In light of the community reaction to the bare bones release of Halo Infinite (beta), I would propose that the reason the game is shipping so unpolished, so unfinished is likely due to numerous mid-production creative conflicts that affected system-wide architecture and aggravated by encumbrances introduced by the Slipspace Engine.
Working with a difficult game engine (e.g. Frostbite, Lumberyard) can introduce massive delays at literally every level of production; additionally, the global disruptions brought on by the pandemic would make even an efficient production cycle slow down, let alone a troubled one.
Reflecting on the current state of Halo Infinite begs the question, “What was 343i going to release last year?” I think what we are seeing - in real time - is essentially a massive corporatized version of, “Sorry, the dog ate my homework” - I genuinely think the game is not finished (at the time of this writing), or internal market research suggested to 343i that it would be possible to ship the game as an empty scaffold and build over time; but they underestimated what would be required by the Halo community to meet that minimum standard.
Another interesting question is whether 343i really intended to ship the game in 2020. Considering the current state of Halo Infinite, that almost seems laughable. It’s possible the instant viral memeing on Craig (etc.) was really a perfect opportunity to pull a Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) and garner good faith with the player base by addressing numerous art criticisms that were already under development but were not shown in the original trailer.
Regardless, the current state of Halo Infinite is so incomplete that I just cannot believe they were considering shipping a version of this game only a year ago - presumably even less complete at the time.
I think there are a lot of internal production issues that emerged during development that were exacerbated by the Slipspace Engine, but these stories have not been reported on yet in games journalism.
We may never know how close things were last year. Or how close they could of been if COVID hadn’t hit… if the Series S/X weren’t a complication… if Slipspace was a more mature technology.
Who knows. Probably a bit from each column.
Hopefully the long term benefits of Slipspace over Blam will be a win for everyone,
The other problem of course, which you touch upon, is this “minimum standard” expected by the “halo community”. This was a bridge Infinite was never going to cross on launch.
No they couldn’t push it any more. They bit off way more than they could chew, which is standard 343, and there is no way they could push it at this point.
When you take into consideration the 3rd party promotions, deals with toy companies like Hasbro, food and beverage companies like Rockstar and realize the sheer cost MS would have to endure with another delay, they had to launch. No company would sit on their stock and MS would get sued for breach of contract.
This is actually my feeling as well - they probably needed more time (again) to ship the game, but due to numerous external (or internal) contractual obligations, their commitments forced their hand.
I think the point I want to make is that this game is being marketed and sold as a finished product; they are saying, “It was always our intention to ship the game in this incomplete state because we were always going to finish building it after the fact - the incompleteness is by design”. I think there is, of course, some truth to that, but the game feels even less complete than that low standard; they shifted the goal posts downward to meet delivery, but they are missing that mark as well.
Obviously that is speculation, but if it were true, I think it produces some very serious questions about communications transparency, possibly even at a legal standard. Hard to adjudicate something like that, but CDPR is in a situation very much like that, but only because the production issues for that title were extensively reported on.
It is true that 343 had to develop a new game and a new graphics engine in parallel, which I’m sure was much more work. But this is what they set out to do. Six years was clearly not enough time for this. Maybe the graphics engine is complete but the game is not. The other way around wouldn’t be better either. The game would have needed a further year of delay, but I’m also sure everybody was keen on forcing the release for the 20th anniversary, if they couldn’t make it to the console launch. It is what it is. They probably hope to get away with shipping a rushed game, and I know the mainstream media will be generously praising the title, forgetting most of its shortcomings. And we will read about the arrival of co-op campaign, Forge, the Service Record, multiplayer playlists as if they were some kind of revolution. While all of them should’ve been basic functions in a Halo game.
Also, let’s just say the final game has barely anything resembling the 2018 demo. I am so sure that the project derailed at some point and they had to redesign the whole thing, from graphics to game structure. We will probably know a decade from now, when someone writes a book about it, or spills the beans in a podcast.
Entirely possible that if the game doesn’t meet basic standards financially there will be legal action by MS. Or on MSGS by MS shareholders.
But I have faith that they have a solid campaign experience. Solid enough to ward off any bad press that would generate any kind of investigation. Especially with the money MS is making off Game Pass.
Well, graphics technically and environment diversity falls really short of the original demo. Digital Foundry has already posted a video about the game, and it has a section which compares the final product to the original vision. Lighting, shadows and overall scope and variety has been hugely dialled back. Even compared to a 2019 cut-scene which looks simply worse in the final game.