• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Confirmed by Bloomberg: Microsoft brings back Halo veteran Joseph Staten to get Infinite back on track

ZywyPL

Banned
So 4 development teams, bringing back old Halo veterans, just shows in how terrible state the game is, and they wanted it to be a launch title wtf??
 
so this is similar to cory the amazing barlog returning back to SSM to help the teams with providing a clear vision and direction for what should be for the future of God of War. I see this as a win win for Halo Infinite, what if the whole shit show of a reveal sees a 180 with an amazing brand new gmaeplay reveal 6 months from now under the new direction?
 

freefornow

Member
A good leader can unite dysfunctional teams to greatness.
I'm sure he has a range of skills that have been identified as "needed" in the context of what is happening behind closed doors.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
So 4 development teams, bringing back old Halo veterans, just shows in how terrible state the game is, and they wanted it to be a launch title wtf??

I get that community managers are hype people and full of themselves, but in June 8th, 2020 beating his chest how they were going to own E3 feels quite odd.
 

Sakura

Member
It is a cross gen 4k/60 open world'ish title with a more dynamic AI than most if not all open world game. It is also supposed to be 60fps on Xbone. Imo it's competent looking
Who cares if it is 4K when it looks like shit? It shouldn't look like a last gen game in higher res. And if that was the best, most polished portion of the game, who knows what the rest would look like.
343 literally just shot down 2022 rumours yesterday.
And they would've shot down 2021 if you had asked them a few months ago.
 
Last edited:

Hudo

Member
Fuckin' finally! Now get Marty back and fire Kiki Wolfkill and other higher-ups at 343 and maybe Halo can get back on track. And don't hire Jason (not that I expect him to leave Bungie) as he managed to fuck up Destiny twice.
 

TLZ

Banned
1. This game ant coming out next year lol
2. As much as its a great get, one player on your team doesnt change the entire roster
Oh believe me it certainly can. One person managing a project could ruin it all. Another one coming in can change its direction and put everything right in its place where it should be. Now whether or not this guy can properly manage this game is another question.

And yes, fire the current person in charge. She's clearly not up for it.
 

McCheese

Member
Bonnie Ross is probably in her little safe space room and la-la-la'ing the problems away.

sure we fucked up a whole console launch but at least a diverse team fucked up a console launch, that's a first and something to be proud of

Lalala
 

Reindeer

Member
343 literally just shot down 2022 rumours yesterday.
Yeah, I'm not sure about that, there wouldn't be much reason to hire a writer if the game was only a year from release. Big companies lie all the time so I think there's every chance that the game could be delayed further if they're seriously considering major changes to the story. Maybe Phil read the script for the first time and realised it was poop.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
So 4 development teams, bringing back old Halo veterans, just shows in how terrible state the game is, and they wanted it to be a launch title wtf??
The Venn diagram shows no overlap for people who were working on the game and people who thought it should be a launch title.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Joe did immense work on the halo's but he was more a story guy. Other than shitty looking this makes me think the story, plot etc are also shit and need to be re-written which is going to take a lot of time
I'm sure he also has some relevant input on how Halo is supposed to "feel" that can influence other aspects of the game.

If they're throwing away money at this thing, they might as well get the people who were responsible for the early games being good, and dump all the non-performing dead weight.
 

SCB3

Member
Fuck, what are 343i doing, if I were MS, I'd let them finish Infinite and then dissolve the, give Halo back to Bungie and pay them whatever it takes to get them to Develop it alongside Destiny, at least they're competent enough to get a game finished and looking great
 

xiseerht

Member
Ok , that is great news . However , I think this game will now come out Spring of 2022 . They will probable drop a MP Beta Next Nov or Dec 2021 to tie us over.
 
Last edited:

hyperbertha

Member
Joseph Staten who fully filled the cinematics role in the first three halo games at Bungie will now lead the project for 2021 Release. Joseph Staten coming back could be really helpful, as the halo blog describes he has worked at Bungie for nearly all Halo and Destiny games.

Perre Hintze, will lead Halo Infinite team for Free to play experience. According to the blog, “Perre Hintze and his team have demonstrated an amazing ability to deliver new content, an excellent flighting program, and substantive updates across MCC over the past year.

 
Last edited:
Like trying to change the course of a cruise liner at this point.
We’ve seen worse games make complete 180’s before, nothing to say that within a 6-12 month gap they can get a goo head start on correcting course on said ship.

saying that, it’s Xbox’s main franchise so it will undoubtedly be harsher judged than say... no mans sky or something.

Regardless though, Halo is done for me. Feels like it’s been in limp mode since Halo Reach and yet again they fucked it up royally so even if it gets fixed, I’d rather remember it for what it was rather than the monstrosity they’ve turned it into.

Sigh, you had one job Xbox, just one.
 

jigglet

Banned
We’ve seen worse games make complete 180’s before, nothing to say that within a 6-12 month gap they can get a goo head start on correcting course on said ship.

saying that, it’s Xbox’s main franchise so it will undoubtedly be harsher judged than say... no mans sky or something.

Regardless though, Halo is done for me. Feels like it’s been in limp mode since Halo Reach and yet again they fucked it up royally so even if it gets fixed, I’d rather remember it for what it was rather than the monstrosity they’ve turned it into.

Sigh, you had one job Xbox, just one.

Since I'm only looking forward to multi, I think this game would have been great even if it shipped this year. I guess my comment was more about the campaign people. I've never played a campaign and probably never will but you're right 12 months might be enough to turn this cruise liner a tad, maybe 30 degrees.
 

llien

Member
Guys leave ... alone. She is pretty cute.

That approach worked well for ME: Andromeda.
 

kuncol02

Banned
If they are bringing Joseph Staten back this late in Halo Infinite’s life, I’m thinking things definitely weren’t on track and maybe worst than many people insinuated.
They lost leads few months back, so bringing someone with knowledge of franchise and experience on lead positions is quite obvious move.
 

Tschumi

Member
Considering what recent employees said about a broken development structure and messed up coding, it would seemingly take more than a couple of guys from cinematics and free to play parachuting in.. seems like it would need a transplant of a decision making structure and a major audit of, everything they've done/trashed so far.
 

Calverz

Member
Thank god Jo is back. He knows what it means to make a halo game. I always liked his showing of the ODST campaign. Guy knows how halo should play. My guess is they threw a shit ton of money at him to fix it or he felt the calling of master chief...
 
Last edited:
Thank god Jo is back. He knows what it means to make a halo game. I always liked his showing of the ODST campaign. Guy knows how halo should play. My guess is they threw a shit ton of money at home to fix it or he felt the calling of master chief
Remember when he did the Destiny E3 reveal only to be fired by Bungie and 90% of his work be scrapped... ah good times. I trust Jo , he'll try and fix Halo.
 

Njocky

Banned
Hum.. Bonnie Ross should take responsibility and resign. Those people who are coming in to save the company's biggest franchise that she was overseeing over the last 5 years are not gonna have much respect for her. She also won't be able to take much credit for the outcome if it's a success.
How Phil wasn't aware that Halo was in a worrying state and felt confident to boast about what would see is still surprising. Either he had too much faith in Bonnie and never checked for himself or he doesn't have a good sense of what gamers look for in a next gen game.
 

Hudo

Member
Hum.. Bonnie Ross should take responsibility and resign. Those people who are coming in to save the company's biggest franchise that she was overseeing over the last 5 years are not gonna have much respect for her. She also won't be able to take much credit for the outcome if it's a success.
How Phil wasn't aware that Halo was in a worrying state and felt confident to boast about what would see is still surprising. Either he had too much faith in Bonnie and never checked for himself or he doesn't have a good sense of what gamers look for in a next gen game.
Agreed. I also think that this might be a result of Phil giving some studios too much freedom, I guess? In any case, this should be a wakeup call.
You know, for all the hate that Microsoft got and still gets, I think that Microsoft giving Bungie a hard schedule was not the worst thing in the world. It worked out well for Halo 1 to Halo Reach.
 
Last edited:

kuncol02

Banned
Joe did immense work on the halo's but he was more a story guy. Other than shitty looking this makes me think the story, plot etc are also shit and need to be re-written which is going to take a lot of time
He is supposed to replace Tim Longo and Mary Olsen who left last year. They will not rewrite it, even if they would decide that then they have enough time. HL:Alyx was rewriten basically from scratch one year before release and ended as best game of this year. They had Pinkerton and Wolpaw on team so Valve had bigger chance to success, but still it's possible.


Joe is good news for long time Halo fans.

Joe's current role at MS seems to be more of Project Manager/Fixer/Get the game to ship w/ Crackdown 3 being the last major AAA release he worked on. He got brought onto that game late in development as well.
Stop spreading FUD. Last major AAA release he worked on is MS Flight Simulator.
 
Seems like putting a bandaid on an internal hemorrhage though...

I mean aren't most of the apparent problems with this game technical & artistic?

I don't see how you can solve that by bringing in new creative leadership.

Same technical and art leads still in play I'm assuming...
 
Live footage from 343:

giphy.gif
 
Top Bottom