Agreed. Like, ok stuff has had issues so far, they are making moves to fix it, so let’s see what happens and maybe not devolve every single Halo topic into some mythical catastrophe that is just ain’t.
Game development takes a really long time these days. If you look at this year’s big games you have:
FF VII at least 6 years, Dreams 8 years, The last of us 2 6 years, Ghost of Tsushima 5 years, Ori 4 or 5 years, Flight simulator 6 years.
It is a simple fact that game development times has ballooned recently.
The times when the average Dev time of a triple A game was 3 years are long gone.
Some Devs manage to get around this by having extremely iterative game design or extremely large Dev teams. This is the ubisoft, EA , Activision model. Insomniac was a great purchase by Sony because they are well known for producing great games in a timely manner but they are very much the exception rather than the rule.
Again I’m not saying that 343 aren’t having problems but singling them out in this way is pretty ridiculous.
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Building software is one of the most complex task humanity is doing. Halo with single player, co-op, multi player, theatre, map editor, etc. is one of the most complex software tasks in gaming. Who else is doing this? The more complex the task the more likely some things go south.
And Microsoft themselves with its endless resources can not fix the Windows Store for the life of it…
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I’m singling them out because Halo is the franchise I care about the most. It’s frustrating. Anyway I get your point, I just hope they can turn things around (with the recent staff additions) and produce a quality product. I will say this, gameplay wise it looks on point and I’m digging the music they’ve released so far, so not all negative.
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When you consider other large open world games, ones that go beyond a city like GTA, Spiderman, or Infamous, their development cycles are even larger.
Red Dead Redemption 2 took 8 years. Cyberpunk 2077 took 7 years.
Like Infinite, these games feature custom engines, which is obviously responsible for a year or two.
If you showed me RDR2 or C2077 when they were 5 years into development, I’d expect all the fundamental gameplay to be implemented but the visuals unpolished with some rough framerates and unoptimized elements like grass, particles, etc.
Which I think we saw with HI.
That said, an open world Halo campaign is a mistake from my perspective. A FTP Battle Royale game with ODST that features the entire Halo as a map? Great. But a tightly focused linear SP campaign with deliberate combat scenarios and escalating stakes is what Halo is all about.
This one decision has led to this situation. 5 years to make a linear Halo campaign that’s multiplatform and makes good use of new tech is very doable. With a linear campaign, in a worst case scenario they could literally cut levels to make deadlines.
So my problem with 343 doesn’t have to do with their talent, but their decision making. Making the game play more like CoD, having a campaign where MC is seen half the time, and creating an intriguing marketing campaign that didn’t align at all with the game…all of these are bad decisions. The games themselves weren’t bad, they were pretty good in many respects, they just ended up disappointing due to bad decisions.
I think having Stanton, with his credibility and pedigree, on the team can lead to better decisions being made.
This late in the development process, damn. It’s good news I guess but I just can’t wholeheartedly say I have full confidence in Infinite, I really sadly don’t.
Also if the game at this point is a “disaster” why didn’t alarm bells (so to speak) go off way earlier? Surely Phil knew?
I totally disagree with this. One of the major disappointments with Halo 5 and especially Halo 4 was that the combat spaces were too enclosed. There has always been talk about the strengths of the halo sandbox in terms of the mixture of its weapons and it’s vehicles. Even now I don’t think there is another game that does it better. The best halo levels always felt like mini open worlds which is what this game seems to be going for. Imagine a scarab given free roam to explore a huge map. As the player you will have different ways of fighting it depending on where in the world you meet it. My fear for the campaign is that they don’t explore the possibility of an open world fully. Imagine a nemisis style system in this world. Ai that gets in a ghost and chases you across the map. The mind boggles. I’ve already played 7 linear Halo games. I don’t need another one.
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I wonder if Joseph Staten has had a look at the game and went “this is nothing compared to what I had to go through with Halo 2” lol. In all seriousness hopefully he can land the plane smoothly.
I agree about the maps, I didn’t mean tight maps but a tight campaign where objectives are highly tied to narrative and story but most critically, that they are levels.
This means that levels have distinct gameplay and visual themes.
I totally agree the large maps where there was freedom in how to tackle them defined Halo. But they were focused in regards to narrative, gameplay, ambience, and visuals. Look at the level “Truth and Reconciliation” in Halo 1 where the map had a lot of room to tackle in many different ways, but you were given the opportunity to play with stealth, or leverage the sniper you spawned with. It was at night so you could use your sniper rifle for night vision, or use your flashlight. Clearing out enemies triggered the next phases of dropships. It was a theme that is very different from Truth and Reconciliation, which had its own gameplay motif and while it was a large map, it was still focused design. You knew from the beginning you had a lot of terrain to cover, it gave you a feeling that you never had in the previous maps (well, maybe similar to landing on the Halo).
With Infinite, each mission could be any type of day. You can use any weapon you want as all types seem readily available. You could essentially run past all enemies without needing to trigger the next wave of them. So more than the level itself, it’s about the design and how it ties into the narrative…that is what I mean by focus.
The idea of an entire Halo map appeals to me on a different level. A cooperative multiplayer firefight mode, a big team battle mode, something akin to those cooperative missions in Halo 4. Where narrative needn’t be as focused and gameplay encounters can be a lot more random and without design.
Let’s agree to disagree. I think 3434 is one of the most over-rated developers out there and that their handling of the Halo franchise has been a travesty. I would rank the following above them, and keep in mind this is only MS studios, or studios that worked on their properties
- Obsidian
- Playground
- Coalition
- Initiative (has promise)
- Rare
- Asobo
- Moon
There are others but they aren’t on the MS side of the house, and I don’t want to start some kind of war. MS should just dissolve 343 or completely turn it over at this point
The game is actually not entirely open world. It’s more metroidvania or semi-open world, with new areas unlocking as you progress. Here’s the interview with HI’s writer Paul Crocker. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vg247.com/2020/08/09/halo-infinite-open-world-areas/amp/
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Staten and Hoberman making Infinite?
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Why are people worried about the story? The story elements, the core gameplay, and even the multiplayer seem to be in a decent place(they planned to release the multiplayer by itself this year). It’s the visual fidelity and the overall campaign that seems to be an absolute mess.
I’m my case at least it’s nothing concerning HI itself, just a lingering fear from Halo 4 and 5.
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I LOVED the way 343 expanded the lore and story for their games, but they really suck at connecting the titles together. Like, I loved the Didact character and was satisfied when he was dead, but to bring him back off screen and then kill him again off screen is horrible storytelling for the franchise from a gaming pov. I wanted to see the moment MC found Blue Team and wanted that to be explained to players more. I wanted to see more of the expanded lore connected between 4 and 5 too in ways digestible to fans of the game instead of relying on novels to do that for them. I liked the storytelling within the game itself, just the connective tissue is an area they really suck at.
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