Why are people assuming the game died? Because of steam numbers? The steam version has more issues than the Xbox app version. I switched from steam to the Xbox app version. Just because it’s dropped off on steam does not mean it’s lost players.
Not saying it hasn’t lost players but there are two ways to play on PC and only one of them (steam) tracks player count. It’s an assumption made without the full information available.
There are way too many issues in this game and they spent more time focusing on making a profit off of the unsuspecting players than spending that time creating a quality type of game. I’m highly disappointed that this game won’t feel like a complete game nor be in a good place until years from now.
The way 343 went about all this ruined Halo for me. It doesn’t even feel like Halo, it just feels like one big cash shop.
It seems more companies are doing that these days, taking on way more than they can handle and as a result of it, we end up suffering for it when it comes to creating a complete game, and the quality of it.
Yea, let’s all try and have a conversation with someone who opens their point with a blatant lie about Infinite’s population for hyperbolic panic points…
Edit: oh, even better. OP currently holds up DICE as an example of what an “experienced” dev team can do compared to 343. Like… have you even actually played BF2042? That game is more of a dumpster fire than when Bungie launched D1 and spit in the collective gaming communities face 
.
This is literally how almost every IT department/ organization works across all software development, not just game development. People who don’t seem to too have any knowledge of the IT field always bring this up like it matters.
Game developers and software developers routinely use 40-60% of their work force as contractors, and there’s almost always a “2 year max” policy because there’s a lot of benefits payouts a corporation has to start facilitating after that point.
Every other company plays by these same rules, can we please stop trying to use this against 343 like it’s something unique they’re doing?
And everytime they come out and say something, its like “we didn’t know this would happen.” Or “In our private surveys showed this, not what happened” and it makes them look incompetent. That the teams can’t communicate with each other on top of poor leadership.
And its like, who the heck are they using as their sample size? Were they locked in an echo chamber or were they just not ready to release? Or both?
Decisions will definitely need to be made here in January.
Decisions like:
1: FIX BTB Matchmaking! Why is it almost impossible to find a match? Why is it when you do find a match, you’re experiencing mass packet loss?
2: Add some maps that don’t specifically cater to Competitive play.
Your casual players are most of the market. Let the competitive players have their competitive playlist maps and we can go screw around in the new version of Avalanche with tanks and rockets and without shock weapon spawns.
3: Realistic store prices. I know a lot of people shilled out and bought the cat ears but classic Halo armors for $20? Get real.
This is what 343 needs to understand.
343 reeks of Microsoft incompetence from the era before Phil Spencer, which makes given that 343 is lead by a Microsoft executive from the 360 era.
I am not sure how you could judge that as an outsider. We’re only seeing the end product.
Speaking from experience at my own work, very different profession and scale of business I must admit. But for us the absolute main issue is staff retention, keeping the numbers of qualified and trained people to make things work. A company really is like an enormous clock. 
If you don’t have certain key components it can break down. However none of that changed the amount of work so management expect things to still be done which results in colossal overtime which COVID and home working has definitely not helped. I can imagine this being an issue. I did hear 343 had outsourced a lot of work, might be usual for gaming companies, but especially with home working I can imagine that being all kinds of disaster. Right arm needs to know what left is doing. People being off and not fulfilling work. Maybe Microsoft is offering the money but the potential quality employees aren’t there?
I am just rambling. We’re totally in the dark here and speculating. However I refuse to believe they didn’t take the lesson from Halo 5 that Forge and Custom Browser at launch might be a good idea. Even the most barebones version. So something has definitely went wrong.
The no risk approach that PC players and new Xbox players have for a title they’re unfamiliar with.
I suspected this as well! Their games are as incohesive as the company itself; the quality is varying all over the place and decisions are being made that either undermine their previous work or just make them look plain bad as a game developer!
At the moment, I don’t think they had any business dabbling with open world and F2P ideas, considering their limited experience. Compared to developers whose strong suit and focus is open world or F2P, anything less 343 does will be held negative light.
Sure, “you never know if you don’t try,” but they already failed so many times in the eyes of multitudes of fans. A risky move too soon will only divide the fanbase again for the umpteenth time and shove people away from the franchise; like it has successfully does time, time, and time again.
Shame, that’s the only thing they’ve gotten down to science, how to piss players off. Used to believe in them; not so much lately.
My issue is with the UI and no career progression system. The UI is very lackluster compared to 3, Reach and even 4. They basically made the same mistake they did with Halo 5 lol. And not having a career progression system and no service records is really weird. Halo 3 from 2007 is still miles ahead of this.
I mean, have you seen the credits? Takes longer to watch the credits than finish the campaign!
Yes and their games feel unfinished.
Might be in the US . Given that I work in Software development since 2001 (EU based however) I’m pretty sure that it’s not how every IT organization works (not even the majority). And it does matter: when I encounter long running projects with lots of turnover in the dev team you definitely see quality in the finished product diminish.
If you have to use contractors then it’s best to have them either on until the project is “done” (as in at least at a v1.0) or to really limit them to tasks that are not central to the core of what’s being built. This does not seem to have been the case (otherwise there would not be an article on it stating that people saw that as the problem).
I like the game and I have fun playing it. What other points do I need to make? Doesn’t mean I disagree with what you’re saying, but that’s one positive I can mention.
343 should have had the opportunity to learn from the past.
HALO MCC was only released as a console, but it failed.
Through the support of ONE X and PC, a huge amount of work was done and improved at the time of STEAM release.
However, at the beginning of the release, it had a matching problem.
HALO 5 had a problem with matchmaking for several months.
HALOWARS2 still has a lot of glitches.
You said that you should have a solid relationship with the development company and supervision.
I haven’t learned anything.
It’s not the first work …
so what im hearing is Halo 4 was and still is their best launch.
Yea, just an indie dev that can spend over $500 mil on a game and yet still can ship an unfinished product. Can’t blame them since unfinished games are the metta now.