But I don’t believe that over the years of development nobody foresaw the upcoming problems…
The interesting thing about this whole conversation is 343i could put a stop to all the speculation by confirming or denying it. The vast majority of the gaming population wouldn’t care if they switched engines.
There’s a good chance they knew of the problems ahead of time, but the lack of time likely resulted in them taking necessary short cuts or steps needed to get the game out on time, resulting in the amount of tech dept it seems like the engine has. If that’s indeed the case, that’s another reason why the game should have been delayed further.
Are we really doing this again…? COVID certainly was and still is a thing, as is the fact that one of their contracting studios was literally cut off due to sanctions. There was, and still relatively is, more to the story than just the engine.
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I feel like it would be easier to create another 20 multiplayer maps for infinite than giving up on it and moving to a new engine.
Infinite is incredible, it just needs more maps, not a new engine
Didn’t say “just the engine”. I know COVID’s been a huge issue for 343 and other devs. But on first gameplay reveal infinite looked like a Xbox 360 game if your being rude, or a mid Xbox one gen game if your being nice. 343 released in game images that looked worse than halo 5, and possibly other halo games. It was Xbox’s big reveal, years in the making and it was OOZING with technical issues.
What other devs have had as many technical issues as 343 with infinite. The graphics, lack of content. co-op delayed a year, forge delayed a year. Raytracing delayed then forgotten, service records delayed then forgotten. Split screen cancellation. In game progression delayed indefinitely, desync as bad as I’ve ever seen(and I’ve been playing mp shooters for 20 years).
Not many AAA studios at all are having this many issues. Despite all those issues that have caused 343’s problems, they still have a great game, and I still love it. I’m not bashing them, they are my FAVORITE studio.
The engines obviously been the MAIN issue. Not the only issue, but the MAIN. It’s been evident for 3 years. It either needs to get up to speed(my hope) like bungie has done, or they will need to cut their loses so that the immense talent at 343 can truely shine.
I’ll leave you with a quote with jez, go pick a issue with someone else please.
“ In conversations with 343i staff past and present who wished to remain anonymous, Halo Infinite’s internal Slipspace Engine has been blamed for much of the problems with the game’s on-going development. Two separate sources described the launch state of Slipspace’s developer tools as “non-existent.” Descriptions paint a bleak picture for contractors and new 343i staff, who had to work with a “difficult” engine which was light on documentation and pipeline maturity”
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Yet, we’ve seen plenty of other issues reported as factors - constantly changing scope and design of the game, misdirection, changing leadership, etc. No one is saying that building an engine whilst having to also develop a game (simultaneously combating the effects of COVD et al) were issue-free, but reducing all the issues down to just the engine, which you did again at the end of your post, is doing a disservice.
Also, when will people stop comparing all these 1500-5000 staff AAA studios (who still contract additional workers mind you) to 343i? I would argue, from a pure logical, mathematical perspective, that the fact that there are really only ~400 staff at 343i that are actively working on Infinite is the biggest factor for its slow output - and the fact that they’ve been adamant about avoiding crunch. There’s more of a case to be made for leadership above the Studio Head’s to realize how much more permanent (non-contract) staff the team than there is for swapping engines… especially if getting content is your end-goal. It’s just such a limited-view, obtuse argument.
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On the other hand we have Halo 5, phenomenal support at the cost of crunching. Hasn’t gotten a single update in a long time, not even to fix the online issues that starting popping up: desync that caused blank shots, but not as bad as Halo Infinite.
So we really don’t know which way 343i will go if they do jump to EU.
Sure thing mate. 400(and multiple support studios)staff, is why it takes a team at 343 6months+ to make one arena map. And we won’t be getting a second dev tool made arena map until checks notes 16 months after the free to play launched.
You either didn’t read my comment fully or just chose to willfully ignore it. In comment your quoting I say that I do NOT WANT 343 to switch engines. Ive said it multiple times. I would much rather they get slipspace up to par.
Either completely ignore what I say, or twist it to fit your narrative.
Right… you ignore my direct callout to the fact that 343i did have help and throw in the statement as some sort of gotcha that negates how much smaller 343i is when compared to Bungie, Epic, Ubisoft Montreal/Quebec/Etc., Rockstar, or any of the dozen+ studios making Warzone/CoD. I also did read your comment, and this seems very much like one of the multiple examples where you suggested exactly what I said you did:
So which is it, magically fix all the issues that actually attribute to content rollout and continue working on the engine that’s seen significant improvement since launch (which I’ve been told directly by two of my sources there) or “cut their losses” and move to UE… which would just vastly exacerbate the issues that got us here. When I’ve provided context for things that I know from first-hand sources, you manage to come back aggressively and refuse to accept the facts being presented for no other reason than being abrasive as far as I can tell at this point.
Good we can agree. The engine is a huge issue.
Let’s both hope they get it to a place where they can fix both the content issues, and the network issues that have evaded 343 for 2 years.
Man I still love it though. I keep coming back to play ranked on recharge, and streets. And I keep getting shot by guys after I’ve taken 3-4 steps out of their sight.
- edit
Don’t tell me I’m responding aggressively, when your posting joker memes at me. And after 50 people post from people about dropping slipspace for unreal you single me out.
You single me out even tho I’m saying I don’t want to do that unless they basically don’t have a choice.
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Bad-faith be they name. It’s clear you just want to be abrasive. I’ve responded to plenty of people about the issue being discussed but only you want to keep ignoring data points provided in order to keep twisting what people are telling you (no way did I say “the engine is a huge issue”, again you’ve attributed words not said to spin your narrative). Not surprised given we have had developers at 343i, as well as across the industry, discuss how much of an impact WFH and COVID impacted/impacts development, and you literally responded with "But I shouldn’t be surprised given that you specifically told me says the guy who told me that “The only excuse I haven’t accepted was Covid causing huge disruption to post launch support, as vaccines have been commen in the US since before the game came out.”
Verbatim.
Do all of Microsoft’s games studios operate by relying on contractors as much. If not for your premier ip, it’s baffling there isn’t more of a core dedicated team.
To me this is the larger issue, I’d argue the staffing protocols for the studio were, and are, the most egregious. While “fans” and gamers were blaming Bonnie Ross for everything under the sun (unfairly), the decisions made above her head regarding contractor-to-perm conversion and staff count are the biggest problem the studio faces. Considering all the other studios people often compare them to, 343i is tiny… and yes, that’s accounting for external developers which every studio utilizes, including those 4000+ staff studios. We discussed this on our last podcast actually and I think 343i’s long-term success hinges on whether Microsoft as a whole starts realizing that the gaming industry has changed drastically from even a few years ago in regards to project resources, and the value of permanent internal employees cannot be overstated.
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It’s probably not possible to do that without a full engine swap.
My guess is this has nothing to do with Tatanka. We would have heard about this shift by now if that were the case imho. Much too far in dev to only recently be switching engines. Instead, I bet The Endless is a test bed for using UE5 in an ODST-like (in scope) kinda game project.
I don’t think this will have anything to do with Infinite either but they are mainly aiming for UE to avoid the contractor issues they’ve had with Infinite where contracted teams have to learn Slipspace from scratch before making content.
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Based on what I read at Reddit from people who use Unreal, it would be nigh on impossible or a mammoth amount of work to convert Infinite over intact.
So i’m more leaning to either UE being used as an additional tool or for the next Halo game that is years away (which I doubt) or just a miscommunication.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be something more along the lines of what we saw with MCC, like I mentioned a few days ago, and/or for additional games. From what I know from sources, current and former devs, there’s no analog for Forge in UE anywhere near the short-term.
UE makes sense for some of those additional titles, certainly, but I’d still rather they fix the staffing issue because as mentioned plenty of those UE-based AAA service titles still have thousands of internal staff, in addition to contractors (internal and via external partners). To Mike’s earlier points, as far as I’m aware there have been considerable strides on those points and a large part of the recent Staten interview basically confirmed that the content delay is centered around further optimizing the engine, workflows, and content cadence (albeit with the resources they have currently as there still appears to be a freeze).
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I don’t think that should be necessary. They may have to do major rewrites to Slipspace, but we’ve seen other studios in this situation before and able to sort it out. Getting their tools and documentation up to date to make it easier for new staff/contractor integration seems like it would go a long way to helping.
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With tech debt spanning 20 yrs? I don’t know of other teams who have had to deal with that kinda thing so not so sure myself.
Agreed on 2nd part though. That to me seems like the key challenge to sort out atm logistically. If they can fix that end it might help them get beyond the challenges inherent in the contractor issues, which helps content, etc.
I wonder if they can remake the dev tools interface specifically for the contractor teams to be able to do their work more effectively. I could imagine a scenario where some UE interface sits over Slipspace and they just hide the Slipspace interface entirely for those teams. Those teams would then interact with the engine indirectly thru that interface which is one they’d all be comfy with. They’d be able to avoid re-learning a bespoke engine/tools for content creation, which gets around the contractor-caused issue.