Don’t think there’s any reason for people here to get worked up over this article; it’s a summary/confirmation of things we knew/assumed and the lack of any bombshell pieces of info is a good thing because you know that’s what Jason looks for.
The story reminds of Halo 2 development, only with a different set of problems. This sounds like what EA is now doing with Battlefield, only Xbox was smart enough to actually delay it and give them time. The risk they took with new engine, new gameplay style, and more were taxing, but they got it done and succeed. Yes, it’s not everything within their vision but don’t bite more than you can chew. Now that they got it down, with the same core team in there, the future is definitely bright for the franchise.
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That’s probably gonna happen game goes to original scope over time
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Who is talking about Chris Lee in this topic or the article? You are the first to mention him 
But i will say this, Joe Staten is certainly not the only one responsible for turning Halo Infinite around.
One big difference to other projects which got turned around in a rather short time should be highlighted more in Jasons article: 343i did it without the usual games industry crunch.
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What makes anyone think that hasn’t happened or started to happen starting from last years delay?
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I don’t think they had the time to properly do it yet, since they had more pressing matters, but it should come in full effect after the game launches now.
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Infinite being good really chopped this down into a nothing burger of an article.
Can you elaborate on the current state of the engine? I was also confused about Jason’s article because he calls out the tools but I thought 343 just spent time updating the tools and engine to be much better to work with.
I also couldn’t tell if Jason was talking about the old versions or the new ones.
I just want to know if this will be a problem for Halo moving forward.
lots of games out there that turned out to be amazing but still had considerable volatility during development that eventually needed reporting. Do think there wasn’t enough in this article tho, lol
if 343 can restructure their development pipeline or at least make it more streamlined, keep Staten and use Slipspace to its best potential, I am super excited to see what they can do with future story DLCs.
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I’m a bit disappointed reading this article.
It probably would have needed a whole book written by Jason himself to get the full picture, but hey, we’re kind of tired reading development troubles. At least, I am.
I know game development is hard, but reading Halo being pitched as a full blown open-world game give me all the wrong vibes. It was bound to fail from the start, just like Gears 5 wide open areas felt empty and a bit forced (still an excellent game though).
I guess they found a good balance in the end, but they could have settled on that balance from the start.
Cutting 2/3 of the planned game is a hard pill to swallow. Two third. I would have prefered not knowing about that fact, just like I didn’t know about Halo 2 cuts for a long time.
That said, Staten is a hero, alongside all the devs who pull through that development hell. In the end, all that hard work mattered and I hope they can learn from all their misdirections and hurdles they encountered along the way.
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Free for Gamepass Ultimate subscribers
not ultimate, all gamepass members. Treat these campaigns as essentially whole new games in themselves that launches onto GP like any other first party game.
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I get where you’re coming from but IMO it’s important that developers are vindicated in the public eye from issues that come about from managerial troubles rather than keep it in the dark and risk breeding contempt for the very devs which happens a lot especially now in the social media age.
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I don’t like Jason neither, but he does write some good articles.
It’s clear that Brad Sams reports were entirely correct, (MP and SP being on different dates, lots of outsourcing, too much focus on TV show than the game), while 343i tried to deny it. Even the Glassdoor reviews about the tech defficiency were accurate.
It seems that 343i has massive conflicts inside that goes through even to the PR, like having a very functional store but cannot have a beta fork a la MCC for quick made additions due to the UI, only for trying to fix it ASAP. Having “different” games into the project and not a cohesive vision which drags development, a major issue within the west with exception of studios like Insomniac and Obsidian who likely follow their plans closely to the end.
In the end, feels like State and possibly Hintze were the Pareto principle guys, their one year effort saved the game from being a disaster, just like Rod Fergusson directed the reassembly of Bioshock Infinite in like eight months.
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I like this line
“A month after the debacle with the demo, Staten rejoined 343 Industries, the Microsoft-owned gaming studio that makes Halo, as its creative director. One of the first things he did was remind the studio’s demoralized staff that the franchise’s long-running success had actually been marked by several bumpy introductions, including a disastrous demonstration of the very first Halo game in 2001 that almost doomed the series before it even got started. “We’ve had some rough demos over the years,” he says.”
People tend to gloss over or forget the problems Bungie had shipping Halo games. Especially Halo 2 which like Infinite ended up getting a year’s delay and cut content.
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Most fans have been questioning the leadership for years, don’t get me wrong, but the reason why they are so picky on Halo is because its a franchise that had already kicked the wall with the first game being a changer in the industry as a launch title for a new console from a new participant in the market, Halo CE is undoubtly the most important launch title ever (Super Mario Bros wasn’t a launch title), the sequels got the same acclaimed GOTY reception, and the franchise became a cultural phenomenon like Mario and GTA. When you have such big responsibility, anything below a 9.5 is seen as a letdown, imagine if GTA main titles were rated below 95 on metacritic? 84 would be considered a big deal. Had the franchise started on the lower 90s and being on the average of 85-90 like Call of Duty at the golden days, no one would bark at it.
When she spoke about “popular as Star Wars and Marvel” on the anniversary stream, a just typical easy to understand example, considering the stuff Brad said about them focusing more on the side content (TV) than the main stuff (games) really tingled at the moment, it feels that they still have their priorities elsewhere.
Ok, here’s a better example. It’s actually weird how much this fits. 
I hope you all know that every large creative project is a trainwreck. I was working on a movie set of a large movie (that most people here probably have seen) and the director was screaming at the top of his lungs at a producer saying he wanted to replace an actor. The actor was standing 10 feet way. That was a crazy shoot but I’m very proud to have that movie on my resume.
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