Hopefully never, I’m praying they add in the rest of the content we expect from a Halo title then stop working on infinite. They clearly cannot and should not do the F2P live service model for this IP. Games being a F2P live service always results in modifying content & features that were previously always expected from titles and paywalling/delaying/releasing half finished/and/or cutting them entirely.
Infinite is clear evidence of this^. 343 clearly missed the ball with Infinite by attempting this model, unfortunately its also on the first title they’ve made with a solid campaign and satisfying core gameplay.
My hope for the future is; Infinite is completed, Halo the endless is a box game with DLC, maybe tatanka is a F2P game (if they choose to continue suffering in the “live service” arena), and they never do this to their audience again. It’s really sad because one would assume that Microsoft & Xbox would just want this IP to be a console seller/industry stopper - think Nintendo and Zelda or Sony and God of War-, and instead it feels like an unfinished, buggy, cash grab designed to prey on nostalgia, yet isn’t even capable of delivering on basic expectations of the IP.
Fingers crossed Microsoft will tell them to be what they should have always been for the next title once the activision/blizzard purchase goes through.
I put like 150 hrs into splatoon 2 but my biggest problem with it is how they only have 2 maps on rotation for 2 hrs at a time. Its baffling to me why they do that unless they think all the little kids who play would have trouble memorizing the maps. I like everything else about the game like weapons, gunplay, movement, etc. The splatfests are fun but easy to miss since they only last like 2 or 3 days.
I just cant play the same 2 maps for 2 hrs straight. I use to start playing 30 mins before the rotation changes just so i only had to play the same maps for 30 mins then i could play the next 2 maps for 30 mins and quit. Its like when youre playing halo with your friends and someones like “damn this is the 3rd time i got this map today” but 10x worse
Don’t think much will be happening with this game if its true certain affinity is delaying the BR mode to swap over to the unreal engine.
I personally think infinite is on life support with a skeleton crew & a infinite 2.0 on UE is being worked on.
Issue is you gotta understand that Microsoft is one of the main companies that’s pulling the strings for this poor excuse. They get a share of any revenue made. And all they want is money. So they’re gonna make the companies who develop the games add in paywalls and a bunch of crap no one asked for. Like them making us pay for things that we ear we for free from previous titles.
In no way am I trying to defend 343. They themselves have shown their rather ugly true colors but so has Microsoft. Both are responsible for this mess and they won’t clean it up. They just add on the the pile of garbage with stuff no one wants then lie saying people like it.
True and I get all of that. I’m just hoping Microsoft realizes that this IP is so important that its one worth taking the occasional strategic loss on. If they sold it as a box product and offered it on game pass, they wouldn’t even take a loss, it would just not be as profitable (as their sky high outlandish/unrealistic estimates for a F2P live service title) .
However, the advantage of doing this is it brings people into the ecosystem and keeps them there during low points. It’s also essential to the brand, xbox is the Halo box. It would be bad for sony and PS as a whole if God of War released and was a dumpster fire, or if Zelda totk releases and isn’t fun- this would be awful for nintendo and only exacerbate just how outdated the switch is.
It should also go without saying that chasing trends can sometimes be a bad idea. As it’s repetitive and people wouldn’t play it because it’s just like every other game but with a different coat of paint.
Another factor is with this “f2p live service” they forced us to buy things that were free in previous titles which ultimately made the community abandon infinite outside of its content drought.
Overall 343 made a lot of bad decisions. Microsoft influenced some of those bad decisions in the name of following trends and making more money instead of doing what the players want which means less income for Microsoft and 343i. Could they make quality of life improvements and revive the game? Yes. Will they? No.
example: making armors that were sold previously earn-able with a ranking system??? Can they do it? YES! Will it bring back some of the community? Sure! Will they do it??? No. Why??? Because that means less money.
Outside of serious reform happening in 343i, Microsoft needs some work too, they need actually think and realize that the decisions they’re making is very detrimental to not only the game but the communities and their developers.
It should also go without saying 343 has had a past of lying. They made a lot of promises saying they’ll add this and this and this…. And we never saw it. Not only that but they’d even post that “nah, we’re gonna ditch it” with the excuse that “the engine can’t handle it” much like they did with the split screen gameplay. Bonnie former ceo literally said “in future halo games we will add split screen because whats the essence of halo infinite? fun.”
What happened a couple years later…… they canceled it after promising it and hyping the community.
Whenever they decide to get rid of the dumpster fire slipstream engine. That thing is clearly the core problem considering one of the main reasons we didn’t have more playlists at launch was because the engine couldn’t handle a larger UX. Its also probably why the store is so limited.
As someone in game development, here’s what I think is happening: In the first months of Halo Infinite’s launch, the studio realized they made massive missteps in a few key areas.
Monetization Strategy: The store just isn’t working for players. There’s no evergreen page, the reliance on Daily/Weekly is annoying, prices started off way too high, no option to purchase individual items from bundles
Progression: The progression system is genuinely bad. The only reason to play is for the Battle Pass and Weekly challenges. Once that’s done, players generally stop playing.
Challenges: The challenge system started out incredibly frustrating and it’s gotten a little better, but it forces players into playlists that they may not necessarily want to play and, as with generally progression, once your challenges are done there’s no incentive to play.
Production Pipeline: It is clear that 343 overestimated their ability to support a live service game with their existing processes based on the cadence of releases.
Now what have we seen in the last year? Lots of high profile departures that touch on these areas, as well as leaks that some higher ups who were responsible for the overall direction made horrible choices, paint a picture that the studio is changing. Thing is, change in the video game industry is really… REALLY slow. It can take months just to find the right candidate, and then more months for them to ramp up and start making changes. Which leads me to my next point…
I would like to direct your attention to Final Fantasy XIV, a game that released in an utterly broken state in virtually every piece of content and system. It is now a very popular MMORPG that players generally love. The original game was released in 2010, and it took them three years to get the game to a playable state, and then it found new life.
Game development is slow, especially if you’re working with bad processes and bad management. I think 343 is quietly making fundamental changes that will eventually lead to a larger “2.0” version of the game that will act as a soft relaunch that includes changes to those big missteps that I mentioned earlier. Or, they’re going to release big overhauls to those systems one at a time as they become complete.