Former 343 Employee Clarifies His Comments On Halo Infinite's Development

i stand by my original statement . if it turns out that 343 studios has completely f'ed up Halo infinite. my excitement and faith in Microsoft Xbox this generation will end. my loyalty to the Xbox platform will be finished

I started my Xbox journey with original Xbox and Halo, it was amazing and revolutionary in the console world in every aspect.
I have lowered my expectations for Halo Infinite
by now they should be showing us some mesmerising gameplay, an amazing world, full of life and series x next generation power.
I did hear there is not even a weather system for this game, but there is day and night cycle.
That’s is not great, I was expecting a Halo like we have never seen before, with wind, rain, snow, hail and full environmental reactions to this etc etc all whilst battling away. So far what we have seen is a stagnant still world.
I hope they shock and surprise me and I relive those original Xbox days.

@phoenix1
Hear hear, especially when the competition, the other two, will release something massive this fall.

The development cycle is to long.
That’s what happens when you develop for lots of consoles and pc all at once.
Xbox one, series s and series x and PC and I guess it will have to work on cloud as well platforms.
This is why Sony and Nintendo get it right most of time.
Mainly one console to make the best game possible, and focus on mainly one aspect, single play campaign story. Then maybe multiple player add on.
And if you want to argue fine, just go look at their games and console sales numbers and attachment rates and countless high review scores and game awards.

Sounds very much to me like a disgruntled employee. I’m taking it with a huge grain of salt.

@awp69 Same, Sounds like a salty ex employee who just got layed off lol.

@Dezzy70 This has nothing to do with the multiple platforms. Plenty of other devs targeted PC, Xbox One, One S, One X, PS4, and PS4 Pro, and delivered great games.

This, as I've been saying for a very long time now, has everything to do with 343i being a mostly garbage dev, entirely because of its garbage management. Even when they only have one console to deliver on, as they did with Halo CEA, H4, MCC and H5, they still deliver questionable quality and content.

I've alluded to Infnite's long dev cycle, which is usually a sign of dev restarts, and behind the scene managment and direction issues. The exact same issues that plagued Cyberpunk.

There's a reason creatives leave, but managment stay.

This doesn’t seem great. But honestly all I want is a great story with fun gameplay. Maybe they were too ambitious with the open world. But even last years e3 demo to me looked fun to explore and other than the graphical issues made me excited. If they can at least nail the story and gameplay it’ll be an improvement on 5 and I’m good with that.

@xMightyMatt14x I agree. Since 343 took over the Halo franchise, all the games they've made seem to indicate a steady transition to a gameplay system similar to Call of Duty. Running, fast-paced action and so on. That's not what Halo was about when Bungie was at the helm and I feel like 343 has made the series lose its identity over time. That's why I'm hoping with Halo Infinite that they've managed to secure the series a new identity. Considering how disappointing Halo 5 was in many regards, it shouldn't be that hard for 343 to top it with Infinite. Open world already sounds way more interesting than a campaign where you don't even play as Master Chief half the time.

@Richnj
Have to agree with those points as well.
Just imagine the cost and the money already gone down the pan and possibly more to come.
Will be interesting to see the outcome of all this in the future.

Source: trust me, bro. 😑

@Carck
"I think the finished product will still be great. The story is a big improvement, and the gameplay is much richer, though the development cycle is too long."

He just sounds tired. 😅

Edit: He was indeed tired! 😂🤣😳🤢🤮🤤😂

I bet his uncle works for Nintendo too.

It's going to be mediocre at best. For me Halo was dead and buried with Halo 4. A disaster of a game.

Triple A Blockbusters are crippling the industry :/

@mousieone the sad part is this could be said about the movie industry as well.

Eh...I don't buy it.

@xMightyMatt14x true :/

Been waiting for the sequel I really like the way the story's going with cortana becoming the villain don't know about open world though always enjoyed halos linear level design & although I thoroughly enjoyed gears 5 the push to make it more open world made the game less enjoyable in my opinion

I'm more liable to believe this random person that anything else. Up to this point 343 has yet to make a good Halo game and they've been in control of Halo since 2007. Though really 2020 after Reach was released.

Honestly I am surprised some people are still big fans of Halo, I lost interest in the series after Halo 3. Halo 4 just wasn't that great and same deal with Halo 5. It's one of those things where I moved on a long time ago, I got the classic collection on my PC and that feels like the perfect way to enjoy the games.

I'm not naming names, but I know someone that worked on a big online game. When they left the studio, they described a terrible game that could not be saved.

A bit over a year later, so much had changed, the game is practically a masterpiece.

This is not that the person I knew was wrong, because I saw said terrible game (it actually released on a terrible state) but things can change a LOT over a year.

Someone who was supposed to be working for 343........in a video translated from mandarin......by someone from Resetera.......

And ppl are already putting on their tinfoil hats and jumping into conclusions....

Personally i too believe that the game will be great but nothing revolutionary but that's not the point here.

It's probably true. While I look forward to the game and think the engine was a response to tech debt from the Blam engine used from Halo CE to Halo 5, the game should've been smaller in scope. It would already be out by now if it wasn't so big. Still, the fact that they still think it will be great is promising.

I'm more interested in a lot of their other upcoming titles after Halo Infinite. If somebody wants to jump ship because of one game, then they will be missing out on a good amount of potentially very high quality games. Say what you want about the past 10 years or so, it's actually an exciting time to be an Xbox fan with plenty of very interesting games coming out in the next 1-3 years on Series X.

If Halo Infinite turns out to be pretty good, great. I'll happily play it then, as it's been a long time since I've really enjoyed a Halo game.

It has had an incredibly long development cycle of course, but I'll wait to judge the game until there's something more substantial to go on than a very positive quote that seems to be taken out of context by some. Just because he said he doesn't think it will be am epoch-making masterpiece. The whole great part seems to be getting overlooked.

I'm not a big halo fan never have been, just always thought it was fun enough...but for all the predictable sheep who probably praised halo back in the day and now think it's hip to hate saying 343 is garbage etc..

343 easily delivered the best campaign in halo 4 and apparently according to the masses delivered the best multiplayer in halo 5

343 made a great campaign with rubbish multiplayer in Halo 4. Halo 5 had an average campaign but best in the series multiplayer.

The comments section entertaining as always. People really are expecting the new halo to be a masterpiece. That’s so cute.

Good luck with that. Haha

The game won’t be rubbish but cmon on don’t be expecting a masterpiece. That’s an expectation just based on nothing and you are setting yourself up for a upset

@StylesT "343 easily delivered the best campaign in halo 4 and apparently according to the masses delivered the best multiplayer in halo 5"

Based on what?

https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/forums/90a6869bcf944c54a17102ac9e31da1a/topics/best-halo-multiplayer/69ff82ff-9e89-4d44-b210-92c6121164a4/posts

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/poll-best-halo-game.1558909/

https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/forums/90a6869bcf944c54a17102ac9e31da1a/topics/the-best-halo-campaign/5676bafd-5c08-4e22-a7e8-ecf046d2c60e/posts

https://www.dualshockers.com/halo-xbox-campaign-ranking-list/

https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/btx0n0/rank_the_halo_campaigns_from_best_to_worst/

Admittedly these are small sample sizes, but there's very little else to use when claiming to speak for the masses. You can try to use player populations and metacritics scores, but again, these don't come out in 343i's favour.

If it's your personal preference, then OK. But I think it's a myth that Halo 4 and 5 did anything special, or that the gaming community at large even recognises any of these supposed achievements.

@Richnj Seriously find a few topics to suit your agenda ...I could find topic for literally anything that will go against the masses opinion

I barely even play halo multiplayer so no it's not my opinion ...it was just com mmon knowledge from reviews and any comment section that halo 5s multiplayer was the best it's been in a long time and a return to form

As for halo 4 campaign that was definitely my personal opinion about the campaign but I also know plenty of people agree

@StylesT I literally just did several Google searches and pulled in the top searches that had relevance to this topic.

"the best it's been in a long time"

That's a different statement from "delivered the best multiplayer in halo 5". 'best in a long time' has the context of knowing that what came before was Halo 4 and Halo Reach, both suffered heavy declines and critiques to their MP modes. Your original statement implied that Halo 5 was the most successful or most loved MP of all Halo games.

"it was just com mmon knowledge from reviews"

You'll have to define 'common knowledge' and you'll have to explain why this knowledge was gathered from reviews, because that makes it sound like myth rather than any kind of objective fact. I could point you to articles that claim the earth is flat and where everybody in the comment section agrees as if its common knowledge.

But when you zoom out of those spaces, things look different.

"but I also know plenty of people agree"

But I also know plenty of people who would disagree. It's hardly an argument in favour of the game. Thats why when arguing in favour or against something, I don't conflate me and my friends liking something, as being representative of the masses.

I really liked ODST when it came out, and I still like it today. And that's how I frame my argument for the game. I don't claim everybody liked it, because they didn't. It's only been with the MCC release that it's had more praise.

You made the claims, the burden of proof would be on you.

'Former janitor says Boss's Tesla Car's sound system doesn't pack as much punch'
I know it sounds mean, but if he was only helping out as a skybox artist and he's no longer employed, I doubt his opinion has that much weight on the final overall product.

I think no one in their right minds would think the game would end up being a masterpiece! I like Halo, but it was necer a masterpiece

@phoenix1 Ok.

All I want is a Halo 3/Reach quality campaign and I'd be very happy if the multiplayer was similar quality to Halo 5.
That's all I ask for.

so long as the MP is still worth playing. I can stomach another bad campaign if my main attraction is still worth something.

that said, I didn't think halo 5's campaign had bad ideas, it just had inconsistencies and some pretty bad vehicle levels. It feels more like they're trying to explore what a spartan can do rather than the lore of the universe.

@AFCC More of a masterpiece than TLOU

@GateCrasherUK I mean...there's not even a chance xD I hope you are trolling

@AFCC Are you really trying to compare a weak interactive movie to a game that changed FPS games 😂 Hope your trolling

@AFCC
"I like Halo, but it was necer a masterpiece"

Very few franchises are as highly regarded as Halo, even at present. You know this.

@SegataSanshiro
That's the game that made Xbox. Where would we be without it?

@phoenix1 Why is Infinite the line? The screwed up the last two Halo games rather fantastically. No reason to expect anything different from their next one.

@gingataisen yeah the later releases are not that highly regarded but I understand that the original game surely had impact when it released, it's probably even the reason there's still Xbox nowadays!

@GateCrasherUK weak interactive? When even Xbox internal reviews praise the series, maybe it's not that weak lol Yes Halo is a revolution at the time for the FPS genre (in terms of exclusives I prefer Gears), but subsquent releases are not masterpieces at all and Infinite probably won't be too. Good, even great, yes...

@CrazyJF probably! comparing with games from that time it was revolutionary, but it doesn't hold up as a masterpiece, even playing the remake version!

@AFCC Try again Halo 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / Reach are all Masterpiece's in terms of FPS and No one knows how good Infinite will be but I would expect a PlayStation mug to say something dumb like that.

Xbox praised the Story but not the actual Gameplay, I don't even think the story is worthy of praise that's my opinion and no one is going to change it 😉

I will definitely be giving 343 the benefit of the doubt, but if Infinite does not meet my expectations. I will fully blame 343 for ruining the Halo franchise.

I loved Halo CE, Halo 2, Halo 3, ODST, Reach but Halo 4 and Halo 5 were just sub-par Halo games IMHO.
Halo MCC was nice and I know a lot of work has been put into it, but that solely does not make 343 being capable of producing nice games (after having played 4 and 5).

I surely did not like all the promethean enemies and Halo 4 MP went into a direction I surely did not like.

I loved Halo: Reach MP though (with its perks), that was awesome.

So far, the gameplay looked very nice and it gives a much more Halo CE feel. I also like the Brutes back in the game!!

@GateCrasherUK all those Halo games are masterpieces? XD like 8/10 tops. My favourite is probably Halo 2, despite the story having a dumb cliffhanger.
But yeah, Halo 1 was revolutionary for the FPS genre but that's it.
Halo Infinite won't be a masterpiece, I can guarantee you that!