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It's no secret at this point that Halo Infinite has suffered a rough time ever since its release back in late 2021. The actual launch was great, and we had brilliant things to say in our review, but the post-launch momentum just wasn't there for 343 Industries, and players have suffered from a lack of regular new content over the past year.
Speaking on the Skill Up YouTube channel this week, Xbox Game Studios Head Matt Booty admitted that Microsoft and 343 Industries "fell short on the plan" for Halo Infinite's post-launch content, and now the team needs to get "refocused":
"These days, with a game like Halo Infinite, shipping the game is just the beginning. There's got to be a plan for content sustaining, there's got to be a plan for regular continuing engagement, and we just fell short on the plan on that."
"We have really retrenched, we've got some changes in how the team is set up, we've got some changes in leadership, and we've just got to really get refocused around that sustained content plan and making sure that we're bringing a regular update of content for the players..."
Prior to these comments, Booty praised the team at 343 Industries for their work in shipping Halo Infinite in such a good state on day one despite the challenges of the COVID pandemic, but he also went on to thank the Halo fans for remaining patient over the past year, stating that there was "so much more that we could [have] [been] delivering".
"We've got to recover there, and the burden is on us. The team is very focused on that right now."
The latest step of the recovery process for Halo Infinite begins on November 8th with its biggest update yet, adding online campaign co-op, Forge mode, a variety of new multiplayer content and much more. We're hoping for good things!
Do you agree with Matt Booty's comments here? Let us know down below.
[source youtube.com]
Comments 17
I always played Halo mostly for the campaign. Infinite left an enormous hole in the story between the last game and this. Broken beyond repair! As for multi-player, there's much better games out there. I guess Halo is dead, at least for me.
@Kaloudz I've been saying the same. Halo used to be the crown jewel of Xbox, and the game directly responsible for Xbox success as a brand (I was there day 1, and while I loved the OG Xbox, it's hard to imagine it getting off the ground without Halo). These games used to be events that transcended gaming and became part of pop culture at large.
It boggles the mind that Xbox has let the quality of the series lapse so dramatically. If MS cares about Halo at all (and honestly, at this point I don't know if they do) they should really let someone else take a crack at it. At the very least, let another team do a side project like a ODST 2.
I have already said this on the other Halo news Post about RT. But i have 120 hours of multiplayer plus beat the campaign once and the gameplay online is excellent. Very fun, great shooting and jumping around the maps. But maps and content is the lacking glue to this game. Content is just not coming out. The game needs 3-5 new maps or a few old Halo favorite maps brought over to infinite. I only play Ranked and i played the same 2-3 maps for 120 hours. I know every pixel of those maps and just need more. Seems so easy to bring map packs out but here we are. I don’t care about the skins and gun color options and all that. I played Ranked for the competition. I am addicted to Overwatch 2 and Halo will need to bring some great maps to get me back and RT in a game i am playing at 120 with lowered res is not the answer. RT in the single player would be a welcome and I would replay that. Just get Halo right, Xbox is so much better when they have a great Halo game.
@EvenStephen7 i agree with you, Xbox is better with a good Halo game and as someone that been there since OG xbox as well. It hurts to see this franchise be treated with such lack of polish and execution. I am playing Overwatch 2 now and loving it. I am a competitive shooter junkie. I still have 120 hours in of Halo infinite multiplayer. So it’s not like i don’t have a large sample size to voice my concerns at 343.
Gamers!
Love to see Skill Up get some exposure here, he's by far the best YouTube channel for gaming content.
No one reviews games so well and his weekly 'This week in Video Videogames' is utterly essential 😁
Still managed to get glowing reviews though 😂
It really did fall short but worst of all is we're a year down the line from release almost and it's still not much better.
Seems like 343i might need to do the CoD thing and have an entire studio whose sole purpose is producing maps, this would free up the main studio to work on new campaign content.
Well I think the problem Halo Infinite has is how there's just so many online multiplayer FPS right now bidding for attention. It's not like when Halo 2 was top dog and barely had any competition.
That and I imagine there must be a lot of people like me who come for the campaign that don't even care about the multiplayer.
I am more interested in halo single player than multiplayer tbh...it's a fun multiplayer game but I have never played it as much as many other multiplayer shooters over the years
I think if they didn't go with the live service route drip feeding content bit by bit it wouldn't be in the mess it's in or was.
I’ve played all the Halo games and genuinely enjoyed Infinite and I’m struggling to see what problems people have with it. I’ll admit it was a bit jarring at first with the time jump from Halo 5 which left a lot of questions (with the flashback to Master Chief being spaced I honestly thought that maybe they’d killed him off!) but once it got going I was able to fill in the gaps. Halo has jumped around before and I’ve always seen it as if they are almost ‘zooming in’ on particular chapters in a bigger story, possibly the more interesting ones. For example, as interesting as it would be to see Cortana’s devastation of the galaxy it wouldn’t necessarily be that fun to play.
Infinite seemed to do a good job of mirroring the original Halo which also started ‘in media res’ and began with the Chief alone on an alien world. I never bother with online shooters (don’t have the reactions anymore) but I’ve always enjoyed the campaigns of the Halo games (though some like Reach are much better than others such as Guardians). I am interested in going through it again in the future as I played it on my One S and have just got the Series X.
Considering how bad the game looked a year prior to launch, you can perhaps understand why content has been 'slow' after launch - what with trying to develop the 'parts' of the game they had to delay (Forge and Co-op) and fix any bugs, performance etc issues across 6 platforms (4 Xbox consoles - XB1, XB1X, XSS, XSX, PC and Cloud) they probably didn't have much time to 'plan' and have a team in place to work on creating 'new' content with all those still involved in fixing and delivering the 'promised' launch content.
I enjoyed the Single Player, beat everything on Legendary and have NO reason to return. I never liked Halo MP and never bought Halo for its MP. I bought Halo:CE and its sequel on OG Xbox for the scope/scale and beauty (for its time) of its campaign on Xbox - not some tacked on MP mode for the 'few' who paid for Gold. I did the same for 3, ODST, Reach and 4 because the 'Campaign' is what makes Halo 'Halo' - the MP is 'generic' FPS MP with its 'Halo' skin - not a criticism, but it was never my 'flavour' of FPS MP.
What you also need to consider is that the MP this time around is also Free to Play - you didn't need to buy the Campaign at all so considering you haven't had to pay for MP, can you really complain about the 'lack' of content?
They should’ve never released it in the state that they did. How could they think it was a good idea to ship without Forge and campaign co op??? Oh and the whole split screen co op reversal is a travesty in itself. Should’ve just delayed it
@ProducerMan this is really a good point, especially when you compare it to a game like Halo 2 or Halo 3. Each of those games brought MORE. It got users excited & setup our expectations. Whereas Halo Infinite should've been called Halo Limited: the Agile Dev Excuse Story. Campaign co-op was so cool in Halo 3, the extra Elites didn't need a back story, we're gamers & just appreciated how awesome it was to play online with friends and have a blast. They even had extra map packs that shipped on CD for goodness sake, tons of customization features, etc etc. The Master Chief Collection then went over the top for Halo fans & still gets better updates and content than their flagship next gen game. Agree with others that it's time to let 343i focus on either only one portion of the game (single player or multiplayer) or let another studio run with it.
@Kaloudz I remember the multiplayer beta getting gamers choice at the goty awards & thinking WHAT like how the hell does the multiplayer portion of a game that's not even officially out yet & is severely lacking in content win that award I played the beta & I really preferred splitgate lol
343 is done. They made 3 terrible Halo Games. I think its time to pull the plug. Xbox are saying the right things but when it comes to actually making things happen they keep on delaying and failing.
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