I’m not really sure if the Infinite team at 343 understands the difference between completely leaving us in the dark and being strategically quiet to generate hype. I get the whole ‘it’s ready when it’s ready’ thing, but it’s genuinely amazing looking at how much more transparent the MCC devs are compared to Halo Infinite’s. After skimming some articles all the way back to the end of last year, I found that the MCC updates had already been showing screenshots of Halo 2 Anniversary’s PC port—despite the fact that CE Anniversary was next in line to be released. That kind of roadmapping is incredible, and I’m sure it helped build excitement back when it was published. Why Infinite’s crew isn’t doing this is anyone’s guess, but can you imagine how much happier the community would be if we got a straightforward update every month like that? Giving us vague information about the armor system as an afterthought at the bottom of an article is not the same thing, which is why I think the team at 343 needs to reconsider their plans going into the future. I hope the upcoming ‘high level update’ addresses this and establishes a plan/schedule for what we should expect to receive moving forward.
Trust me, they understand and even acknowledged that they want to give more information when they’re allowed to. They want to give us a big update before the year is up so just have a little faith.
I mean, my hype is at minimal levels, and I’ve always wanted an open world-ish Halo. Still have a bad taste in my mouth after H5’s pathetic launch.
This is going to be a massive rant, I dont know how to TLDR this all but i just have to get it out.
343’s approach to PR basically requires a perfect launch that meets all expectations in order for infinte to be succesful. The chances 343 is going to release a perfect halo game that meets all expectations is low. so why take this super risky route? This is why I hate the way they are managing this game. If they simply talked with us and just gave us a shred of transparency like CDPR did with cyberpunk then the fans wouldnt be starving, chomping at the bit and over reacting negatively every single time we get some slice of view into infinite through these lackluster promotions.
They dont have to “show” us anything. They could simply TALK to us, the fans. Just having some sort of dialogue other than “its ready when its ready” or “were working really hard” would go such a long way toward curbing so much of the cynical toxic outlook amongst the core fans. I just cant understand why 343 is going this route after halo 4 and halo 5 both had controversial and stained launches that made many people look / remember 343 as the joke studio that failed to be as epic as bungie.
I personally like 343 a lot and know there is some degree of passion for halo, but their approach to managing the IP and communicating with fans is objectively bad. They have had halo under their umbrella for basically a decade, and they are only beloved by a small % of the community at this point. Most of the core fans are so frustrated and angry at 343 for choosing to repeatedly make the same mistakes over and over and I just dont understand why they are doing this. They would gain so much good will by simply talking more with us. Again, not asking for them to just start spilling hardcore content details about infinite.
Why not just gives us little slices of info? Tell us what exactly is causing development hiccups? What about the engine or mp or netcode or whatever is causing issues? Theres so many basic things they can tell us in TEXT form that will make us engaged, and interested / eager to learn more. There are so many small things they can do to keep the fans satisfied but instead they continue to be stubborn and think that they are the only ones that know whats right for halo PR. The only reason I feel might be the cause of these issues, is that 343 truly is outsourcing a gross amount of halo infinite’s development. If this is true, then due to extreme outsourcing its not really feasible for 343 to even share small dev updates with us, because there are so many moving parts behind the scenes with multiple outsourcing firms, theres no way to properly compile something thats actually readable to the average consumer.
Anyone ever heard of metroid prime 4? or final fantasy 7 remake? both of those games had heavy outsourcing. more so than normal. This resulted in the games both being delayed due to how many moving parts were causing the creative integrity of the project to not be up to the company standard. square enix and nintendo both conveyed this to fans. It wasnt super in depth but they acknowledge things like this over the course of the development of those games. Even final fantasy 15 got this treatment and FF14 a realm reborn. Why cant 343 give us any shred of insight like those games have? it goes such a long way to at least giving some sort of context as to whats happening.
If 343 knew what was right for halo PR we wouldnt have had basically a decade of halo falling into almost niche territory / irrelevance, getting laughed at and being made the butt of so many jokes by other fps franchises. So many people see halo as a once great but now fallen cash cow IP now and it makes me so angry cause I still love halo and even hit 152 in halo 5… I just want halo to succeed and be respected. Its the FPS that changed console gaming forever with online and control schemes. Halo deserves better than all of this vague silent treatment. Halo was a huge impact on myself and my friends gaming lives and thats why I can type this much from raw passion to plead to 343 to change this approach in some way…
Again im not asking for 343 to just start showing us unfinished stuff, but i know for a fact that there are small little things they could simply communicate to the players rather than constantly saying one thing and doing the opposite. They LITERALLY said they wouldnt go dark on us after they announced the delay. They showed us a shred of concept art, some music tracks then that was it. Basically nothing since then. After all of that we hear all this random junk from promotions and have to basically scream collectively at 343 to get some small shred of clarification on something.
This is abysmal tier marketing for a AAA studio that has a juggernaut tech GOD like microsoft behind them. I might sound really angry and salty but this all comes from a place of love and passion, cause halo is my #1 favorite franchise and ive invested so much time and will play infinite no matter what. I just want 343 to stop being so stubborn. I feel like if the fans suggest anything 343 has to take this approach of not doing it, cause they dont want to make it look like the fans have better ideas or logic than them or something? I have no clue. Ive run out of ideas theorizing why 343 goes against the grain so heavily when it comes to fan interaction prior to a new halo release.
Ive probably talked in circles through this rant, im just frustrated and baffled. I just want some kind of dialogue between 343 and the fans instead of this boilerplate vague speak when there are so many little basic things they could tell us. doesnt have to be hard content like story beats or weapons, it could be literally code. Just tell us how the development is going, and what minor / major setbacks have happened with certain dev steps.
Please 343, you used to have an army of passionate fans that would go to war for you but ive seen so many passionate halo players just one day say “im done” and its always in response to one of your reactions to fan outcry. What is all of this “halo infinite platform” stuff going to mean if you only have the flavor of the month fans left that arent going to stick with halo infinite no matter how good it is? you NEED your core fans. Youre not going to be the next fortnite or cod, halo already had its mainstream spotlight and its never going to reach that market share ever again.
You cant just say “we hear you” and give us vague platitudes that strike hollow and do nothing to actually make the people who want to love you and your game feel any better.
Please focus on fostering your community and becoming more intimate with communication toward us. We only want to help / understand and you keep us at arms length all the time which only results in eroding that passion and care that millions once had for this franchise a decade ago =(