Halo developer 343 Industries has finally begun implementing a long-promised Halo Infinite feature - customisation items that work across different 'Spartan Cores' within multiplayer. While this feature's addition is certainly welcome, it's brought an unfortunate consequence that's disappointing some fans: increased store bundle costs.
Yep, players are beginning to spot that certain existing bundles in Halo Infinite have crept up in price since 343 implemented 'multi-core' functionality. And, as a result, the team's community director has posted a lengthy statement about what's happening here.
We'll drop a quote down below covering the most important points made, but the dev's response is quite lengthy, so we'll leave the full explanation to the Twitter post underneath:
"Shop prices on many offers have changed in conjunction with multi-core functionality being added to customization content. With Season 4, we saw new shop offers reflect a new pricing model to account for new coatings being multi-core enabled. With Season 5, many previously released coatings and all helmets in the game were updated to work on all cores, and those shop offers were adjusted to reflect these changes.
While many S1-S4 offers have been adjusted, I want to be transparent that as more multi-core coatings come to bear, there are going to be more past offers that weren't included with the initial S5 adjustments that will see updates in the future."
So, essentially, some items will begin to cost more money as they have more functionality within the game - which we guess makes sense. Still, it's not the best look and the dev even says that it "isn't necessarily what everyone wants to hear".
We'll keep an eye on how this evolves throughout future seasons and as more functionality is added; we just hope 343 manages these changes well. We do have to remember that Halo Infinite multiplayer is completely free-to-play, with only the campaign needing a purchase or an Xbox Game Pass subscription to gain access.
What do you think to all of this? Do you think it's fair to bump up prices? Drop your thoughts down below.
Comments 15
I understand this isn't necessarily what everyone wants to hear
Jeez, no kidding and talk about the understatement of the last few months. Why not play for some goodwill and update the multi-core coatings of past seasons to match S5and keep the same price? Its not like the store prices were not already crazy high to begin with...
Translation:
"Since we enabled a function for players, that has been available for AI since the launch of the game, we're charging more for the cosmetics."
I swear, every time they announce something positive, it is also followed up by at least one negative. Generally two. Makes me glad I've yet to spend a since cent on the game.
I hear you, but I think withholding Kotick's wages until he buggers off will cover some of the expenses 343i made on the Slip Space engine..... karma that most players would support 😅.
Edit: Failing that😉, how about making a substantial campaign DLC built on the engine they've spent a fortune on.
Worse halo ever imo microtransactions open world multiplayer seasons to bleed money out the game miss when you could unlock things by gameplay on multiplayer games if you want that special look or anything like that just get good and get playing to unlock just like gears aswell with customize options I don't like it
Imagine if Nintendo treated Mario and Zelda the way MS/343 treat Halo.
@DennisReynolds Legend of Zelda seems immune but Mario Kart World Tour has a pretty bad history with microtransactions.
@ParsnipHero A mobile spin off. Mario on console has never been treated the way MS/343 has treated Halo the freaking mascot of Xbox and the reason Xbox succeeded, Infinite should be the crown jewel of the Series consoles something that is on par with the Switch's Mario and Zelda games or the PS4/5's God of War games. Its disgusting how badly treated Halo has been since Bungie left, freaking Forza gets more attention from MS then Halo does.
Halo is done for. Microsoft hasn't cared about it for a long time and now that they have all these other studios they're just gonna try and get as much money out of Infinite that they can before the series goes on ice.
343 straight made great multiplayer gameplay and a great story but absolutely dropped the ball on the online content and community for Halo Infinite & continue to do so. Season 5 is a great come back but c'mon, the player count is very low. I still hope on for weeklies but with soft collision still an issue and overpriced store content given how few people are there is no way to treat dedicated fans.
TLDR: Stuff costs money to make/maintain and companies need to make a profit.
Given the timing, this is no doubt a result of the Activision acquisition. Phil Spencer probably put extra pressure on all XGS to make up for the profit lost by putting CoD on Game Pass.
@DennisReynolds
It's a sad state of affairs when it's a comparatively novel idea for a company to just make a fun game that you pay for and play.
Corporate greed is why there are so many articles and YouTube videos popping up about why "gaming isn't fun anymore". Mileage varies based on individual tastes and experience, of course, but having been an avid hobbyist since the Atari 2600 days, I personally feel the current Microsoft and Sony console generation has been generally aimless, uninspired, and has done less to justify investment in their respective consoles than any prior one.
The most damning examples regarding Halo Infinite, ranging from leaving large swaths of the single-player campaign (including varied weather and environments) on the cutting room floor to making it as difficult as possible to enjoy local splitscreen multi-player...both of which were accomplished in previous iterations on far less powerful hardware...comes down to deliberate choices and priorities on the part of 343 and Microsoft, particularly microtransactions. Long gone is any pretense of value for the consumer or giving us what we actually want; it's become a routine of telling us what we're getting and expecting us to keep forking out the $$$ for it anyway, even as more and more "AAA" titles are released unfinished, glitchy, and are basically glorified betas. It's not sustainable, and when consumers eventually say, "Enough", the videogame industry is going to experience its biggest implosion since it nearly went under during the mid-1980s.
@AtlanteanMan Despite my thoughts on Halo nowadays i heavily disagree that "gaming isn't fun anymore". This year is straight up one of the greatest years in gaming, its crazy how much i've spent on gaming this year and how little of it i've got round to playing due to the sheer volume of quality releases put out. AAA, AA, indies, console exclusives and so on there's been something for everyone and there's at least 3 or 4 GOTY contenders.
Increasing prices by 30% because they enabled the ability to have helmets and colours on all armour cores is actually insane and totally unjustifiable. No, it's NOT better value now that you have removed your arbitrary forced restriction to begin with.
How inept and out of touch do you even need to be to rationalize this thinking?
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