To be fair I don’t think we can say the tech dept spanned 20 years. We didn’t hear this much chatter about problems with the engine until Infinite, so it stands to reason that much of the dept related to current engine issues were introduced during the development of Slipspace. The reports of immature tools and lack of documentation makes more sense in that context. We know Infinite was coming in kind of hot and we also know one of the most common ways to accrue tech dept is by taking necessary short cuts to hit deadlines. Considering how tight the game was coming in towards launch, I doubt most of their dept was from 20 years ago.
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I wonder if the focus of blame should not all be on 343 but rather higher up? The staff issues seems to be at the core most problems. How can Xbox flagship studio, Halo ffs!, be so understaffed? Bungie has thousands of devs on Destiny, CoD has an entire publisher working on it, Fortnite must have a stupid amount of people on it etc. etc. And here comes Halo with a couple hundred guys and a bunch of contractors… wtf?
Well Destiny 2 did launch terribly, Activision claimed it under performed (as did the first expansion) and 2 years after launch there were articles claiming it was going F2P to save it.
To say nothing of the issues of adding MTX when they promised they wouldnt, changing the levels of damage/XP to encourage monetisation…and it doesn’t have split-screen, or Forge.
Fortnite wasn’t all peaches and cream. It never launched as a Battle Royale so much as a tower defense like title. Its identity…is a post launch add on! Mismanagement caused People Can Fly to break away from Epic and their other title (Paragon) was abandoned so they could be all hands on deck for Fortnite.
So I guess you could say, Halo Infinite would be in better shape if Microsoft cancelled a bunch of other games and put them on infinite. I don’t personally consider a slow rollout of content a huge issue TBH, not after Covid.
As for Call of Duty…well same thing happened, Raven Software, Radical, Toys for Bob, Beenox etc…all became CoD mines…and the mines did flow…even so it still has issues, one game famously launched without a campaign.
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Sure, all valid points. But I don’t think you can run a platform flagship game with such a small studio. Especially not with all the features Halo has, like you say, which makes it look even more understaffed in comparison.
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I totally agree, these contractors don’t have enough time to get used to the engine. I don’t think the engine is really that bad, they are continuously improving the workflow.
They need a core dedicated large team on the ip that made Xbox what it is today.
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I don’t really think 343i is small…i’m confident we would be under different circumstances had the pandemic not occurred. It’s hard to really gauge if they will increase staff. With Microsofts purchases Halo need not come out so frequently so they can take their time on things.
As a rule though i’m curious which aspects they really need to crack down on at this point:
Co-op is done, New maps will come by the truckload with Forge, so its probably just new weapons/gadgets, cosmetics and new playlists, which seem easy to me.
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Software development is not my area of expertise. That being clarified up front, please forgive any ignorance or naivety.
Many projects I have worked on do involve software/programming as a component. A trend I have noticed is “agile” or “just in time” software development where a much thinner line is drawn between thorough testing/Q&A and deployment. This isn’t just a perception, but pushed as best fiscal practice and common life cycle development/iteration in developer meetings and even continual training sessions.
So if this is becoming common practice and one includes all the ancillary influences stated previously such as COVID, contract issues, sanctions blocking a portion of the work force, and internal turnover, why does it appear to laymen of software (me!) that 343 is being held to a different standard or over scrutinized?
Also, as mentioned above, there are examples of games that came out … “unpolished” and have been added to over time to improve significantly. Yes, I am omitting glaring evidence to the contrary such as Anthem but I’m not sure Halo/343 are in a similar situation as Anthem was. Anthem was panned fairly heavily for most aspects (other than flying?) where Halo Infinite seems to be very well received in the gameplay arena. Gameplay over graphis, right? Also from what I’ve read and played the campaign is fantastic! I’ve held off on more than dabbling due to my back log and a years long habit of waiting for early patches the last decade (see Cyberpunk 2077 as exhibit “A”.)
So, why so much vitrol for 343 considering how well received Halo Infinite was? If it’s mostly about content when gameplay/campaign are already great, why focus on a shift to a new engine so soon? In my ignorance, I would think that dropping future support for older hardware and enhancing the engine (a la Bethesda with Starfield?) for newer hardware only may yield as good of results in less time with less money? A better ROI for the devs and better turnaround for fans?
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I’ve said this before, but there is a certain vocal part of the internet that believes Halo = Xbox, so they are keen to bash it unreasonably.
If Halo sucks, Xbox sucks!
Particularly because it topped 20 million within a few weeks.
Look at the difference between Naughty Dog failing to deliver a 60fps Uncharted 4 (with downgraded visuals), failing to deliver Campaign DLC and telling us it was “too ambitious” to be dlc and sell it at an inflated price and once again failing to deliver a multiplayer of any kind with The Last of Us 2 (only to be sold separately at a later date) vs. Halo Infinite not having online co-op at launch…not no multiplayer at all…just one particular mode.
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Those are great examples of apparently opposing standards. If I recall the timeline, those were even before COVID, yes?
And yet the games you mentioned, at a cursory glance since I skipped the PS4 and 5, seem to be heralded loudly but seem to show warts in visuals or gameplay when excessively scrutinized. As does any game if youdig deep enough (imo).
Still, with this (including devs complaining about the engine that, also, is not unique), the jump to a new engine not suitable to core gameplay function (forge?) seems counter intuitive to me.
Now spin offs like an ODST or Halo Wars example as others have mentioned make more sense to me.
Yes. TlouPt2 did release during covid, but they had already removed the multiplayer component long before the first cases were declared. Both it and Uncharted 4 were delayed numerous times as well.
I think they are undestaffed for the immense task of running a live service F2P game on top of all the normal features.
Also, 6 years between games is often? Not so sure about that.
As for what they need to crack down on I would say get the content flowing for the live service which might seem easy to you but apparently isn’t, a fun progression system, PvE content. That is if they want it to be big, which I would assume was the point of going F2P.
I would say 5 year dev cycles have become the norm for most AAA games. Maybe shave off 1 year for direct sequels where a lot of content can be recycled.
Yeah, I would say that is normal nowadays.
is the sentiment that the content pipeline for infinite is fucked because the current engine is tough to use?
I don’t know… My guess is that it is all these things together creating a perfect storm but hard to point to a single reason.
yeah, it seems like a lot of things went wrong at once for them, which is shame. making big changes before their next title is probably the way to go
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I would say there is a contracting issue as well. They hired contractors to work on a difficult engine, by the time they get use to it, it’s toward the end of the contract again. Rinse and repeat. They have improved the workflow for the engine.
Unreal is used throughout the industry so the contractor issue wouldn’t be one anymore but they have worked on slipspace for a while now, seems kinda weird to just ditch it.
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This should probably be required reading for people that like to levy concepts like “tech debt” exclusively at Slipspace, or for those that want some additional information on the inadequacies of UE.
In addition, when discussing UE, I think it’s important to have the most skeptical view on its capabilities (especially when viewed in the context of their tech demos). UE 3 and 4 had plenty of elements from their tech demos that never saw the light of day, even on the most taxing PC-only titles. I would not be surprised to see the same with UE5, in addition to the tech debt and other issues described in this post.
I love what UE has done for game development, and some of my favorite games run on the engine, but I think it’s important to have healthy skepticism about the engine and its limitations. Obviously that applies to Slipspace as well, but I would rather see more bespoke engines built around specific functions (like Forge) than a world where a single ubiquitous-but-limited engine exists.
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That does make the leak about 343 trying UE still going back to Slipspace more tangible for me. As generally I only ever hear people praise EU like it doesn’t have any real difficulties to work with.
No one levied tech dept exclusively at Slipspace.
That is a good post regarding UE though. It matches a lot of what I’ve expressed pretty recently on why moving to UE would not be the silver bullet many assume it’ll be. A lot of what’s said in that reddit post matches up with what I read years ago on B3D from another developer on UE4 and is why the coalition had to make heavy, heavy optimizations since the DX12 support was terrible out of the box. This is why UE games made by Xbox studios are some of the best looking and performing UE titles in the industry. I’m excited to see what they do with UE5 this gen.
UE has long been a jack of all trades but master of none taken to kind of an extreme. The tools are very mature and easy to work with but outside of major optimizations, the performance is usually not where it needs to be.
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