In a recent interview with Polygon, as covered on Windows Central here, Phil Spencer made this somewhat vague statement,
> There’s been a ton of learning in the studio around what does it mean to actually have a collection, the kind of totality of the Halo lore and stories and experience inside of one Halo world, one Halo UI, and platform," Spencer said. "As 343 has gone through this journey, they’ve seen some of the benefits of not requiring that our customers make a decision between ‘Do I want to play this one or that one?’ I feel like in a way, the games almost compete with each other. You see that with some of the annualized franchises that are out there — which clearly Halo’s not annualized — but you see that where you spend a lot of energy actually trying to move the customers who are already playing your game to a new version of your game. I think as gaming has evolved, there’s a view of ‘Our customers are our customers and we should respect them where they are.’ It’s similar to our Xbox message, and I think you’ll see that in terms of the way Infinite is talked about — even the structure of what the game is itself.”
Now, his comments can mean just about anything. But with the way he worded it, it to me sounds in a way like Infinite is going to be a hub or platform for Halo content going forward, thus no more full retail sequels or whatever years later, just new content added to Infinite. Now, of course, this could just mean that there will be post-launch content that gets added between Infinite’s launch and the next game. What do you think of this, would love to hear your thoughts.
My understanding is that they will update Infinite with new content until a sequel comes later, not update Infinite forever because that would be the dumbest thing they could do. They probably just want people playing the game longer than previous games and maybe more development time for sequels.
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> My understanding is that they will update Infinite with new content until a sequel comes later, not update Infinite forever because that would be the dumbest thing they could do. They probably just want people playing the game longer than previous games and maybe more development time for sequels.
Considering they’re building the game on an entirely brand new engine, it likely allows 343i to churn out content much easier than with the previous engine, so while I don’t see them pushing the game to the length CS:GO has gone on for, I definitely see them keeping Infinite around for a while.
The only thing I could see problematic is how they would approach adding on to the campaign if they were to expand the story without introducing a new title. Without making the game absurdly huge, it’d be smart to allow you to download sections of the game like MCC, and just release another campaign later down the road for download.
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> I think it’d be awesome if Halo Infinite is supported for years to come!..however, I hope 343 doesn’t sacrifice content at launch for the sake of including it later to pad out the game’s life cycle. Everything necessary for a full game should be there on release. Anything put in Infinite over the next few years has to feel like a true expansion, as opposed to something that makes players think ‘wait, why wasn’t this already in the game?’.
I’m extremely nervous of this, because this is exactly what I fear it will mean.
I don’t think anyone wants a drip-fed campaign.
If it’s a sort of follow-up thing, sort of merging something like ODST & SPARTAN Ops, then I’d be happy with that…but not the main campaign.
I actually like the idea of utilizing Halo Infinite as a springboard to launch content from. For example: you boot up Infinite and select campaign, where taken to a sub-menu much like in MCC. You can select what game and its corresponding levels to play and enjoy. Should there be additional DLC stories and games, it could become the hub where these new stories are selected from.
Plus, since they’ve built an entirely new game engine- SLIPSPACE- Then they could just implement the new games into the new “game-hub”, i.e. Infinite, as campaign tabs to select.
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> > 2535419739414165;2:
> > I think it’d be awesome if Halo Infinite is supported for years to come!..however, I hope 343 doesn’t sacrifice content at launch for the sake of including it later to pad out the game’s life cycle. Everything necessary for a full game should be there on release. Anything put in Infinite over the next few years has to feel like a true expansion, as opposed to something that makes players think ‘wait, why wasn’t this already in the game?’.
>
> I’m extremely nervous of this, because this is exactly what I fear it will mean.
>
> I don’t think anyone wants a drip-fed campaign.
>
> If it’s a sort of follow-up thing, sort of merging something like ODST & SPARTAN Ops, then I’d be happy with that…but not the main campaign.
I dont think theyd make the mistake of continuous DLC levels. I think for additional content it could be very beneficial. And as Bonnie Ross stated, “infinite stories, infinite worlds…” or something to that effect.
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> > 2533274799621457;5:
> > > 2535419739414165;2:
> > > I think it’d be awesome if Halo Infinite is supported for years to come!..however, I hope 343 doesn’t sacrifice content at launch for the sake of including it later to pad out the game’s life cycle. Everything necessary for a full game should be there on release. Anything put in Infinite over the next few years has to feel like a true expansion, as opposed to something that makes players think ‘wait, why wasn’t this already in the game?’.
> >
> > I’m extremely nervous of this, because this is exactly what I fear it will mean.
> >
> > I don’t think anyone wants a drip-fed campaign.
> >
> > If it’s a sort of follow-up thing, sort of merging something like ODST & SPARTAN Ops, then I’d be happy with that…but not the main campaign.
>
> I dont think theyd make the mistake of continuous DLC levels. I think for additional content it could be very beneficial. And as Bonnie Ross stated, “infinite stories, infinite worlds…” or something to that effect.
As long as it’s not the main campaign that’s episodic in nature…I’m fine.
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> I actually like the idea of utilizing Halo Infinite as a springboard to launch content from. For example: you boot up Infinite and select campaign, where taken to a sub-menu much like in MCC. You can select what game and its corresponding levels to play and enjoy. Should there be additional DLC stories and games, it could become the hub where these new stories are selected from.
>
> Plus, since they’ve built an entirely new game engine- SLIPSPACE- Then they could just implement the new games into the new “game-hub”, i.e. Infinite, as campaign tabs to select.
I think this could be good, like releasing three different campaigns all part of the same story. For example we have first campaing as the Master Chief, and later we get a campaign as The Arbiter and then Locke all tied together, but they are doing something else in other side of the galaxy as events occur and lead them to the same objective.
Sometimes developers make a great game, then split the playerbase by releasing a new (sometimes identical) game. I’m happy that Phil has faith in Halo Infinite to be a long-lasting title. For past titles, they’ve talked about releasing DLC for free, to keep the playerbase together.
This may mean microtransactions though… Microsoft isn’t going to pay employees to work on a project that doesn’t return a profit. I just hope they’re not too invasive, and a good balance will be maintained with regards to cosmetic unlocks.
Phill makes it sound that Infinite will be like the MCC for the next era of Halo games. Where new titles will be added to the “Infinite” game platform as they release. That would certainly be unique. And the “Infinite” title would make a ton of sense in that regard.
In a way, it’s like how they’re releasing MCC on PC, except the main titles would be released years, not months apart. Possibly with ODST style side stories and obviously new maps and modes for the multiplayer portion releases between. Hopefully the presentation sheds some light on this.
My guess is it means the game will be supported in a more unique and versatile way compared to how Halo 4 and 5 were. My guess is with the new slipspace engine, they probably have alot more that they can implement than just pre-planned future content. Maybe that’s where the Infinite in the titles come also, it could mean this particular game has “Infinite” potential now with the new engine.
So something like mcc where content gets added frequently in concept im ok with it just depends on what exactly the content is hopefully they explain on thrusday
I think it would be a good idea to add a -Yoink- ton of variety and playlists for halo infinite but it would need the fanbase to support it. And the problem is. If infinite is terrible. Halo is basically dead in the water. If they get the popularity like halo 3 its a good idea
I’m all for it to be supported for a long time but I really hope that if it is supported for longer then usual, it’s not just battle passes like in cod modern warfare.
So long as any content down the line is fully offline then that would be just fine for me. If content is only available by authentication like the 360 version of SPOPS then I’d part my ways with the franchise. Multiplayer is one thing but story content is important enough to me that I’m always able to access it