much and delivered too little, bungie may have had their own development issues but im not giving them the benefit of the doubt, 343 royaly screwed up this time.
Infinite had a tumultuous development period.
With reportedly 4 separate builds of the game being done before the final build had been decided upon, mass exodus of staff members, covid slowing down production; ALL while updating the engine to optimize a console that was entirely conceptual engineering in the first half of development WHILE ALSO making the game to optimize on said engine and console combo.
NOT TO MENTION making it playable on last-gen systems as well, meaning that even tho they were developing for the next generation of hardware; they somehow had to hold back on development enough to ensure that the previous generation of systems could run the game.
Canāt easily run Halo 3 on the original Xbox.
Canāt easily run Halo 5 on the 360.
Canāt easily run Infinite on the One.
And yet they forced it to anyway.
While Bungie did have development issues for many of their games, it was mostly time constraints.
All of their titles in Halo were home-run knockouts.
Meanwhile Halo 4 stumbled all over the place, Halo 5 spat in our faces while giving us a descent multiplayer formula, and Halo Infinite was like trying to work on a group project in middle school where one guy is doing all the work while the other three were either being lazy, counter-productive, or just sleeping.
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did they plan or want these games to run on last gen, did people want them to? they wanted infinite to do all these things, they already had some big plans for it and yes combined with fact they wanted it to be a launch title for the series x, staff and covid, it was a recipe for disaster.
Precisely my point.
Halo Infinite was bold and 343 had many of the same problems they always faced.
Just like with Halo 5ās development, a mass exodus of staff members occurred.
Some of which were probably working on that Halo Starfighter game that was shut down as soon as it was shown off to higher ups.
Others were likely the ones who left because their build wasnāt selected to be upgraded to the final build of Halo Infinite.
343 lacks direction and unity in their series management.
Which has resulted in this trilogy being the most confusing and disconnected trilogy in the history of mankind.
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This is false.
We do know why, 343i already admitted a long time ago it was due to time constraints so they just used the Mark VI Gen 2 MOD in those flash backs. The same thing later happened with Halo Infinite again where it showed Mark VI Gen 3 in place of Mark V Gen 1, or Mark VI Gen 1, or Mark VI Gen 2.
This is false as well, and as Iāve told you before not a single retcon happened.
No ego was involved, itās just time constraints. Normal stuff. 343i already openly admitted this years ago.
And none of that sense is true in the 1st place.
Halo 4 is never being retconned, no idea why youād even want that. Thatād be disastrous. Halo 4 is perfectly fine & is a great Halo game.
Iām not going to bother reading any of these other wall of text
The more Iāve learned about Frank as a person and about decisions heās made for the Halo franchise over the years, the more I think heās the biggest problem at 343.
It seems like every title heās had a huge lead on has had terrible pre-launch design choices that have to be fixed and completely undone over time after launch.
He also might be the one that got caught posting a bunch of racist stuff under a 4-chan account a few years ago iirc. When I learned that I almost stopped playing Halo in general 
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Halo 4 consistently polls as either the worst or the second worst game in the series. It also marked the first of three very controversial 343 games, each of which undid the previous games story to create a new one.
Therefore, it is quite logical to think that if anyone was going to retcon the mistakes and make a single cohesive series, Halo 4 would be the place to start.
You can see it in the posters on Bazaar. Itās still canon to me. If I had my way out would still be what chief is wearing.